South Brazoria News

A series of cost-cutting measures made by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy this year that have received greater scrutiny and become the center of conspiracy theories as the November election approaches have been rolled back.

DeJoy said that he decided to rescind measures, which he instituted in response to demands from the federal government to stem the hemorrhaging of funds from the Post Office, in order to prevent, "even the appearance of any impact on election mail," according to reporting by NPR. The measures have not gone away permanently, but rather have been suspended until the election is concluded.

But Tyler Croce, Burleson County GOP chair, said he doesn't think the USPS or DeJoy is aligned with President Donald Trump, instead it is just addressing financial issues. 

"I think we need to do what we need to do to fix the postal system," he told South Brazoria News.

The changes to the USPS include mail processing facilities closing, blue collection boxes being removed, post office hours changing and mail processing equipment being removed, CNN reported. But changes won't be in effect between now and election day. 

Democrats claim that these changes would disrupt mail services across the nation, especially the mail-in ballots. 

Without mail-sorting machines, the USPS might not be able to handle the amount of mail coming in with the mail-in ballots either. 

"We need to get the word out regarding absentee ballots as those do not seam to have the same sort of issues. They have to be requested and are reasonably verified prior to the docs being mailed out," Croce said. "The postal system is not designed for universal mail in voting so changes to its structure does not constitute sabotage or fraud because it was not capable of such a task to begin with."

While Democrats are putting the blame on Trump and his supporters, Republicans claim a mail-in election could be dangerous the the country, especially if ballots are automatically mailed to registered voters regardless of whether they are at the same address or have even passed on. 

"Mailing out ballots to last known addresses is far more harmful than mailing out stimulus checks. Those just cost money, this will cost us our country," Croce said.