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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > The Post Office - Mail-in-voting, electric vehicles, and booting DeJoy

The Post Office - Mail-in-voting, electric vehicles, and booting DeJoy
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Laminar
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Jul 7, 2022, 03:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Let’s do Iowa, since you’ll have the inside scoop.
The only info I have is the info everyone has.

The claim which jumps out at me is “block any ballots received after Election Day — even if they were mailed in time — from being counted”.

Is what this says actually happening? As in, the election board says a ballot must be received by [date], but it will not be counted unless it’s received by [earlier date].
From the document they linked:
b. The program participant shall complete the ballot and
4 return it to the state commissioner of elections, who shall
5 review the ballot in the manner provided by sections 53.18
6 and 53.19 if the return envelope is received in the state
7 commissioner’s office before the polls close on election day
8 or is clearly postmarked by an officially authorized postal
9 service or bears a postal service barcode traceable to a date
10 of entry into the federal mail system not later than the day
11 before the election, as provided in section 53.17A.
The ballot has to be hand-delivered to the dropbox no later than poll closing time, or it must have been postmarked, at the latest, the day before the election.

Did all of the other new restrictions not stick out to you? Closing polls earlier, no requirement for absentee drop boxes at all, limiting the number of available drop boxes to 1 per county, etc.? Every single one of these steps makes voting demonstrably harder and lowers total turnout.
     
MacNNFamous
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Jul 7, 2022, 06:30 PM
 
^ same thing happened in progressive areas in 2020, voting places closed up and all the older Hillary voters mailed their shit in weeks earlier. RIGGED. Hillary is ultimately responsible for all of this, Bernie would have absolutely crushed Trump in debates and he never would have wound up president in the first place. From the purchasing of the debts of the DNC to the leaked emails by Aassange that showed how corrupt they were, Debbie being forced to step down from the DNC, and Donna leaking debate questions to HRC and not Bernie, just... every single opportunity, not to mention the media blackout, absense in MSM polling options, etc.

This country is fucked.
     
subego
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Jul 7, 2022, 08:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Did all of the other new restrictions not stick out to you?
Yes. They stuck out to me as valid points of discussion, unlike the one I singled out.

The only use I can see for drop boxes is the period of time where the reliability of the USPS is a question. The Iowa deadline is postmarked the day before Election Day. That’s three days of utility in my estimation. Less really, because the overwhelming majority of ballots which make the pickup the day before Election Day will be postmarked that day.

As for polling times, enerally speaking, the shortest polling times in the US are 12 hours. Is this too short? Honest question.
     
Laminar  (op)
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Jul 7, 2022, 09:24 PM
 
I don't know what "too short" means. But I know what happens when you make them shorter, and that is fewer traditionally democratic voters voting.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...tly-for-whites

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-wo...s/waiting-vote

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7438211/

Note that the Iowa law also shortened the amount of time an employer has to let their employee vote from 3 hours down to 2. They're increasing wait times and decreasing time allowed to vote. This specifically hurts hourly employees in food service, retail, and more that can't just pop out during work hours and vote.
     
OreoCookie
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Jul 7, 2022, 09:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
I don't know what "too short" means. But I know what happens when you make them shorter, and that is fewer traditionally democratic voters voting.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...tly-for-whites

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-wo...s/waiting-vote

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7438211/

Note that the Iowa law also shortened the amount of time an employer has to let their employee vote from 3 hours down to 2. They're increasing wait times and decreasing time allowed to vote. This specifically hurts hourly employees in food service, retail, and more that can't just pop out during work hours and vote.
Yeah, and you don't think this is objectionable? The party in power tries to impose restrictions on voting for no reason other than that they decrease voter turnout of their political competition?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 8, 2022, 04:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Hillary is ultimately responsible for all of this
I kinda love the irony that you’re constantly furthering the Republican agenda by harping on about this bullshit.

Hillary isn’t responsible for the past fifty years of Republicans‘ voter disenfranchisement tactics, and the fact that you were conned into believing that she was evil incarnate is what got the world four years of Trump.

Let it go.

