U.S. Senator Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Susan Wild showed up at a postal facility along Commerce Way in Bethlehem Township on Wednesday, but they weren’t let in.
“It really troubles me that any government is showing this little transparency. This is a public service that is enshrined in the United States Constitution," said Wild.
The congresswoman and senator say they were alerted to the situation by residents and employees in the facility who claimed mail was piling up.
“We have some concern, obviously. We’ve been hearing from the public and people on the work floor about backlogs in mail. We’re in the perfect storm right now. We have the ballots coming in and the ballots going out,” said Chad Beer, president of the local postal workers union.
Casey has been critical of postal service operations for months, and he’s called on the U.S. postmaster to return about 30 letter-sorting machines removed from centers across the state.
The U.S. Postal Service didn’t return a request for comment.
Casey, along with the governor and state and local elections officials, are telling voters to not mail their ballots and to drop them off in-person to make sure they are counted.