Re: Why Trump fears mail-in ballots

On Saturday, August 1, 2020 at 1:36:50 PM UTC-7, why mail-in ballots scare him wrote:
> Because mail-in ballots mean the voters can cast their votes avoiding gerrymandering and voter suppression by the party that wants to hold onto power.
(snip)


Yep, he's taking some desperate measures to stop the mail-in ballot system.  I had visions of him sending in his secret, camouflaged, federal agents to steal post boxes from every city in every state.  But this is how he's trying to do it:
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New postal policies that are slowing service may affect 2020 mail-in voting, union leader says

 (CNN)New, recently implemented US Postal Service procedures -- which have led to delays across the country in mail delivery -- could affect mail-in voting for the November election, a union leader warned.

The American Post Workers Union's president, Mark Dimondstein, told CNN in an interview Friday that the union has received a number of reports from postal workers and customers over the last two weeks that mail delivery has slowed and "degraded." The union represents more than 200,000 Postal Service employees and retirees.

Dimondstein said it's been "demoralizing and upsetting" to the workers who have continued to work throughout the pandemic.

He told CNN that while postal workers are capable of handling voting by mail, "obviously if the postal management is putting in policies to slow down the mail, then that has an impact on everything, including ballots."

"The states run elections, not the Postal Service. But the Postal Service is here to move those ballots. And when mail gets slowed down, it becomes a concern everywhere," Dimondstein said.

The new procedures for the USPS were laid out in a memo earlier this month and come under the leadership of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a longtime Donald Trump supporter and fundraiser, who stepped into his role in June.

Trump has been a vocal critic of several states' expanding mail-in voting, despite using that option to cast his own ballot. As he currently trails his 2020 rival Joe Biden in the polls, Trump claimed on Thursday that delays processing the mail-in votes would undermine the legitimacy of the November 3 election and suggested delaying it, though the power to set the election date lies with Congress. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud associated with vote by mail.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that bins of mail otherwise ready for delivery have been left in post offices due to the scheduling and route changes, and letter carriers are sorting more mail themselves, increasing the delivery time. US Rep. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, last week wrote to DeJoy, saying that his constituents have been experiencing delivery delays for more than three days.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/31/politics/usps-mail-in-voting-2020-election/index.html
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Stacey Abrams says Trump is trying to 'steal the vote' by undermining the US Postal Service

Stacey Abrams accused President Donald Trump of trying to indirectly rig the election by "undermining" the US Postal Service, which could play an outsize role this November as millions of Americans are forced to vote by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We will not be able to effectively count the votes of every eligible American because he's doing his best to undermine our confidence in the process, but worst he's doing best to actually steal the vote by undermining the postal service," Abrams told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday.

The USPS is facing a major financial crisis during the coronavirus pandemic and has said it could run out of money as soon as September unless Congress bails it out.

But Trump rejected a federal relief package that would rescue the USPS, and his newly appointed postmaster general Louis DeJoy, has reportedly ordered significant cost-cutting measures, which Abrams said could prevent votes from being delivered in time to be counted.