The Obama Administration Removed 12-14,000 Mailboxes
The Claim
12,000-14,000 US postal service mailboxes were removed during the last Obama administration term for apolitical reasons.
News posted on
Emerging story
The COVID crisis and simultaneous impending US presidential election has caused many to realize that they are afraid of casting their ballot, since it will involve going into public and amongst crowds. Thus, it is speculated that a far greater volume than usual will cast their ballot by mail-in ballot, and that the overburdened US Postal Service will not be able to handle the demand. To add fuel to the fire, word got out that the USPS was removing drop-off boxes from around Portland and Eugene, Oregon.
Rumors began to circulate and make national headlines both in the mainstream and on social media that the Trump administration was attempting to rig the coming election by preventing citizens from voting by mail-in ballot. However, conservative news outlets have since made the counter-claim that President Obama removed 12-14 thousand mailboxes, and that the USPS has been in decline for some time due to inefficiency and lack of use, and that nobody has even taken notice of such developments until now. Thus, they say, the panic is simply a factor of distrust of the current president, not the facts of the situation.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation into this claim reveals it to be true. President Obama's administration did in fact remove 12-14 thousand mailbox drop-off stations across the country during his second term in office alone, and it is seemingly obvious that such actions were not politically motivated. As such, it would seem that the 31 mailboxes that have been removed in Oregon in the last month are motivated similarly: by a lack of demand for USPS services caused by the inefficiency of the organization in comparison to private companies like FedEx, UPS, and Amazon.