The current focus should be on preventing the literal end of the United States of America.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 04:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
I don't know what "too short" means. But I know what happens when you make them shorter, and that is fewer traditionally democratic voters voting.
All these studies are pre-pandemic. The net positive change in the ease of voting since that time has been truly enormous.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 04:28 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Yeah, and you don't think this is objectionable?
Assuming this was directed at me, any objections I have pair with a matter of degree.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 04:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
^ same thing happened in progressive areas in 2020, voting places closed up and all the older Hillary voters mailed their shit in weeks earlier. RIGGED. Hillary is ultimately responsible for all of this,
Primary elections are run by and for the party apparatus. Not sure what you were expecting.

Totally love Debbie’s hair.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jul 8, 2022, 06:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post

The current focus should be on preventing the literal end of the United States of America.
What if the US split in two (mostly) along party lines? The blue half would be something dull like the New United States of America, the red half would be The United Trumps of Trumpmurica or something ludicrous like that. I'm guessing the liberals would flee Texas and then the NUSA would build a wall around Trumpmurica (Or trick them into building their own and going along with Trump's lie that they paid for it) and watch it crumble into dog shit.
Could be fun.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 8, 2022, 06:12 AM
 
The „split“ isn’t 100% in the red areas and 100% in the blue areas.

It’s just the totally idiotic „winner takes all“ American view of politics that makes it look that way.

Almost every single county is a well-mixed shade of purple.

Unless you’re talking about abortion rights, then the entire country is deep blue, with only the fascist puppeteers a bright red.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 06:22 AM
 
The split is urban/rural.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 8, 2022, 06:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The split is urban/rural.
It's not a split. It's a gradient.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 07:17 AM
 
I see it as a split, with a gradient between them. Though Chicago is unusually blue, which may skew my perspective. IIRC, the last time we had a Republican mayor was in the 30s.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 07:27 AM
 
Jumping back to Iowa quickly, the one which actually bothers me to a decent extent is the voter roll purging.
     
OreoCookie
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Jul 8, 2022, 07:27 AM
 
It’s not a split along which you can cut. Colloquially, many would call areas where 70 % vote for one party and 30 % for the other solidly red or blue. 30 % is still a lot of people. And when you make your cut, you will separate parents from their children, siblings, co-workers, etc. It is a fantasy that is a simplistic solution to a difficult problem.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 07:36 AM
 
I can’t cut it along state lines either, but one of these cuts self-evidently bears a closer resemblance to reality.
     
reader50
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Jul 8, 2022, 02:10 PM
 
{topic reference: ease of voting}
Originally Posted by subego View Post
All these studies are pre-pandemic. The net positive change in the ease of voting since that time has been truly enormous.
I agree with regards to the 2020 election. Huge turnout. And the policies supporting that have continued in a majority of states.

But after 2020, red states have instituted a large number of rollbacks. I believe the others are referring to these post-2020 changes.

• Limited access to mail-in voting, usually requiring a reason again.
• Limited number of drop-off boxes, such as one-per-county. Regardless of county size.
• No drive-through voting (Texas), as Dems were more likely to wear masks and try to limit contact.
• Tough ID requirements (not just signature matching), as minorities are less likely to have a drivers' license. Also impacts native Americans. As people on reservations usually lack postal addresses, requiring one eliminates voters who might vote for Dems.
• Limited polling access. No voting on Sundays (Georgia), after Black citizens were given lifts to the polls after church. Illegal to supply food or drinks to people waiting in line at the polls. People with their own cars can come to the polls at their own times, but people who take a bus show up all at once and will end up waiting in line. If they get thirsty enough, maybe they'll walk away in search of water. Losing their place, and some give up.
• Forbid a 3rd party from taking absentee ballots in, except for immediate family member. This makes voting harder and/or expensive for people who do not own a car, or are disabled.
• Restrictions on registration, such as barring same-day registration. Purging the polls of anyone who didn't answer a recent mail, or didn't vote in every single election.
• Limiting ability to fix typos during registration. Election workers forbidden to assist with filling out registration forms, because this reduces errors. Cannot call voters in to fix a typo - must fail the registration, then make them fill out a new one. If they don't receive the fail-notification until after the window closes for the current election, all the better.
• Huge penalties, including jail time, for attempting to vote if everything isn't perfect with your registration (Texas - not new, policy in place for years). Make voting risky, so some minorities will not take the risk. Make an example to make sure minorities take the risk seriously.

