Loveland, Ohio – To supplement the story below (4 Ohio Republicans join House Dems to pass bill to boost post office funding by $25B) from the Ohio Capital Journal, Loveland Magazine visited two of the closest local U.S. Post Offices to document the number of mailboxes placed outside the buildings. We also documented the days and hours of operation of each.

While unlikely that the Trump Administration would attempt to interfere with the delivery of election-related mail in our heavily Republican voting area, nearly all Loveland mail does go to or from the Dalton Street processing center in Cincinnati. Interfering with mail delivery in the heavily Democratic voting urban areas of Cincinnati’s urban core is not beyond reasonable suspicion. And, the President may use mail problems in any part of the country to delegitimize and dispute the November election results.

One day ago the President tweeted, “The greatest Election Fraud in our history is about to happen. This may top the Democrats illegally spying on my campaign!”

On August 20 the President tweeted this, “They are sending out 51,000,000 Ballots to people who haven’t even requested a Ballot. Many of those people don’t even exist. They are trying to STEAL this election. This should not be allowed!”

Trump said last week on Fox News that he opposes some funding because he doesn’t want it used for mail-in votes, repeating his claim that it would lead to “fraudulent” election results.

WCPO has reported that processing machines from Cincinnati’s Dalton Street post office have been removed and remain offline and unusable.

The Cincinnati Enquirer recently reported that according to Jim Sizemore, president of the American Postal Workers Union in Cincinnati that in May and June, the USPS “pulled the plug on eight mail processing machines in Cincinnati, accounting for 19% of the processing center’s capacity.” The eight machines could process collectively 243,000 pieces of mail an hour according to the Enquirer. Mail is piling up on the floor at the Queensgate facility according to Sizemore.

WCPO’s John Matarese says the VA is now notifying veterans that they should order their medicine earlier than usual because at this time it cannot guarantee on-time delivery. And, by law, it cannot ship medication via private services.

Sen. Rob Portman said on August 21 on his FaceBook page, “A number of veterans have reached out to my office recently expressing concern about delays in the USPS delivery of their critical prescription medications. This is not acceptable. This morning I pressed Postmaster General DeJoy for answers.” And on August 19 Portman said, “We must protect Ohioans right to vote during to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why I sent a letter to the Postmaster General with Congressman Bob Latta calling on the USPS to ensure the timely & accurate delivery of election-related materials in Ohio.”

Rep. Brad Wenstrup told constituents in an email on Monday that the postal service has enough money on hand, “$14 billion cash” and that he voted to “open a $10 billion line of credit through the CARES Act” to help with any COVID-19 issues. Wenstrup said the USPS has enough money on hand to remain “fully function” until August of next year and that Speaker Pelosi has “manufactured a crisis and rushed the House back to vote on an irresponsible and unneeded amount of money on a problem that does not currently exist.”

Paige Pfleger reported in a Cincinnati Public Radio story on August 20 that, “Since the pandemic, even more Ohioans have opted to receive their medications by mail, to avoid possible exposure or to save money.”

Antonio Ciaccia of the Ohio Pharmacists Association is quoted in the story, “We have heard some extreme anecdotes over the last couple weeks where patients are waiting one, two, three weeks for their medications,” and adds that he’s never heard so many complaints about delivery delays.

On August 18, Senator Sherrod Brown is quoted in a Cleveland.com article about mail sorting equipment being dismantled in Cleveland. Brown said, “As the U.S. Postal Service has warned Ohio and other states that it may not be able to meet mail-voting deadlines this November, the visibly idle equipment along with mail delays and post office budget shortfalls have fueled fears that the upcoming election will be undermined.”

Reporter Sabrina Eaton writes in the Cleveland.com article:

President Donald Trump’s assaults on mail-in balloting, even as he has requested an absentee ballot to vote from his new residence in Florida, have raised questions over whether he’s deliberately trying to sabotage an election that will likely have more mail-in ballots than ever because of reluctance to vote in person during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a news conference over the weekend, Trump said universal mail-in voting would be “catastrophic. It’s going to make our country a laughingstock all over the world.”

“The ballots are lost, there’s fraud, there’s theft, it’s happening all over the place,” said Trump. “Now we’re going to do it with this whole, vast, big section of the country? It’s crazy.

Check out these two voter guides recently published by Loveland Magazine with information about requesting absentee ballots. Keep in mind that Ohio officials are recommending you stay ahead of these absolute dates to ensure your mail coming to and from the post office is delivered in time for your vote to count.

