People in Santa Monica who aren’t getting their mail delivered at home due to a recent crime wave should look no further than the union that represents postal workers, according to a Southern California politician.
“Now, maybe people will be willing to go vote at a polling location rather than mailing their ballot in because maybe they will develop a little skepticism about the postal service,” said Mike Cargile, Republican candidate for California's 35th congressional district. “The postal union is political and highly partisan and that should scare everybody a little bit because should we really entrust our ballots to an organization that places politics over people?”
Cargile, a filmmaker, was responding to a report that Santa Monica Californians residing in the 1300 block of 14th Street in Santa Monica will have to pick up their mail at the 7th Street post office because mail carriers had experienced a rash of threats and assaults by an unknown suspect.
“These residents will have to pick up their mail until their voices are heard in protests otherwise they will always go pick up their mail because it's easier for the mail carriers not to deliver your mail than it is for them to deliver your mail and they've just shown you that they would rather take the path of least resistance," Cargile told the Southern California Record.
Packages are still being delivered and Fed Ex and UPS are continuing home delivery service, according to media reports.
“What's really going to happen here is a blessing in disguise for the people who are not getting their mail right now, because they get to see the priority is not being placed on them but on the carriers themselves and the carriers aren't in any more danger than a FedEx delivery person or a UPS delivery person," Cargile said.
As previously reported by CBS News, the suspension of home delivery service began after a mail carrier was allegedly threatened by a resident who swung a broomstick but without inflicting any injury.
“People should be very concerned about this precedent being set by the postal union that they are willing to go to this length of suspending home delivery service,” Cargile said. “What happened to the 'postman’s pledge' that neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet nor hail would keep the postman away? Well, that old motto is no longer true.”
The American Postal Worker Union (APWU)'s website states that it represents some 200,000 postal employees and retirees.
“I think that this may illustrate the real flaw in the mail-in ballot system, which is that the only way to guarantee your vote is to go vote in person and put it in the box because when you fill out your ballot and hand it to the postal carrier, it is no longer your ballot,” Cargile added. “It's theirs. You handed your ballot to a stranger and I think people have become dangerously comfortable with the idea of mail in ballot because your vote is no longer safeguarded. When you are handing your ballot to a stranger who works for an overtly political union, how do you know what's going on with your vote, from that point on?”