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Nazareth, Pa., United States

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

Drop Boxes Become More Relevant in Wake of Mail Slowdown

It happened right before the Presidential election. It's happening again. The mail is slowing down. Louis DeJoy, the Trump-installed Postmaster General, is slowing mail delivery to what it was like in the '70s. It now can take as long as five days to deliver a piece of first class mail. 

So  f you're voting by mail, the best way to ensure that your ballot reaches the elections office is by dropping it off at a drop-off box.

In Northampton County, these drop boxes are at the following locations:

Rotunda of the Government Center – 669 Washington Street, Easton, PA 18042
o  Monday – Friday from 8:30AM – 8:00PM
 
Human Services Building – 2801 Emrick Blvd. Bethlehem, PA 18020
o  Monday – Friday from 8:30AM – 7:00PM
 
Northampton County 911 Center – 100 Gracedale Ave. Nazareth, PA 18064
o  Monday – Friday from 8:30AM – 8:00PM
 
Bethlehem City Hall – 10 E. Church Street, Bethlehem, PA 18018
o  Monday – Friday from 8:00AM – 4:00PM

In Lehigh County, drop boxes are at the following locations:

District#1

North Whitehall Township Building

·         3256 Levans Road, Coplay, PA 18037

·         610-799-3411

·         M-F 7:30AM- 4PM

District #2

Lehigh County Authority (LCA) Lobby

·         1053 Spruce Road, Allentown, PA 18106

·         610-398-2503

·         M-F 8:15AM- 4:45PM

District #3

Fountain Hill Borough  Building

·         941 Long StreetFountain Hill, PA 18015

·         610-867-0301

·         M-F 8:30AM- 4:30PM

District #4

Lehigh County Government Center

·         17 South 7th Street, Allentown, PA 18101

·         610 782-3194

·         24/7 Drop Box Main Entrance

District #5

Emmaus Borough Office

·         28 South 4th Street, Emmaus, PA 18049

·         610-965-9292

·         M-F 8AM-4PM

 

 


Voters may only drop off their own ballots. Third party return of ballots is prohibited unless the person returning the ballot is rendering assistance to a disabled voter or emergency absentee voter and has a signed “Certification of Designated Agent” form. A copy of these forms can be downloaded at vote.pa.gov

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Before you click on the story , it reads Louis Dejoy trump installed pos. That about sums it up.

Anonymous said...

I'll be carrying in multiple ballots. It's ridiculous to waste gas and people's time. Catch me if you can. You can't. You didn't. It's a cautionary tail of how easy it is to do so for someone with zero ill intent. I guess I'm a criminal, despite never getting so much as a single parking ticket in my life. I've been called worse by better. This system is soft spot for voter fraud. Period.

Anonymous said...

The post office has been running at a deep loss. Email is now king. UPS, FedEx, Amazon, etc. have sharply reduced USPS package delivery service. Reductions in service and staff expenses are now the only way to respond. Drawing President Trump into this and claiming this to be an attempt to limit voting is really not what brought us here. Besides, President Trump is in no position to put someone else in charge. That would be Biden.

Anonymous said...

Drop boxes are great, as is mail-in balloting. Choice is awesome--I can mail, drop, or walk-in to vote. I would suggest that for the drop box to be really useful for people, is that they have hours which reflect the hours of non-government employees. At least have 2 in the valley which are open after 5 pm.

Bernie O'Hare said...

7:20, You are incorrect. First, the USPS governing board can oust Trump-appointed DeJoy, but not the President. Second, the nine-member governing board is unwilling to fire DeJoy. Biden will need to wait until he can make more appointments.

Anonymous said...

@6:33 - Outside of carrying in some other peoples ballots, which is a technical no-no, how exactly are you going to do it at a scale to influence the election and not get caught?

IF you're that concerned about it, pack a picnic lunch, a book and a nice camp chair and park yourself in front of the drop box and watch who comes and goes all day long.

Anonymous said...

Cheating big time

Anonymous said...

It may be prohibited, but I also have no problem with people dropping off multiple ballots. Someone could drop off multiple mail ballots with USPS, right? So what's the big difference?

C said...

7:20 AM does not know that the feds required that the USPS prepay for future retirement benefits. Let me know of another company that has to prepay for that!

Anonymous said...

@ 7:20 I know this is not a blog thread about the post office but I wanted to help you consider some more information before you spout a perception.

In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.

In its December 2018 report, President Trump’s Task Force on the United States Postal Service reaffirmed current rules related to postal retiree health benefits, calling it “part of a mandate for postal self-sustainability.” However, the Task Force also recognized that the aggressive and accelerated timetable for funding the mandate has proved unworkable. They call for past deficits to be “restructured with the payments re-amortized with new actuarial calculation based on the population of employees at or near retirement age.”

This goes way back before Trump but DeJoy is Trumps hand picked henchman. He has allowed Trump to not pay the lease/bill for the Old Post office for now going on almost two years. The money from that would probably fund several posts offices in most rural locations throughout the country.

https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/

Anonymous said...

Uh, except the whole premise of your post is WRONG.

Mail going across country will take additional time, but mail in the same region will continue to have a two-day delivery time.

Before anyone starts crying "fake news" about that, I've attached the link to an article from the conservative-filled ranks at NPR.

www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041304836/slower-mail-delivery-higher-prices-holiday-season

Sorry to let the facts get in the way of a good fake narrative though.






Anonymous said...

This is 7:20. Thank you for the link, 5:07. It appears that Congress created this situation in 2006. The link also indicates a repeal of the requirement is currently in the Senate waiting for further action. I would expect Senator Schumer to demand of McConnell a vote very soon.
I know nothing of the purchase agreement given to Trump to procure the DC Post Office and create a hotel there.

Anonymous said...

This is 7:20. Thank you for the link, 5:07. It appears that Congress created this situation in 2006. The link also indicates a repeal of the requirement is currently in the Senate waiting for further action. I would expect Senator Schumer to demand of McConnell a vote very soon.
I know nothing of the purchase agreement given to Trump to procure the DC Post Office and create a hotel there.

Anonymous said...

Doesn’t matter how you vote, radical conservatives will still claim the process is tainted if the results don’t turn out their way. The good news is that they’re a minority, and they’ll just disintegrate into ash like the Avengers did when Thanos snapped his fingers…

But in this instance Thanos is COVID…