Photo by Flickr user Paul Swanson (CC BY-ND 2.0)
This is a list of all the biggest petitions I can find related to saving the Post Office from GOP attacks that Donald Trump recently admitted (in another of those classic blurts that must make his team cringe) are intended specifically to suppress the November 2020 vote.
Please sign them all, and let me know if I missed any.
Another good idea I've seen passed around is to directly support the USPS by buying stamps. (This would be like when Trump's father bailed out his foundering casino by buying $3m worth of chips that he never intended to play or cash. Except it would be legal.)
Finally, it's looking like the most effective way to balance making sure your vote is counted against pandemic safety might be to request a mail-in ballot (if your state allows it) and hand-deliver it to an election office drop-box, if your county has them. I'm trying to find a good online resource where you can easily look up your state's mail-in ballot rules and your county's ballot drop-boxes. This is the best I've found so far, and here's another one, but I'd love to find something with more explicit drop-box info.
Update #4 (8/18/2020): Partial Victory
The USPS has announced that it will postpone policy changes that would have suppressed the November vote. However, there are no plans to restore it's not clear whether this will include restoring mailboxes and sorting machines that have already been removed, or if the change in postage for mail-in ballots from bulk rate to first class will be reversed. And these changes are still scheduled to happen after the election. (Update, 8/20/2020: DeJoy is refusing to restore the removed sorting machines, most of which were removed from battleground states.)
Update #3 (8/17/2020): A Day of Action
A number of progressive organizations, including the NAACP, MoveOn, the SEIU, and Indivisible, are organizing a day of action on Saturday, August 22, in support of the postal service. Please consider joining it!
Update #2 (8/16/2020): Targeted Removals?
A Twitter user has posted this map (a graphically edited version of this map) correlating the ongoing removal of sorting machines from USPS offices with the Electoral map from 2016, and it seems to suggest that Democratic-leaning counties are being targeted. I'll be continuing to look into the accuracy of this, but at this point, I've decided it's important and trustworthy enough to add here.
Update #1: But First
Please call this number — (844) 942-2935 — in order to ask your senators to pass the Heroes Act, the COVID relief bill passed by the House more than two months ago, which also provides funding to the Postal Service for it to handle the 2020 Election.
When you call, you'll be asked to enter your zip code and then asked which of your two Senators you'd like to speak with. (So you'll need to do this twice to go on the record with both.) This is especially important if you live in a state with Republican senators, as they are the ones blocking passage of the act.
I feel this is now a more important action than signing any of the petitions below, as there have been signs that some members of the GOP are breaking from Trump over this latest outrage.
The Petition List (finally!)
Change.org: "Save the USPS"
Common Cause: "Save the U.S. Postal Service"
MoveOn.org: "Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service: Remove Louis DeJoy"
MoveOn.org: "Fully Fund the United States Postal Service"
Resist.bot: "Save The Post Office"
RuralOrganizing.org: "INVESTIGATE THE TRUMP SLOWDOWN AT THE UNITED STATES POST OFFICE"
Note: This last one (RuralOrganizing.org) was just started, so it's not very big yet as I write this, but it seems important because it's addressed to the Postal Service Inspector General, and it will probably grow quickly, as it's being promoted by MoveOn.org.
And here are the email addresses of every member of the USPS board of governors. Email them to demand the removal of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and a halt to the GOP attacks on the mail service.
Mduncan@inezdepositbank.com
Roman@rmiv.com
Barger.jm@gmail.com
Lee.moak@moakgroup.com
Ron.bloom@brookfield.com
Directoraccessmailbox@cigna.com
Finally, here are some other general actions we can take.