United States Postal Service boxes in NYC April 13th, 2020. 

In the wake of “startling new revelations about the scope and gravity of operational changes” at the U.S. Postal Service, Representative Carolyn Maloney is demanding the head of the postal service, Louis DeJoy, testify nearly one month sooner than anticipated at a hearing next week.

Maloney, the chairperson of the House oversight committee, asked DeJoy to testify at an “urgent hearing” on August 24th about changes that could harm voting rights in a presidential election that is expected to be reliant on mail-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The hearing will examine your sweeping operational and organizational changes at the Postal Service, which experts warn could degrade delivery standards, slow the mail, and potentially impair the rights of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming November elections,” Maloney, who represents parts of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, wrote to the postmaster general on Sunday.

DeJoy, a top Trump donor whose company provided supply chain services to the postal service for 25 years, was previously expected to be available as soon as September 17th.

But Maloney now wants him to testify sooner because of the wave of reports indicating a possible degradation of voting rights under his watch.

Maloney has also requested the chairman of the postal service’s Board of Governors, Robert M. Duncan, testify at the emergency congressional oversight hearing. On Saturday, she told Gothamist: “You don’t come in with proposals that slow down the mail, right in the middle of a pandemic when people are more dependent on mail than ever for their medications and other deliveries in front of a very important presidential election that we just have every four years.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded the Senate request DeJoy for hearings in the Senate this week as well as push for legislation that would undo changes delaying mail and require mail-in ballots be treated as First Class priority.

“Bottom-line, we will not stand for the in-your-face slowing down of the mail and the undermining of Americans who depend on medications, VA benefits, paychecks, even food, and we will not allow this to take place all in an effort to hobble the November election—no way,” Schumer said in a statement on Sunday. He raised concerns a 2,000-worker processing facility in NYC could be harmed under DeJoy’s leadership as well.

In recent days, the quintessential blue mailboxes have been spotted being removed on trucks, sparking fear the Postal Service was making it more challenging to vote by mail, and that ballots wouldn’t be properly counted come November in the presidential election between President Donald Trump and the Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

In the Bronx, dozens of mailboxes were seen thrown out behind a post office, and the American Postal Workers Union said they wouldn’t be replaced.

Other mailboxes were seen loaded onto a USPS truck Saturday in West Harlem. It was not immediately clear where they were removed from or if they would be replaced.

On Sunday, postal service spokesperson David Partenheimer said the mailbox removals were to “identify redundant/seldom used collection boxes” as first-class mail volume declines.

But due to “recent customer concerns,” the service said it will postpone removing boxes for three months.

“Based on the density testing, boxes are identified for potential removal and notices are placed on boxes to give customers an opportunity to comment before the removal decision is made,” Partenheimer wrote in an email. “This process is one of the many ways the Postal Services makes adjustments to our infrastructure to match our resources to declining mail volumes.”

Partenheimer did not answer questions about whether DeJoy and Duncan would testify before the House oversight committee.