We haven't seen them hit yet, outside of a few special elections. The big hit will be this year. Primary elections (in progress), followed by the mid-terms in November.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 03:25 PM
 
I can’t draw a valid conclusion from a contextless list of unrelated examples. We need to flowchart it or something.

Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
• Limited access to mail-in voting, usually requiring a reason again.
I suggest this be our entry. Which states require a reason to use mail-in voting? I did not see this mentioned in any of the 7 states from Laminar’s link.

As a preview of where I’m going with this, how we should weigh issues with a state’s in-person voting system will be dependent upon how restrictive their mail-in system is. As I mentioned previously, I consider voter roll purges to be an important consideration when assessing a state’s electoral system, mail-in or otherwise, but I do not consider drop boxes to be so. There are already over 140,000 of the blue Federal drop boxes.
     
reader50
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Jul 8, 2022, 04:02 PM
 
I gave the list from memory, from news articles I've read. I did supply some context and a couple links where I ran across them.

For a more thorough listing, including tons of source links, Wikipedia has the subject covered. It lacks a flowchart, particularly organized by type of restriction. It's organized more by what each State has done (or attempted to do). I'd personally like to see each type of restriction listed, with expert discussion on how well they work (or don't) to suppress votes. With the states listed that implement this restriction, and states that have attempted to do so recently.
     
subego
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Jul 8, 2022, 05:39 PM
 
Google to the rescue!

There are 36 states which don’t require a reason. I say we let these temporarily exit the flowchart until we get to voter roll purges.

Here are the remaining 16:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/electi...-absentee.aspx

I imagine we only care about the “bad, no-no” states, so five more temporarily exit the flowchart.

Conveniently, this works out to about a quarter of the states, and this particular quarter holds about a quarter of the total population.

While rough, this at least provides a concrete sense of scale the discussion has been missing. I’m not going to dismiss a quarter of the country getting their vote suppressed, but to assess the health of the country, we can’t ignore the three-quarters where that’s happening to a much lesser extent.

This is incomplete, but I’ve got stuff to do, so I figured I’d dump what I had.
     
reader50
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Jul 8, 2022, 06:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I imagine we only care about the “bad, no-no” states, so five more temporarily exit the flowchart.
What are non-"bad, no-no" states? Ones that accept most excuses? If so, I don't see a clear 5 from that page. If you mean blue states, please don't exclude them. Voter suppression is evil, regardless of what state you're in. New York state (for example) doesn't get a pass for their gerrymandering attempt.
     
subego
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Jul 9, 2022, 12:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
{topic reference: ease of voting}
I want to make sure the topic hasn’t changed. Was gerrymandering mentioned as an analogy? I don’t see the direct relationship between gerrymandering and ease of voting that I see between, say, absentee ballot requirements and ease of voting.
     
reader50
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Jul 9, 2022, 12:34 PM
 
I threw in a quick topic note for anyone just joining us. Didn't put a lot of thought into the note. It was easier than hunting up who-knows how many previous quotes.
     
subego
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Jul 9, 2022, 01:02 PM
 
Well, the analysis I’ve been doing is ease of voting, not voter suppression. Based both on the topic note, and my challenge to Laminar’s pre-pandemic studies of in-person voting restrictions.

Purely in terms of ease of voting, there really isn’t a comparison between blue states and red states, My allowing the 5 blue states which require reasons for absentee ballots to temporarily exit the flowchart is predicated on this observation.

Let’s take a closer look though. New York’s absentee ballot system allows requests for ballots over the Internet, and has an option any voter can take without lying. Specifically, risk of a communicable disease is an acceptable reason. Contrast this with Texas, which requires a hard copy request, and has no reason I could truthfully cite.

IMO, New York has done what is necessary to earn a temporary exit from the ease of voting analysis flowchart.

I also want to add the 5 states in question are all in New England. That this issue clusters around the oldest states in the Union makes me think that has something to do with it, as opposed to these states desiring it to be more difficult to vote.
     
subego
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Jul 9, 2022, 04:14 PM
 
@Laminar,

The executive summary of the last few posts is 34 states provide an absentee ballot with no reason.

There are 5 blue states which require a reason, all (oddly) clustered in New England. New York has an option anyone can take without lying, and blue states in general make it easy to vote.

My conclusion is voting has become much easier, not harder.


