Wisconsin mail carrier accused of dumping GOP candidate mailers

NEENAH, Wis., Nov. 3 (UPI) -- A postal worker in Wisconsin is under investigation for allegedly dumping hundreds of campaign flyers rather than delivering them.

Nearly a thousand pieces of mail, primarily from the campaign of Republican Assembly candidate Mike Rohrkaste, were found in a dumpster at an apartment complex in Neenah, at town of 25,000 people on the north shore of Lake Winnebago, on Thursday.

In addition to Rohrkaste, who is running in the 55th Assembly District, some of the 879 pieces of mail were from state Sen. Glenn Grothman, running for the open seat in the 6th U.S. Congressional District, and mail supporting former State Rep. Roger Roth, running for state Senate in the 19th Wisconsin Senate District.

Robert Rukes, a special agent with the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General in Chicago, told the Wisconsin Reporter that a resident had witnessed the mail carrier dumping the flyers.

"Based upon our investigation, this was nothing done toward a specific candidate or party. It looks like it was a decision made by the carrier, and it was not a good decision," Rukes said of the preliminary investigation findings. "A lot of times, what happened in this situation, you have a carrier who felt overwhelmed with the volume of mail so they decided to discard some of the mail without delivering."

Rohrkaste said Neenah postal officials assured him the mailers were sent out as intended Friday.

"Maybe it was because the postal carrier doesn't like Republicans, maybe he (or she) just got tired of delivering campaign mailers," Rohrkaste said.