[EL] Big changes to the USPS and mail balloting

[Vince Leibowitz]

>From the perspective of a consultant who handles clients who do a lot of
political direct mail--including several who will be doing political mail
in the upcoming March primary--I'm a little apprehensive about the proposed
changes. I haven't yet had a detailed conversation with the mail house and
printer we use for our clients yet, but that's coming. I know, just from
mail we did in September in New York and a few weeks ago in Austin, TX,
that political mail delivery already seems to have slowed some in certain
parts of the country. Houston, from what I understand from colleagues
there, seems unaffected as far as mail in their recent municipal elections
go, but the mail we did in Austin recently seemed to hit the "seeded"
addresses we placed in the mail list to track delivery a day or two slower
than it has in previous cycles.

Given the way the USPS has previously touted the revenue received from
political direct mail, (link below), one would think they might find
additional ways to protect political mail from whatever changes may come. I
would certainly think that the Democratic and Republican parties would
realize it is to their collective advantage to ensure that members of
Congress or the administration or whomever apply whatever pressure is
necessary to ensure that political mail doesn't see the same kind of lag
time they are talking about with other mail. When the post below was
written, the USPS was talking about "even greater opportunities" that
political mail may present for the post office. Wonder if they still
consider that to hold true?

http://blog.uspsoig.gov/?p=1151

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Lori Minnite <lminnite at gmail.com> wrote:

> Has anyone seen any commentary or analysis of the likely impact of the
> proposed changes in the U.S. Postal Service on the timeliness of
> government mail - and especially election-related mail - that can't yet
> be replaced with an Internet-based fix?  I'm thinking here about the
> mailing of absentee ballot applications and ballots, and the required
> mailings associated with the list purging requirements of the NVRA.
> Does anyone think there is a downside for election mail of privatizing
> first class U.S. mail service?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Lori Minnite
>
>
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-- 
_______________________________
Vince Leibowitz
Principal Consultant
The Dawn Group
vince.leibowitz at gmail.com
vince at dgtexas.com
DGTexas.com
512.705.7001 (m)
512.861.2370 (f)
512.318.2432 (o)
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