Sidebar: What You Need to Know to Vote This Year

Loveland Area November Voting Guide: What you need to know to…

Loveland Magazine is interested in hearing from readers if they have experienced any delays in receiving mail (timely delivery of medicine, paychecks and other essentials) or about concerns they may have about receiving absent ballot requests or sending their ballot back to the local Boards of Elections. Please send us your thoughts to editor@lovelandmagazine.com.

These photos were taken on the evening of August 16 at the Loveland and Symmes post offices. We do not know if any additional boxes were recently removed but is does not appear so. Although the quantity of mailboxes and hours of operation at these locations would not necessarily reflect current delays in mail delivery, we did want to document current conditions in advance of the November 3rd Presidential Election.

4 Ohio Republicans join House Dems to pass bill to boost post office funding by $25B

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House convened a rare weekend session Saturday in an attempt to stop the U.S. Postal Service from allegedly disrupting mail service to sabotage the November elections.

The Democratic-led chamber passed a bill  257-150 that would infuse $25 billion into the agency as it prepares for a surge in mail-in ballots and bar it from changing operations or service levels in place at the beginning of the year.

The prohibition would remain in effect through January 2021 or for the duration of the coronavirus crisis — whichever is later.

The bill passed largely along party lines, though more than two dozen Republicans joined Democrats in backing the legislation, including four Ohio Republicans: Reps. Troy Balderson (12th District), David Joyce (14th District), Steve Stivers (15th District) and Mike Turner (10th District). Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-7th District) did not vote. No Democrats voted against the bill.

One Republican in favor was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who said the post office needed to be funded so his constituents could get their mail delivered on time. “Republicans and Democrats must come together and address the serious challenges that USPS has been facing for some time now,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is not expected to take up the measure. He told his hometown paper Tuesday that he doesn’t think a stand-alone bill funding the postal service would pass the chamber.

The White House threatened  Friday to veto the post office boost, calling it “an overreaction to sensationalized media reports that have made evidence-free accusations that USPS has undertaken reforms to achieve political rather than operational objectives.”

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) maintains that the administration is trying to suppress votes as the nation heads into a fraught election season in which the postal service will serve as “election central.”

In addition to undermining the integrity of the elections, the delays are depriving Americans of timely delivery of medicine, paychecks and other essentials, Pelosi said at a press conference Saturday.

Democratic lawmakers made similar allegations on the House floor.

The administration has mounted a “sabotage campaign” to manipulate the vote, Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said Saturday morning.

Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan and a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said the bill would prohibit the postmaster general from making any changes that would undermine the post office. She said the postmaster general has “tried to rip it apart from the inside” and “our democracy is hinging” on delivery of the mail.

“Don’t mess with the USPS,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

Republicans charged Democrats with ginning up a manufactured crisis intended to deny the president a second term. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said postal problems predate 2020 and the Trump administration.

GOP Rep. Rob Woodall of Georgia called Saturday’s vote a “punctuation mark” at the close of last week’s Democratic National Convention. This “wasteful partisan exercise” will “go nowhere” in the GOP-controlled Senate and “help no one,” he added.

Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican from Arizona, echoed the sentiment, calling the controversy “phony political theater.” Pelosi has gone “politically postal,” she said, quoting a recent Wall Street Journal editorial.

The House approved $25 billion for the postal service in a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package approved in May. Pelosi pointed out Saturday that the USPS board of governors — a bipartisan group of members appointed by Trump — backs the funding.

Trump said last week on Fox News that he opposes some funding because he doesn’t want it used for mail-in votes, repeating his claim that it would lead to “fraudulent” election results.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a top Trump donor and former logistics executive from North Carolina, has ushered in sweeping changes to the agency since taking the job in June. He acknowledged Friday at an oversight hearing in the U.S. Senatethat his overhaul has coincided with a drop in on-time deliveries but called allegations that they were intended to suppress votes “outrageous.”

He said changes to overtime, retail hours and the location of mail processing machines and blue mailboxes were made to save costs and streamline operations but said earlier this week he would suspend some of his moves until after the elections to avoid the appearance of impropriety. He also said he wouldn’t close existing mail processing facilities and would use “standby” resources in October to meet mail surges.

On Friday, he insisted that secure elections are his “sacred duty” and top priority this fall.

But Pelosi on Saturday called DeJoy’s promise into question, pointing to his decision not to replace mail infrastructure that has already been removed. She also pointed to Trump’s comment earlier this week calling for law enforcement officers at polling places.

“It is all designed to suppress the vote,” Pelosi said.

DeJoy is slated to testify again on Monday in a hearing before the Democratic-led House Oversight and Reform Committee, where he is expected to face more withering questioning. Robert Duncan, chair of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, will also appear before the committee.

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Allison Stevens is a Washington D.C. reporter for States Newsroom, a network of state-based nonprofit news outlets that includes the Ohio Capital Journal.