There is commotion in the courts and, especially, in federal court number 1, the electoral court, in charge of supervising and organizing the elections throughout the country. The reason is that The 5,000 layoffs and voluntary retirements in the Argentine Postal Service would prevent, today, the organization of citizens’ voting. “This is a collapse, done by people who don’t think, who don’t plan anything,” they say in the offices overlooking Tucumán Street, in the Palace of Justice, where the court presided over by María Romilda Servini today operates. It happens that the Post Office is the heart of the entire electoral operation. For example, 16,000 Post Office vehicles, mules and even boats are used to carry the ballot boxes and all the material, including the forms and ballots for each party. The Post Office moves the registers, the training manuals and even the cardboard screens that were used in 2023. But, in addition, it is the Post Office that gathers the first results through telegrams and those forms are collected in regional centers and then in Federal capital. From what they say in court, Among the layoffs and retirements, there are the employees who have been carrying out the technical work and a large part of the staff who know how the transfers and operations are carried out in the two days before and on the day of a national election.
The Post has played the central role in elections since 1983. These are some of the functions:
*Distribute the ballot boxes and all the materials used in the elections. It is a key issue, which requires very precise routes between some schools and others. For example, Greater Buenos Aires is a world in which you cannot go wrong in the sequence of schools to which everything must be taken. But, in addition, ballot boxes must be taken to the most remote places in the country.
*Along with the ballot boxes, the voter registry of each table is transferred, the ballots of each of the parties, the forms where the count will be recorded and all the material that will be used on election day.
*The Post Office removes the ballot boxes, with the votes and forms inside, from all parts of Argentina.
*Manage votes by mail, including those from abroad.
*He is in charge of the provisional vote count, on election night itself. The table authorities, together with the prosecutors, complete the telegram, which is sent to regional centers and then to the national centers of the Post Office. Those with memory remember that everything was operated in the Central Post Office, the current Kirchner Cultural Center. Although a company is hired to do the processing, everything is under the jurisdiction of the Post Office.
*On election night, information and results dissemination systems are concentrated. Nowadays, mobile workers report from a Post Office headquarters, before they did so from the Central Post Office palace.
The numbers are colossal. There are almost 110,000 ballot boxes in 17,000 schools, some of which are in locations accessible only by mules.
“The data we have – they say in Court – is that a good part of those who guaranteed the electoral operations left. Under these conditions, Judge Servini will not be able to organize the elections. At some point it has already been attempted, in some district, to hold the elections with a private company. It couldn’t be done, no guarantees were given. You have to imagine that an election for the entire country is impossible. Nobody is foreseeing this. “It’s very irresponsible.”
According to some rumors, the Postal Service threatened to stop the voluntary retirements because the electoral specialists who were not fired joined the retirements, given the instability and uncertainty about the future of the Postal Service. But that measure did not materialize either. So there are already about 5,000 fired or left and it is mentioned that the total will be 7,000 out of a total of 16,000 employees. So there will be 9,000 left.
Some of the most sinister moves in this wave were revealed by the media. The majority of dismissals are done by email in which the worker is simply informed that the company will terminate their services at the end of the month. A postman from Rosario, upon reading it, suffered cardiac arrest. Page 12 spread the tears of Rogelio Hub, the last employee of the Gualjaina post office, in Chubut. The worker, who had been in the Cushamen department for 25 years, left on his bicycle to the applause and tears of the local residents. The same thing happened with another Corcovado worker, Javier Villoldo. Both closed the store and handed the key over to the municipal authority, since the branch is closing permanently.
As in many other areas, Javier Milei’s government is only focused on reducing, achieving zero deficit, laying off, without planning or study of any kind. There is no criterion. This type of policy led this week to a lack of gas and no signature to make purchases of essential spare parts for the trains. But the fierce offensive against the Postal workers shows the lack of foresight in something that will be very serious next year: the holding of the elections in an efficient and transparent manner is at stake. As they have been doing since 1983.
