Susan Uballe decided to go first class.

Uballe, of Port Townsend, dressed in a mailbox costume made by her husband Esiquio, joined a crowd of roughly
170 people who flanked the front of the U.S. Postal Office building in Port Townsend Aug. 18 to show support for the service and mail-in voting. 

The demonstrators, who all wore masks and practiced social distancing, carried signs that celebrated the post office and called out President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, with several calling for DeJoy’s removal from his position. 

The demonstration followed a week in which Postal Service boxes and mail sorting machines were seen being removed across the country. For months, the president has criticized the Postal Service and mail-in voting as a viable system for collecting votes for the 2020 General Election in the fall, and has scaled back the service in numerous ways. 

The Port Townsend chapter of Indivisible, the national progressive movement formed in 2016, organized the rally over one weekend with the goal to protest the Trump administration’s recent actions. 

“The Trump administration and his minions are doing whatever they can to undermine the legitimacy of this election, and have been working to impair the post office’s ability to process mail-in ballots,” said chapter coordinator Mike Cornforth.

Among the demonstrators was Rep. Steve Tharinger of the 24th Legislative District, who was there to show his concern over what he sees as a threat to the constitutionally-founded government service. 

Rural counties such as Jefferson County, Tharinger said, are especially reliant on the Postal Service for everything from paying bills to receiving medication and products that aren’t as abundant as in more urban counties. 

The pandemic has only made the service more necessary, he added.

“With people dealing with the virus — if they want to be able to vote by mail — having a functioning post office is fundamental to our democracy,” Tharinger said. “That somebody would mess with that for strictly political reasons is inappropriate. It’s authoritarian; it’s not what should happen.” 

“The structure speaks to the importance of the service,” he added, gesturing to the three-story, sandstone post office that The Leader described as “the handsomest and most costly post office on the Pacific Coast” and the “finest public building in the State of Washington and finer than any public building in the State of Oregon” upon its completion in 1893. 

On the day of the protest, DeJoy announced that the scaling back of the Postal Service operations would halt until at least after the November election. 

Demonstrators like Uballe were concerned, however, with what this meant for changes already put in place by DeJoy, and stated their intention to return to the streets if need be.

“If we need to come out again, we’ll come out again,” Cornforth said.