I am an employee with the USPS. I've read the Ohio voter purge diaries and anastasia p's debunking of the claim that letters were sent out to Ohio voters; I've worked for the postal service for a number of years- more than a decade at this point- and I feel I need to contribute what I know of the postal system into this debate.
The postal system, simply put, is controlled chaos.
We deal with an almost unbelievable amount of mail every day. I don't have statistics available for my specific facility, but nationally, the USPS sorts, according to
this site, 212 BILLION pieces of mail per year. There are more facts and stats at the link.
This volume requires that we use automated equipment to process our mail. I say 'our' mail because each postal employee is also a USPS customer. I can think of no other business in which every single employee, without exception, is also a customer of their employer.
Because of this enormous volume of mail, as I said, we use automated equipment. This automation is performed in various high- and- low-tech stages; the days of masses of people sitting is front of metal cases is, for the most part, over.
Our main processing equipment is provided by Siemens and Electrocom Automation, among others; these are two of the primary manufacturers of our equipment. I'm going to now take you on a partial virtual tour of what happens to a letter (OR an absentee ballot) when it enters our system.
First, it gets put in your mailbox and the carrier collects it. This is a nonpartisan, almost robotic action on the carrier's part. We DO NOT CARE what you have to say, who you have to say it to, or how much you have to say. You pay, you play. It's really just that simple.
Maybe WE should count the votes.
From the carrier, your letter goes to your local post office (or bulk mail center if you have a LOT to mail). There, it gets sorted- I'm not certain exactly how, but I know it's similar to what system we use in the plant I work in- and put on a truck to a Processing and Distribution Center (or P&DC), which is where I work.
Your letter gets offloaded on the dock at the P&DC and gets inserted into the mailstream. This, in my plant, is done on a machine we call Barney: a big, purple (yes, purple) set of conveyors and mechanical sorters which all lead to one of three Automated Facer/Canceler/Sorters, also known (internally) as AFCS machines. These, true to their name, cancel, face, and sort the mail, such that all the stamps are facing the "right" way (one single direction in a tray), are canceled, and very rudimentally sorted.
This system has another function: the optical character reader. This camera reads the front face of each letter and uses (very, very reliable) pattern recognition software to literally read the address on the envelope, and analyze the written address. This pattern recognition is some of the very best that technology allows. It can, quite honestly, read anything but a scribble (and you would NOT believe how many people scribble on their envelopes).
We use this pattern recognition software constantly. It is RELIABLE. Please, believe me on this. We could not sort US mail as effectively as we do without it.
From there, the envelope is either sorted without error or not; if not, a two bit image of the envelope is taken by an internal camera and that image is sent to a Remote Encoding Center, or REC site, which is where I started with the USPS. The data necessary to process this mailpiece is then encoded by an employee sitting at a dumb terminal (I mean that phrase technically) and the resulting encoded data is sent back to the P&DC, where the physical mailpiece is sent through yet another machine (known as the Output SubSystem, or OSS), there to receive a barcode and sorted to its 'correct' bin on the machine. From there, the mailpiece is further sorted to its three digit city prefix or carrier route on a Delivery BarCode Sorter, or DBCS, where it is (eventually) arranged into delivery order for each carrier in your city. It even puts the letters in the carrier's walk sequence.
WHEW!
Our letters REALLY get a workout.
Political mail is considered special by USPS employees. ANY political mail, sent either as first class or standard (third class), is treated as if it were first class mail once it reaches me (or another automation clerk). We are required to include ALL political mailings into the first class mailstream. This is not to say there are two separate streams of mail, rather, first class mail is given priority during sorting of all mail, trays, envelopes, parcels, and all.
Note that your letter from summer camp or your birthday card from Grandma is given the same priority as political mail, regardless of the fact that the tag on political mail trays has "STD" on it (Standard), rather than "FCM" (First class mail).
This is where I quibble with Anastasia.
The purported letters sent out in Ohio very likely could have gotten through and been returned with noone the wiser. In fact, the sending and return would very likely have been an entirely automated process. No human need intervene- if the address is wrong, the letter goes through the Computerized Forwarding System (that's CFS; they put the yellow sticker on the lower right of envelopes that need to be forwarded or returned) or PARS (a new automated system that does the same thing as CFS, which itself requires human input). Absentee ballots would go through the same system, by the way.
If these letters WERE sent, and returned, it could easily have been done with no human knowledge or intervention, and very likely without the recipient's knowledge (if they weren't at the address given to the "purgers"). How's that for comfort? If your address does not match the one we have in our system (maybe you didn't fill out our forwarding card, or filled it out wrong), no matter that you actually live there, the letter would be returned to the sender- and, in the case of voter registration confirmation plots, would result in a mismatch between the address you provided and the address of record, both for the USPS and the registrar of voters. This would result in a purge of your registration, again, regardless of the fact that you actually do live there.
Our directory is NOT perfect. We employ people whose job it is to sort through mail, manually, correct addresses, or waste the mail (throw it out) if it can't be delivered or returned. We also return letters if they are invalid (and yes, THAT phase DOES include human input). But, again, if our records aren't correct, the letter will likely be returned if we can't figure out where it should go.
In short, the postal system is so complex and dependent upon what information you, the mailer, give us, that it is ripe for abuse using the very same tactics Anastasia claims aren't being employed. The USPS is the perfect means by which to deny voter registrations. This is not our fault; it is a lamentable consequence of using such a vast directory for delivery.
We are VERY accurate. However, we are NOT perfect, and our directory is indeed a prime target for exploitation with intent to deny voters their right to vote. My opinion is, we should treat voter registration forms and absentee ballots in the same way we treat bank receipts and valuable mailings: by sending them through the registry room, a room in each P&DC, which handles locked and numbered bags of "important" mailings as if they were solid gold bars. As it is, ballots (and, presumably, registration forms, if extant) are sorted right along with other mail. My opinion is, this needs to change.
I have very little doubt that the letter Anastasia claims doesn't exist COULD HAVE BEEN mailed out through our system with nobody the wiser. If the recipient doesn't exist, the letter is returned, resulting in a purge. If the letter is received and returned by the recipient, no harm, no foul.
HOWEVER:
Your mail can be easily be delayed due to very small errors: a transposition of the zip code, omission of your apartment number, Misspelling of your street: any of these COULD result in a "return to sender", thanks in part to our imperfect directory and our automated system. There's no intent here; just exploitation of an imperfectly efficient system.
My advice:
Confirm your registration. Contact your postmaster if you've recently moved. MAKE SURE your address is absolutely correct; spelling, punctuation, and grammar COUNT. 1234 South North St is NOT the same as 1234 North South Street, nor is 1234 N S St; 1234 Washington Ave IS NOT the same as 1234 Washington Blvd.
If there are any postal workers reading this, who have better knowledge of the overall system and its vulnerabilities regarding a potential voter purge scheme, PLEASE, correct me! I work in the automation area of my plant; I'm not WELL versed on how return to sender mail works, but I am enough so (I think) to be able to describe the process. I'd really, really like to be correct, so if I have any serious errors in this diary, please... correct them! We all use this system, and I want it described accurately!
Saying this purge isn't possible just because nobody has the actual letter doesn't really mean anything. A simple fudge of a letter or two in the address, a leaving out of the apartment number, or even an inaccuracy in the USPS' own database could lead to a purge of your voter registration. I can't urge anyone here too strongly to check their registration- in Ohio and elsewhere- because I know our directory is imperfect. The consequence of that imperfection could well be a loss of your right to vote.
It's 4:20 AM; I'm going to bed. I just thought I would interject some healthy skepticism into the debunking of an issue that should not so readily be debunked.