The Postal Service, including recently appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, have come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks as the November presidential election nears.

“It is not funded. It is a service, not a profit-making thing,” said Lamont Wager. “As a service, you don’t ask the military if they are making a profit, why are you asking the post office if they are making a profit? It is crazy. It provides a service to the people, and we are paying our taxes so we should get it.”

On Tuesday Wager, a military veteran, visited the Jamestown post office in order to pick up medicine provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“That is another service that they provide, I don’t have any other way to get it,” Wager said.

With regards to the Postal Service handling ballots in the November election, Wager was optimistic.

“It could be done if the post office is fully staffed and the boxes are there, and they give people enough time,” Wager said. “In Washington state, they have been doing it for years with no problem. They have drop off boxes, you can drop it off at the polling places. Some are mail-in only and they are doing fine.”

According to Reuters, 1 in 4 voters cast ballots through the mail in 2016.

Local resident Mark Nelson, who was also visiting the post office on Tuesday, prefers to do his voting in person.

“I always (vote) in person. It is a right, it is a privilege and it is the way I’m going to do it. I won’t mail in,” Nelson said. “I don’t think it always gets there, and that is taking nothing from anybody (at the post office). When you vote you know it is there. When you mail it in–when was the last time you might have mailed something and it never got there?”

Like Wager, Nelson does not think of the Postal Service in terms of profit.

“It is a service, it is the U.S. post office, so I don’t think of it as a money maker. It should break even, but its not,” he said. “I don’t know why, they continue to raise the price of stamps up, so you would think the service would pay for itself but apparently it isn’t. I’m not sure why.”

Several residents reported that they had not been following developments with the postal service closely.

State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, issues a press release Tuesday urging state officials to refrain from implementing any changes to the voting process in November, citing concerns over the “chaos and delays that marred the primary.”

“As we look ahead to the general election on November 3rd and the exponentially higher turnout of presidential election years, there is great concern that the voting process in New York could be even more chaotic than the primary if there is an attempt to enact eleventh-hour changes to the process,” Borrello said. “All of the election professionals that testified, without exception, stated that there simply isn’t enough time to successfully implement broad directives such as mailing all eligible voters absentee ballot applications.

Even if the state had extra funds to accompany any such initiatives–which it doesn’t –our election infrastructure can’t be changed before Nov. 3.”

DeJoy will appear before the Senate on Friday to testify on recent changes made at the United States Postal Service, and address concerns about the potential impact on November’s election.

According to Reuters, DeJoy will testify before the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee as well as the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday.

A report by the Associated Press states, “The crisis at the Postal Service has erupted as a major election year issue as DeJoy, a Trump ally who took control of the agency in June, has swiftly engineered cuts and operational changes that are disrupting mail delivery operations and raising alarms among workers.”

On Monday, several candidates for public office sued President Trump, the Postal Service and DeJoy in Manhattan federal court in order to ensure adequate funding for postal operations.

That lawsuit alleges that Trump and DeJoy are trying to ensure the Postal Service cannot reliably deliver election mail, and seeks a court order to force adequate funding of the Postal Service prior to the election, according to the Associated Press.

On Tuesday afternoon, DeJoy announced that the organization was suspending operational changes until after the November election.