Show of hands. Who here has recently voted in-person? My prediction is Glenn.
     
reader50
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Jul 9, 2022, 05:53 PM
 
I voted in-person about a month ago. The poll workers were a bit confused - apparently few people surrender their absentee ballots in exchange for regular ones. CA now sends absentee ballots to every voter. Or every recently-active voter. I'm not sure about that detail.
     
subego
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Jul 9, 2022, 05:57 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
I voted in-person about a month ago.
     
reader50
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Jul 9, 2022, 06:00 PM
 
The freedom to make up my mind on candidates right up to the election. Not having to track my ballot through the mail, to confirm receipt. And being persnickety - I didn't request an absentee. And CA removed the option to turn it off. They sent me an absentee, but I'll make up my own mind which way to vote.
     
subego
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Jul 9, 2022, 06:48 PM
 
Interesting.

As I’ve mentioned though, the USPS is good enough at their job you can really push it.

Full disclosure: I consider my vote to be effectively meaningless, so guaranteeing its count isn’t a particularly high priority for me. This assuming I can even be arsed to vote, the probability of which seems to be steadily declining.


In terms of ease of voting, I consider the California system of automatically sending a mail-in ballot to all voters to be the gold standard. IIUC, this system is shared by 7 other states.
     
subego
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Jul 9, 2022, 08:54 PM
 
Oh… since we’re discussing “just Post Office things”, you’d think if Louis DeJoy was the existential threat to democracy he was made out to be, Biden would have shitcanned him by now.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 10, 2022, 01:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Show of hands. Who here has recently voted in-person? My prediction is Glenn.
Never voted absentee in thirty years.

But here, you're required to register your address with the authorities whenever you move, and when you do, everybody is automatically registered to vote. Just showing up with legal ID is enough — requiring anything else would be unconstitutional obstruction of voting rights, anyway.

Our suburbian village has six polling locations (with some buildings containing several polling stations, about ten or so total). Three of those are within 10 minutes' walking distance. Never waited for more than ten minutes.
     
subego
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Jul 10, 2022, 02:04 PM
 
Enjoy your communicable diseases.

Ironically, considering our history, we have a decent system in my corner of Chicago. One is limited to a specific polling place, though there are options for voters who screw it up. Mine has always been within walking distance. There are lines between 7-10a and 4-7p. I work odd hours, so that has never a problem for me.

Every voter with a fixed address gets mailed a voter ID.
( Last edited by subego; Jul 10, 2022 at 02:28 PM. )
     
reader50
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Jul 10, 2022, 02:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Oh… since we’re discussing “just Post Office things”, you’d think if Louis DeJoy was the existential threat to democracy he was made out to be, Biden would have shitcanned him by now.
DeJoy is only a threat to democracy during big elections. The rest of the time, he's just a threat to the Post Office. Congress recently removed the prepay-retirement rule for PO employees, which was the economic poison pill dragging down the PO. So with financial burdens eased, DeJoy is still trying to replace the delivery fleet with EVs gas trucks with only slightly better mileage than those they replace. His behavior hasn't changed, it's just what stakes are in play at any given time.

The administration has been trying to chuck him, but the PostMaster General is appointed by the Postal Board, not the Prez directly. Biden does appoint board members, when their terms expire. He hasn't been able to appoint enough board members yet.
     
subego
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Jul 10, 2022, 02:53 PM
 
While I do pride myself on my Post Office knowledge, I did not know that about the PMG appointment. Thanks for the info!

Right now it seems to be 5-4 Biden appointments, so we’ll see what happens. Let me look into the other stuff.
     
subego
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Jul 10, 2022, 05:37 PM
 
Preliminary observations.

1) The USPS awarded the first contract in February of 2021. Congress removed the pre-pay retirement rule in March of 2022. DeJoy doesn’t have a crystal ball.

2) Assuming no one is lying, the ICE NGDV gets better mileage than the LLVs. Roughly 14 versus 8 MPG. The NGDV drops to 8 with the air conditioning turned on. LLVs don’t have air conditioning.

3) The majority of CO2 emissions from the USPS local delivery fleet aren’t from the fleet itself, but the infrastructure required to keep it going. Not something I’d ever thought of. The ICE NGDVs cut CO2 emissions in half compared to the LLVs, which is a solid improvement, but it’s significantly devalued because the infrastructure emissions will stay in the same ballpark.
     
