
Dozens of Montana USPS drop boxes removed - iron0013
https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/dozens-of-montana-usps-drop-boxes-removed
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pwinnski
It could be true that this is the normal cycle of moving boxes from low-use to
high-traffic areas, as claimed. Without transparency, it's hard to be sure.

Even that transparency would not be demanded were the postmaster general not
actively and deliberately taking a role in make USPS services worse. With the
status quo, nobody would care about 13 boxes removed in Missoula, Montana.

So either the USPS needs to be clear about what they're doing and when and
why, or they need to improve service so much that people assume the best,
rather than the worst.

~~~
Rebelgecko
>Without transparency, it's hard to be sure.

USPS has a free API that gives you the location of every collection box. I
wonder if anyone has been archiving that data over time to compare?

~~~
privong
> USPS has a free API that gives you the location of every collection box.

Do you have a link for this? It would be useful for filling out post box
information on openstreetmap, I'd think. I found the USPS "Web Tools API"[0]
but it seems to focus on pricing, tracking, and address verification. I didn't
see anything about querying USPS locations (except for package pickup).

[0] [https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-
apis/](https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/)

~~~
Rebelgecko
I may have slightly misremembered. I can't find it in their officially
documented APIs either.

However if you inspect your network traffic while doing a search on their
"Find locations" page, it's not too hard to find the address of their REST
API. However since it's not documented it might be rude to hit it too hard

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gamblor956
Normally you could assign an innocuous reason for this, but given the other
actions the new postmaster has taken, it's pretty clear that (a) this is part
of a plan to reduce mail-in voting, and (b) this is part of a plan to force
the privatization of mail delivery services.

The new postmaster is major Trump donor/supporter and has a large amount of
stock in private mail delivery services. Among other things, he has ordered
the removal of most mail-sorting machines and begun requiring that work to be
done by hand, while at the same time banning overtime necessary to handle the
increased manual work required.

This week, he also ordered the press office to tell the states that there was
no way the USPS could timely deliver ballots within the normal absentee voting
periods or guarantee delivery before Nov 7...even though in many states the
period for mailing in an absentee ballot is longer than 4 weeks. For point of
reference, prior to the new postmaster, the USPS was regularly able to handle
volumes of mail far in excess of what the predicted mail-in vote will be for
2020. [EDIT: link: [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/u-s-postal-
se...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/u-s-postal-service-
warns-numerous-states-mail-ballots-may-n1236825)]

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RickJWagner
Montana is reliably Republican, and has voted so in 9 of the last 10
presidential elections. (1992 was the exception.)

If the mailbox removal is part of some sinister plot, it's not the GOP behind
it.

[https://www.270towin.com/states/Montana](https://www.270towin.com/states/Montana)

~~~
iron0013
Pretty facile analysis. Boxes are being removed from the blue parts of Montana
(which definitely do exist, it’s a much more purple state than most people
think), and Montana’s senatorial race is close this year. In any case, this is
happening largely in blue states, but I knew if I posted a link saying as much
it would be immediately flagged on HN, so I posted this one instead.

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paul_f
The US Postal Service adds and moves post boxes all the time. There is no
conspiracy here

~~~
happytoexplain
You haven't offered a reason you believe this is one of those cases, as
opposed to it being a symptom of the recent USPS issues. Personally, I have no
idea based on the information available.

~~~
Rebelgecko
According to the USPS OIG, it's standard procedure to move or remove boxes
that get fewer than 25 pieces of mail per day.

When there was an audit a few years ago, they found that no one ever got
around to removing 99% of the collection boxes that should've been removed. On
the flip side, in some regions management had removed collection boxes without
proving that they met the 25/day standard

More info here-- [https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/collection-box-removal-
proc...](https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/collection-box-removal-process-
eastern-area)

