I heard a story a couple of days ago that this summer the USPS stopped processing change-of-address updates for people over a six week period. I can't find that article now, perhaps the topic got lost in the general post office chatter. Or I need some different keywords for the search.

In the meantime, there is this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/29/usps-workers-election-mail/

This summer, as controversial new procedures at the U.S. Postal Service snarled the nation’s mail delivery and stirred fears of how the agency would handle the election, rank-and-file workers quietly began to resist.

Mechanics in New York drew out the dismantling and removal of mail-sorting machines until their supervisor gave up on the order. In Michigan, a group of letter carriers did an end run around a supervisor’s directive to leave election mail behind, starting their routes late to sift through it. In Ohio, postal clerks culled prescriptions and benefit checks from bins of stalled mail to make sure they were delivered, while some carriers ran late items out on their own time. In Pennsylvania, some postal workers looked for any excuse — a missed turn, heavy traffic, a rowdy dog — to buy enough time to finish their daily rounds.

“I can’t see any postal worker not bending those rules,” one Philadelphia staffer said in an interview.

With the Postal Service expected to play a historic role in this year’s election, some of the agency’s 630,000 workers say they felt a responsibility to counteract cost-cutting changes from their new boss, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, that they blame for the mail slowdowns. They question whether DeJoy — a top Republican fundraiser and booster of President Trump — is politicizing the institution in service to a president who has actively tried to sow distrust of mail-in voting, insisting without evidence that it will lead to massive fraud.

and this

A few USPS plants are reinstalling mail sorting machines. But in Philly, more changes that could cause delays are happening.

After four federal judges blocked additional operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service and ordered it to reverse the changes that had been made, South Jersey and Delaware processing and delivery plants have started reinstalling some of the mail sorting machines that had been removed.

But in Philadelphia, nothing has changed. No machines in the Lindbergh Boulevard facility have been replaced, local union leaders and employees say, trucks are still being forced to leave on time, with or without the mail, and mail delivery is still being delayed.

In fact, despite federal court orders, more operational changes have occurred in the Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Delaware processing facilities in the last week, according to union employees at all three locations.

Employees at the Southwest Philadelphia, New Castle, and Bellmawr plants were told that mail sorting machines must stop sorting the mail by 5 a.m., whether all the mail has been sorted or not. Typically, the machines start sorting mail around 1 p.m., and don’t stop until the job is done. The time a machine usually finishes varies greatly and depends on the volume of mail that day.

The goal, employees believe, is to make sure all the mail makes it onto the delivery trucks by the time they need to leave, so that no mail is left behind. But instead, at least in Philadelphia, it’s resulting in thousands of letter pieces going unsorted, said Laurence Love, an assistant clerk craft director who operates mail sorting machines at the Philadelphia plant.

“I’ve been here for 35 years and we have never had any directive to shut off a machine,” said Love.

The massive sorting machines are programmed to sort mail based on address and route, making it easy for carriers to grab their bins of mail and hit the road. Carriers are usually only left to hand sort a few letters and flats that are unable to go through the machines.
But by 5 a.m., those items that haven’t been sorted yet are then only divided by route, not address, leaving some carriers with hundreds of pieces to sort themselves.

Not every machine has unsorted mail, but those sorting zip codes with heavy volumes, are struggling to finish, Love said. Last Sunday, which is usually the Postal Service’s heaviest mail volume day, at least 20,000 pieces of mail were left unsorted across four machines.

But by 5 a.m., those items that haven’t been sorted yet are then only divided by route, not address, leaving some carriers with hundreds of pieces to sort themselves.

Not every machine has unsorted mail, but those sorting zip codes with heavy volumes, are struggling to finish, Love said. Last Sunday, which is usually the Postal Service’s heaviest mail volume day, at least 20,000 pieces of mail were left unsorted across four machines.

The rest of the articles can be read at each link.