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Jul 10, 2022, 06:28 PM
 
It appears DeJoy can control the percentage of EVs in the fleet order. I wonder how much he can adjust it - is 95% EVs possible, or only a narrower window? Gas is sensible for rural deliveries, so 5-10% gas is what the order should be.
In 2022, DeJoy flouted instructions by the Joe Biden administration to electrify the USPS fleet. Instead, DeJoy put in a $11.3 billion order to renew the existing USPS fleet with mostly gasoline-powered vehicles. The EPA criticized the USPS for the order, pointing to the environmental costs of the fleet ($900 million of damage over 20 years), the low fuel efficiency, and the short-sightedness of making a long-term investment in gasoline-powered vehicles. In response to the backlash, DeJoy signaled that the USPS may add more electric trucks to the order.[64]
(emphasis added)
So why didn't he adjust the EV percentage before being sued by environmental groups? EVs excel in stop-and-go deliveries, due to regenerative braking. Up-front cost is likely higher, but per-mile cost is lower. Lifetime cost of ownership is usually dominated by the per-mile costs.

Oh, and he still hasn't divested in his ownership of competing/affiliated shipping businesses.
While he divested shares in UPS and Amazon before taking on his role, DeJoy drew scrutiny for not divesting from his $30–$75 million equity stake in XPO {Logistics}, a subcontractor for USPS. Under his tenure as Postmaster General, USPS has increased its business with XPO. Additionally, when DeJoy sold his Amazon shares, he purchased stock options in Amazon that represent between 20 and 100% of his prior holdings. USPS prioritizes Amazon package delivery.
     
subego
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Jul 11, 2022, 10:50 AM
 
According to Google, there are 535,000 EVs in the country. A 95% EV adoption rate for the full USPS buy is 150,000.

You’re asking me why a project started in 2015 isn’t buying enough EVs to account for 25% of the entire US EV market in 2022?
     
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Jul 11, 2022, 01:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
According to Google, there are 535,000 EVs in the country.
Good to know. Note that's the number of new EVs sold in the last 4 quarters. About 2.4 million EVs have been sold in the U.S. since 2010. (Argonne, 2022)
You’re asking me why a project started in 2015 isn’t buying enough EVs to account for 25% of the entire US EV market in 2022?
But I don't recall asking about the US EV market in 2022.
A 95% EV adoption rate for the full USPS buy is 150,000.
Ah, you got it. The USPS should be ordering 90-95% EVs in their 165K truck order. Those trucks will be delivered across 10 years. Making the annual EV purchase ~15K, vs expected US EV sales this year that could exceed 1 million.

From what I recall, their order was initially the other way around. Only 5-10% were going to be EV trucks. DeJoy just needs to adjust the percentages slider on his order, before most of the trucks get built.
( Last edited by reader50; Jul 11, 2022 at 02:06 PM. Reason: updated numbers)
     
subego
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Jul 11, 2022, 02:35 PM
 
The initial order was for 50K. 10K were EVs. That’s 20%

Thank you for better data! Beyond correcting me, it gave me some important search keywords. The cume for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from 2010-20 is 1 million. So, plus some for the last two years. The 2.5 million includes hybrids, which use the demon gasoline.

(This is an incomplete, off-the-cuff response)
( Last edited by subego; Jul 11, 2022 at 02:52 PM. )
     
subego
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Jul 11, 2022, 05:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
But I don't recall asking about the US EV market in 2022.
Being incorrect with the data confused the points I was making. My apologies, and consider the question retracted. I’ll formulate something better.
     
subego
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Jul 12, 2022, 12:31 AM
 
Hopefully this is better.

Summary edit: while 10% gas is the greenest option, it is also the least competitive option. When the USPS placed their first order, they were in no position to take the least competitive option.

Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
Gas is sensible for rural deliveries, so 5-10% gas is what the order should be.
For an order of a given budget, the ratio of ICE to EV will determine the number of vehicles it buys.

The more vehicles bought per order, the faster the old fleet is retired.

Is the speed we retire the old fleet of consequence? If it is not, or is made that way by factors such as climate change, then a 90% EV order (or whatever it works out to be) is sensible.

If the goal is to retire the old fleet more quickly, then a higher percentage of ICE is the only option beyond placing (and paying for) additional orders. The chief advantage of rapidly retiring the old fleet is a more rapid realization of service improvements offered by the new design. The faster the USPS can realize these service improvements, the more competitive they will become.

