Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Mapping USPS Mail Box Closures



There are over 150,000 post collection boxes in the United States. Or at least there used to be before they started to be closed and removed as what many believe is an attempt by Donald Trump to suppress mail-in-voting. Over the last week viral pictures of mail boxes being removed has fanned suspicions that the Trump administration is trying to hamper the operations of the United States Postal Service.

Spot the Box is a new interactive map which is being used to track and monitor the closure of USPS collection boxes across the country. Using the map you can identify collection boxes which have been closed or confirm where USPS collection boxes are still in operation. If you click on a mail box in the map you can then record whether the box has been removed or is still in operation.

On the map mail boxes which have been tagged as removed appear as red dots. Mail boxes recorded as still being in operation are shown as green dots. All the blue dots on the map are the mail boxes which have yet to be confirmed as either removed or still in operation.

The USPS has said that it will now suspend the removal of mail colllection boxes until after the election. However earlier this year Donald Trump appointed Louis DeJoy Postmaster General. Since then DeJoy has made a number of decisions which appear to be designed to suppress mail-in-voting, including the decommissioning of hundreds of mail-sorting machines.

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