Postal Service Axes Plan To Reroute Nevada Absentee Ballots, Other Mail To California For Processing

[mystery-ak]

USPS Axes Plan To Reroute Nevada Mail-In Ballots To California
Shawn Fleetwood

On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) scrapped a plan to reroute mail from Northern Nevada to a California-based processing center. Lawmakers and grassroots activists previously expressed concern the policy could jeopardize on-time arrival of mail-in ballots.

According to the Associated Press, “USPS said in a statement it has identified ‘enhanced efficiencies’ that will allow processing of single-piece mail to continue at the existing Reno postal facility.” The policy — which was originally set to take effect next year — would have “meant that all mail sent from the Reno area would pass through Sacramento before reaching its final destination — even from one side of the city to the other.”

As Ned Jones previously wrote in these pages, the USPS has been undergoing a restructuring since 2021 that seeks to “achieve financial sustainability and service excellence.” One of the biggest changes accompanying this overhaul is the consolidation of regional processing centers, “which means that in some cases, [mail-in ballots] from one state are sent to a center in a different, neighboring state to be processed.”

more
https://thefederalist.com/2024/08/28/postal-service-axes-plan-to-reroute-nevada-absentee-ballots-other-mail-to-california-for-processing/

[Smokin Joe]

Currently, an envelope mailed in Williston, ND travels to Bismarck to be sorted and returned to it's destination in Williston. A payment on a water bill was mailed there, and traveled over 500 miles to go half a block away (and took 5 business days to get there). The person who mailed it, now uses the drop box on the Water Department wall, and cuts the USPS out of the equation entirely.

There is talk of moving that sorting facility to Fargo, which would add about 300 more miles to that round trip.

When I first arrived in this area in '79, they had two slots on the wall at the P.O., one for outgoing 'in town mail' and one for 'out of town mail'. Seems returning to that might be a thought.