Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Postal Service's exploration of cutting deliveries one day a week has ruffled feathers of Oregon elections officials. April Baer reports on what the cut could mean for the state's vote-by-mail system.

The Postmaster General, John Potter, is asking Congress  for the option of cutting deliveries back to five days each week, instead of the time-honored six.

On the chopping block: Tuesday, which is usually a slow day for mail anyway.

The agency  has lost a lot of business to  email and to competitors like UPS and FedEx.

Assuming Congress were to give the postal service the flexibility to ditch Tuesday deliveries, the cutback would still need to be approved by the USPS Board of Governors.

Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown is concerned about the possible cut back.  In the last election, eighteen percent of ballots returned -- almost one in five -- came in on Election Day, which is always a Tuesday. And while some came through drop-off boxes, many of them were mailed.

Brown will  keep an eye on developments, but the reduction is anything but certain. 

The chair of a subcommittee that controls the Postal Service budget says he won't let the request go through.  And the union that represents letter carriers also objects to the plan.