When the USPS placed the first order they were operating at close to a $4 billion deficit and we’re about $200 billion in debt. Is competitiveness of consequence to a non-taxpayer funded agency with these financials?
( Last edited by subego; Jul 12, 2022 at 01:12 AM. )
     
subego
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Jul 12, 2022, 01:04 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
For an order of a given budget, the ratio of ICE to EV will determine the number of vehicles it buys.
To expand slightly, EVs have a higher up-front cost. We can play a shell game and say this is where the extra expense ends, or we can factor in the cost of the new infrastructure. Ordering EVs without accounting for a place to plug them in is not sensible.

Further, we should account for raising a new fleet of mechanics, and the added downtime of newer technology. All the infrastructure for ICE exists, as do the mechanics. We’ve had far more experience working the bugs out of ICE. We also know how the weather affects it.
     
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Jul 12, 2022, 02:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
When the USPS placed the first order they were operating at close to a $4 billion deficit and we’re about $200 billion in debt. Is competitiveness of consequence to a non-taxpayer funded agency with these financials?
The current postal vehicle is the Grumman LLV, manufactured from 1987-1994. Current fleet age: 28-35 years old, with an average age probably around 32 years. Likely to remain in service for at least another 5 years on average. For comparison, average age of the USA light-vehicle fleet (cars, pickups, etc) is currently 12.2 years.

With such long vehicle lifespans, the operating cost will absolutely dominate purchase cost, as well as initial setup costs, such as charging stations. EVs also require far less maintenance as a rule. So I agree that the higher the EV percentage in the order, the higher the cost of the order. But the greater long-term savings. As a Constitution-defined government service, the USPO isn't going away. It's here for the long term, and should plan expenses accordingly.

Separately, why should the Post Office, alone among government agencies, be expected to operate at a profit? Should the Department of Defense also have to turn a profit? How about the courts? Or the FBI? The USPO is established in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7 of the Constitution. It is not a business, even if Congress sometimes treats it as such. Numerous laws require using US Mail in various circumstances, making it impossible to close. So USPO bankruptcy is a phony concern - Congress would just bail it out. As they allocate funds to any other federal agency as needed.
     
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Jul 12, 2022, 01:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
alone among government agencies
Amtrak has entered the chat.
     
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Jul 12, 2022, 05:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
So I agree that the higher the EV percentage in the order, the higher the cost of the order. But the greater long-term savings.
I agree, but I’ve been fixing the budget instead of fixing the number of vehicles.

I chose to fix the budget because I imagine it better reflects the process involved. The USPS figures out how much money they have to spend and then decides what to buy. At the least, fixing the budget makes my argument easier to understand. For an order with a fixed budget, the more ICE, the more vehicles it buys. The more vehicles it buys, the more LLVs the order retires.

Like I said, if the speed with which the old fleet is retired is of no consequence, then this was not a sensible order. If the speed of retirement is of consequence, then the question of the order’s sensibility remains open.

Regardless of drivetrain, retiring an LLV means air conditioning, airbags, room to stand, accommodation for packages, and more capacity meaning less trips. The speed at which these improvements are adopted would be of consequence to any of the Post Office’s competitors were they in the same position, no?

There’s a good discussion to be had as to whether the USPS should abandon the model of being self-funded. A further question is whether this policy change should be initiated by the Post Office or Congress. If it should be initiated by the Post Office, DeJoy is not the person to do it.
     
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Jul 13, 2022, 08:33 PM
 
Is the timeliness with which the Post Office collects ballots of consequence?

What effect would slowing down retirement of the old fleet have on timeliness?
     
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Jul 16, 2022, 04:29 AM
 
How should I interpret the lack of response?

FWIW, “I don’t feel like talking to you” is an acceptable answer.
     
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Jul 17, 2022, 01:18 PM
 
Right now, I must admit I’m interpreting total silence as an underserved lack of courtesy, though I’d much prefer to be mistaken.
( Last edited by subego; Jul 17, 2022 at 01:45 PM. )
     
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Jul 17, 2022, 03:05 PM
 
I'm not sure who you're talking to. Was hoping someone else would chime in, as I've said all I want to for the moment.
     
 
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