The claims and counter claims around the U.S. Postal Service might make one think that we have a renewed interest in saving the Post office, ignoring the future of communications and document delivery, ignoring the ever decreasing volume of US Mail and the fact that mostly junk mail is sent through the US Mail service today. Who writes letters anymore anyway? But, of course, that is not it at all. The Postal Service is an unwitting pawn in a political battle over the November Election. On one side, Democrats are strongly behind mail-in voting for November, to the point they want it to be 100% mail-in. The justification is COVID risks to voters. The positions the Democrats (& the media) take are these:

• mail in voting is safe, no known fraud
• 5 states currently do this type of mail-in voting without issue
• to deny it would be suppressing voter turnout
• Trump is removing post office boxes to reduce volume of mail-n ballots
• government unions are supporting the effort - USPS union endorsed Joe Biden
• House has passed law to fund special USPS processing for mail-in ballots

Republicans, on the other hand, are very concerned about widespread mail-in ballots. The positions they take are these:

• absentee balloting is safe and a proven process.
• rampant mailing to addresses on voting lists will include inaccurate addresses, dead people, people who have moved, etc and is therefore ripe for fraud
• 5 states that do mail-in voting will tell you it took 5 years to get it to work properly & securely
• Trump is blocking additional funding for the Post Office
• cutting funding for the post office is not new and goes back through several Presidential administrations

Other election related questions of import also become involved.

• how do we handle post office delays?
• when do you stop counting votes?
• why not vote early and count all votes up to election day?
• in primaries this year, winners are still unknown due to counting and verification issues
• what if this happens in the November Presidential election?

The Heritage Foundation has published a list of 10 Myths About The US Postal Service. They will enlighten, but not cure the mail-in voting debate which is at the core of the postal service debate. More From Heritage Foundation: