 The U.S. Postal Service has always been under attack by Republicans who want to privatize it and even some neoliberal Democrats who want to privatize it, right? But it's especially troubling now ahead of an election where a record number of Americans are expected to vote by mail. So the question that we're asking ourselves is will the U.S. Postal Service under the leadership of Luisa Joy appointed by Donald Trump be able to function at full capacity to deliver all of the ballots on time? So those votes are counted and that is currently an open question. We don't know now There are pictures online of mailboxes being carried away by trucks So the question is how many of these mailboxes are being taken away? We don't necessarily know what's happening with regard to sorting machines that have been removed and are now being destroyed according to this journalist of mail sorting pieces. They're just large pieces of machinery that have been yanked out. You can see some of the cords are just they go they were just cut. In addition to that, there's also a dumpster right there. And according to an employee that works across the way, they tell me that that dumpster has been filled three times since last week with parts and pieces of what we're being told are the mail sorting machines. And all of this anecdotal evidence doesn't really amount to much unless the post office themselves are saying something is wrong here and they're saying something is wrong. So their warning states, they actually sent out a letter to states saying we might not be able to get the ballots to people on time. So as NBC News reports, numerous states have received letters from the U.S. Postal Service in recent days, warning them that the agency that oversees mail in the United States will not be able to fulfill requests for mail and ballots. The USPS said that there is not enough time for ballots to be requested, completed and returned before the November 3rd presidential election. A starling development as many states have expanded mail in voting because of the pandemic. NBC News reached out to all 50 states to see whether they had received the USPS letter, warning of issues relating to mail in ballots. 18, including Arizona, Florida and Michigan, shared the letters they received. Vermont, Wisconsin and Kentucky said they did not receive a warning from USPS. The letters sent by the Postal Service's General Counsel, Thomas Marshall, say that state selection deadlines for requesting and casting mail in ballots are incongruous with the Postal Service's delivery standards. This mismatch creates a risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in times to be counted under your laws as we understand them. The implication is serious as the ballots of tens of millions of American voters eligible to vote by mail could be discarded because of delays in mail delivery. It also comes as the agency founded by the US Constitution undergoes sweeping changes organizationally at the behest of the Trump organization and faces a grim financial outlook. In a 10 page letter sent to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday, top Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer asked for more information on the planned changes at hundreds of postal facilities across the country that risk jeopardizing the integrity of the election. Rather than strongly advocating for the Postal Service's request for emergency funding, it appears that you are now using funding shortfalls to justify sweeping operational changes that experts warn could degrade delivery standards and potentially impair the rights of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming November elections. The Democrats wrote the USPS had also intended on removing a number of blue collection boxes around the country. But a spokesman said Friday that it would wait until after election day and reevaluate its needs. We are not going to be removing any boxes, said USPS spokesman Rod Spurgeon. After the election, we're going to take a look at operations and see what we need and don't need. So they were removing mailboxes. Those photos that we saw were taken recently, even though some of the photographs that people are taking and sharing online, they're not necessarily new photos. But they are, in fact, removing some mailboxes and now that they've kind of been busted, they're saying, OK, we're going to step back and not actually do that. But here's the thing, people are downplaying this scandal, which it is a national scandal, because the Post Office has always been under attack. So they're using that as cover to suggest, you know, this isn't anything that's abnormal. But the Post Office, the Postal Workers Union is sounding the alarm and saying, we're telling you we're not going to be able to meet the deadlines. Like the mail in ballots are not going to be delivered on time. So there is something to be seen here, where there's smoke, there's fire and there's an issue here. And thankfully, Democrats have ended their recess and they requested that Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, testify before Congress. Now, he is actually getting a pretty substantial amount of pushback. So activists over the weekend actually protested in front of his house. Now, this type of tactic is exactly what puts pressure on politicians. It's what arguably got the FCC in 2014 to reverse their then ordered to kill net neutrality. And on top of that, we're looking at lawsuits. States are speaking out and they're telling Louis DeJoy, this is unacceptable. And as a result, it seems as if he started to back off a little bit. But there's still a caveat, even if this is a good sign. So as the Olympian reports, as President Donald Trump continued to try to sow doubts about the election with his latest assault on mail in balloting, the Postmaster General announced Tuesday that he would suspend cost-cutting initiatives at the US Postal Service until after November. The announcement by the Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy came amid growing pressure from lawmakers, state attorneys general and civil rights groups who have warned that the changes made could disenfranchise Americans casting ballots by mail to avoid long lines during the pandemic. And it came as several states moved forward Tuesday with plans to sue the Trump administration over the election year changes at the Postal Service. There are some longstanding operational initiatives. Efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic, DeJoy said in a statement, to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail. I'm suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded. His announcement came as the Attorney General of Washington state. Bob Ferguson said he would lead a coalition of states filing a lawsuit in federal court, charging that the changes could undermine the general election in November. Other states, including California, Pennsylvania and New York, also said that they plan to file or join lawsuits. So at face value, this is a good sign, right? He is saying, I'm not going to do this until after the election, whatever we were doing, we don't even want there to be the appearance that we're trying to rig this election in Donald Trump's favor. Except the problem is that he might stop everything now, but just stopping now might not undo the damage. Like, do you understand they already removed sorting machines from post offices around the country? They have already collected mailboxes, so there are fewer drop off locations for ballots across the country. So the question is, is the damage already done? Can it be undone, right? And that right now is an open question because we know that they were limiting overtime. So maybe if they reinstate that, then that will actually make a difference. We just don't know. But what I do see here, which is troubling, is he's trying to hide the facade of, oh, well, we were already doing this. There were already changes before I came to power with the Postal Service. And that may be true to an extent, like sorting machines gradually have been removed because people are mailing less and less. But isn't it really convenient that we're currently seeing a surge of sorting machines be removed as the US Postal Service is going to need them like the most? Wouldn't you, with the position of power that you're in, want to halt that if you see what was put in place before you took office? Knowing that people are going to want to vote by mail in a pandemic. So we should absolutely not trust what he's saying here. It's a good sign that he's saying, I'm not going to do this because I don't want to be sued. But at the end of the day, the damage that he did, it may already be too late, right? We don't necessarily know. They've crippled the Postal Service. They've kneecapped it. So they're going to be unable to operate. People are missing their medication. Like there are delays that we're all experiencing firsthand right now. So for those of you who think, oh, well, there's really nothing to be seen here. This is just a conspiracy theory. It's a sensationalist story drummed up by the mainstream media. No, because guess what? Voter suppression is not a new thing in the United States of America. Voter suppression has been happening forever. And Republicans are going to do whatever they can to win because they're ruthless. They don't care if they violate democracy. They don't care if they break the law. They don't care as long as they are able to maintain their power. That's what they are concerned with, right? Make sure that the pressure on Louis DeJoy is constant because the minute you let off the gas and stop protesting, well, then he's going to get back to what he was doing. Make sure that you listen to postal workers when they speak out and say, hey, we're behind. We've never been this behind before in all of the decades that I've worked here because if there's a way that Republicans can fix the election in their favor, they're going to try to pursue that. They're going to try to pursue that.