To encourage people to vote in the 2024 election by mail if they want to, about 30 U.S. Postal Service workers picketed in front of the post office on Green Street in downtown Fayetteville on Tuesday morning, said Tony D. McKinnon Sr., the North Carolina president of the American Postal Workers Union.
The gathering, which postal workers described as an “informational picket,” was also to call attention to changes in Postal Service operations that are slowing delivery of the mail, said Mary Bumbrey, the union’s president for the Fayetteville area.
Postal workers picketed nationwide on Tuesday to call attention to staffing shortages and other issues affecting customer service and delivery.
Voting by mail in North Carolina got underway in September. (In the North Carolina mountains, mail-in voting and voting in general is expected to be affected by the massive flooding and destruction caused last week by Hurricane Helene.)
In the 2020 election, more than 995,000 people voted by mail, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections.
This year, the Republican Party is encouraging voters to vote early via mail-in ballot or via in-person early voting with their “Bank Your Vote” program. The Democrats have a similar effort underway with their “I Will Vote” program.
Voters need to know that voting by mail is safe, McKinnon said.
“There’s some concerns out there being spread around that the Postal Service is going to probably do something with ballots, they’re not going to get there in a timely manner,” he said.
When Postal Service workers see that they have a mail-in ballot, McKinnon said, they follow protocols to make sure that it arrives at the voter’s home. Then when voters send back completed ballots, he said, workers expedite delivery to get the ballots back to their local Board of Elections office.
“We want everybody to vote that has the vote, but we don’t want them to worry about where their ballots gonna be, because we’re sure that we’re gonna get it out,” he said. “And we have committed, along with the Postal Service — this is a joint effort — to make sure that all the ballots are getting through.”
Under North Carolina law, most absentee ballots must arrive at local boards of elections by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, or they won’t be counted. (Ballots sent by military families from around the country, and by military families and other U.S citizens who are overseas, have a later deadline.)
While ballots are being prioritized for delivery, other mail is moving with less dispatch, Bumbrey said. The Postal Service workers wanted to call attention to that, she said.
The Postal Service in August announced a proposal that, starting in 2025, could slow the speed of delivery in some communities while increasing the speed in others, CBS News reported. The plan is designed to cut $3 billion in expenses. Postmaster Louis DeJoy is trying to curb billions of dollars in losses and make the Postal Service profitable.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com. This story was made possible by donations from readers like you to the CityView News Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
