‘Save our post office.’ Protesters in Bradenton say postal service is under attack

About 25 protesters gathered on the corner of Ninth Street West and Manatee Avenue West in front of the downtown post office Saturday morning.

Their message: The U.S. Postal Service is under attack and deserves taxpayer dollars to keep operating.

Protesters pointed the finger squarely at Postmaster Louis Dejoy and President Donald Trump. Similar protests took throughout the country on Saturday.

“This is a nationwide action because we are concerned about the mail service, the U.S. Postal Service, which is under attack now by Postmaster Louis Dejoy,” said Liv Coleman who organized Saturday’s rally to “Save the Post Office.”

Coleman, a former Democratic candidate for the Florida House and chair of the political science and international affairs department at the University of Tampa, said Saturday the U.S. Postal Service is an essential government service, “and we should fully fund it.”

U.S. House members were called back to Washington to do just that and on Saturday passed a bill that would infuse $25 billion into a postal system that has lost $78 billion in the past decade and $9 billion last year alone.

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, voted for the measure.

“Millions of Americans, especially seniors, depend on a healthy and functioning Postal Service,” Buchanan wrote in a tweet. “I voted for the bill today to make sure the Postal Service has the resources to deliver the mail.

“It’s also important that people do not lose confidence in one of our most basic and non-political institutions.”

The bill is not expected to be passed up by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate and Trump has already said he would veto it if it somehow made it to his desk.

Dejoy, who took the helm of the USPS earlier this year, testified recently on Capitol Hill that his agency has enough funding through most of 2021.

Mail-in voting versus ability to count ballots

Dejoy on Aug. 14 said the USPS could not guarantee every ballot could be delivered in 46 of the 50 states, which led to him being called to testify on Aug. 20 in Washington. Dejoy then pledged no changes until after the election and gave every assurance the USPS could handle the job.

“That’s wonderful if it’s true,” said Coleman. “But some of the changes have already been done and we need to restore the machines that have already been broken apart. People depend on the mail for critical delivery of prescription drugs, essential services and also delivering our vote for democracy in November.”

Trump has criticized the notion of universal mail-in ballot voting, citing concerns about potential voter fraud, the USPS’s capability of handling the job and the fact that about half the states don’t have the internal voting infrastructure to have every vote verified and counted by the end of Election Day in November.

Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett said there are no issues in Florida with mail-in voting, but if he was a supervisor of elections in a state without the mail-in voting infrastructure, he would feel it was his duty to oppose such a system with no way to verify every ballot.

It’s not a matter of whether the USPS can get all the ballots in, Bennett said, it’s a matter of having the system to verify each ballot that does get mailed. Florida has it, other states don’t, he noted.

Save the Post Office

Regardless of the mail-in voting debate, protesters in Bradenton don’t want Dejoy making decisions that will be counter productive and want taxpayer dollars infused to keep it operating despite the 1970 Congressional mandate.

“We want to make sure we have full funding of the post office,” Coleman said. “We want Postmaster Dejoy to restore the machines. We also want Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Rick Scott to pass the Heroes Act for more funding for the post office and election security.”

The protesters were receiving support from motorists passing by as they honked in agreement that the USPS must be saved one way or the other.

“Our postal service cannot be messed with,” said Marcia Peterson who showed up in support of the rally. “People need their medications through the mail. Livestock through the mail. We’re getting reports of dead animals in postal service facilities because of the delay in shipping. It’s quite clear that it’s being fooled with.”

Peterson said if it’s a federal crime for citizens to mess with the mail, Dejoy should know that it’s also a crime for him.

“It was never meant to be a money maker,” Peterson said. “It was just meant to serve the people of the country. This is absurd and quite clear it’s an obstruction of our rights to have our mail not messed with, which to my knowledge is a crime to begin with.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2020 at 2:21 PM.