Trump - US Post Office - Mail in Ballots ISSUE Thread

[TGHusker]

I thought this issue was worthy of its own thread.  I think this will become the 'scandal' of this election cycle - although with Trump there can be many more before the election.  Trump is trying to cast doubt on the election and on  mail in ballots specifically on one side and he is working the other side to insure that the post office cannot deliver.  

 

Perhaps we can keep USPO issues on this thread while posting other "normal' (yea nothing is normal this year) campaign/election news on the main 2020 election thread. 

 

Here is a sampling of articles today

USPO DEFUNDING
https://news.yahoo.com/chaos-confusion-cost-cutting-turmoil-210307565.html

Quote

 

The United States Postal Service has possibly never been more important, or more embattled.

The 245-year-old organization has faced years of derision from President Trump. And as the election nears with his prospects uncertain, Trump has intensified his unfounded claims against voting by mail and his institutional attacks on the government service charged with getting ballots to voters and back.

Election officials expect to send a record number of mail ballots to voters this fall, as states seek to avoid the spread of the deadly coronavirus at in-person polling places. But the more prominent role of the postal service, formed by the Second Continental Congress at the start of the Revolutionary War, comes as it weathers more serious challenges than snow, rain, heat or gloom of night.

The pandemic has led to staff shortages and a steep decline in letter mail, the most profitable part of the service, worsening its precarious financial situation. And now a close Trump ally and GOP donor put in charge of the agency has introduced unpopular policies that have delayed mail and raised concerns that voters won't get their ballots on time.

 

Members of Congress in both parties have called on the organization to reverse the changes, and Democrats have asked for an investigation into the motives and fallout of the policies. The moves have been portrayed as cost cutting at a struggling institution, but critics say the president and his allies are attempting to undermine faith in the postal service — which 91% of Americans view favorably — to suppress the November vote and, ultimately, to move one step closer to privatizing the organization.

 

 

 

SORTING MACHINES DEACTIVATED

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election

 

Quote

The United States Postal Service is removing mail sorting machines from facilities around the country without any official explanation or reason given, Motherboard has learned through interviews with postal workers and union officials. In many cases, these are the same machines that would be tasked with sorting ballots, calling into question promises made by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that the USPS has “ample capacity” to handle the predicted surge in mail-in ballots.

 

SWING STATE VOTES MAY NOT BE COUNTED

https://theweek.com/speedreads/931266/pennsylvania-ballots-might-not-delivered-time-counted-postal-service-warns

 

Quote

 

he United States Postal Service has warned that in Pennsylvania, some mail-in ballots may not be delivered in time to be counted this November.

In a July letter to Pennsylvania State Secretary Kathy Boockvar, USPS general counsel Thomas Marshall described the "risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted under your laws as we understand them," NBC News reports.

The USPS also described Pennsylvania's current deadlines as "incongruous with the Postal Service's delivery standards," per Axios. Voters in the swing state can request a mail-in ballot up to Oct. 27, and they have to be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day, according to The Hill.

But officials in the state are looking to extend the deadline to receive mail-in ballots three days, with Boockvar raising concern in a court filing that "voters who apply for mail-in ballots in the last week of the application period and return their completed ballot by mail will, through no fault of their own, likely be disenfranchised," CNN reports.

 

 

 

Obama speaks out: 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/obama-trump-trying-actively-kneecap-postal-service-affect-2020-election-n1236758

 

Quote

 

Former President Barack Obama, in an interview released Friday, slammed President Donald Trump for trying to “actively kneecap the Postal Service” to affect mail-in voting in the 2020 election and urged lawmakers and citizens to take actions to “protect the integrity” of the election.

Obama, speaking on the podcast of his former campaign manager David Plouffe, was responding to recent comments by Trump, who said earlier this week that holding up emergency funds for the U.S. Postal Service would ensure that the post office would be unable to “take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”

 

Obama, responding to those remarks, accused Republicans of having tried for years "to discourage people’s votes from counting in all kinds of ways,” like voter identification laws and gerrymandering, but said Trump’s threats were “unique to modern history.”

“What we've never seen before is a president say, ‘I'm going to try to actively kneecap the Postal Service to encourage voting, and I will be explicit about the reason I'm doing it.’ That's sort of unheard of, right?” Obama said. “And we also have not had an election in the midst of a pandemic that is still deadly and killing a lot of people.”

“So in that circumstance, the thing I'm most worried about is … how do we protect the integrity of the election process? How do we make sure that people's votes are counted? How do we police and monitor how state officials are setting up polling places and ensuring that every vote is counted?” he continued.

Trump has so far resisted congressional Democrats' efforts to add billions of dollars to the Postal Service budget to help fund the extra work needed to process more voting by mail as a result of the coronavirus pandemic — although he later suggested he would not veto such funding if it were part of the next coronavirus relief package.

 

 

[FrantzHardySwag]

Who is still voting for this clown? Making it harder for Americans to vote in a pandemic, and at the same taking away a necessary service for our elderly, small business owners and Vets.....what a piece of s#!t. 

[TGHusker]

1 hour ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Who is still voting for this clown? Making it harder for Americans to vote in a pandemic, and at the same taking away a necessary service for our elderly, small business owners and Vets.....what a piece of s#!t. 

Yes, it is becoming pretty apparent that Trump is the Mob Boss, He plays by Mob rules, And he will not vacate the WH unless he is soundly defeated. If he can't win, then he wants it so close he can call the election 'rigged' even though he and his russian buddies are doing the rigging.   

 

By the way, don't call him a clown - it is an insult to clowns who bring joy to a person's life and it raises him far about his natural state. 

Devil, mobster, monster, traitor are more appropriate descriptions. 

[Danny Bateman]

This map showing where they're removing sorting machines is pretty telling.

 

 

[mrandyk]

8 hours ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Who is still voting for this clown? Making it harder for Americans to vote in a pandemic, and at the same taking away a necessary service for our elderly, small business owners and Vets.....what a piece of s#!t. 

People who value a letter above any intrinsic values. It's a cult. Party above country.

[Danny Bateman]

In case you didn't believe me before, he's another version of the above map with red/blue areas overlaid.

I believe this is using 2016 election results by county. Note the concentration of circles around blue counties.

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

I believe this is new stuff regarding the Post Office.

 

Take it FWIW but it sure is looking increasingly unlikely Trump didn't know what was going on as he claims.

 

 

[TGHusker]

GOP Sen Lankford was on one of the local radio stations yesterday stating that the changes within the Post office were originally cost cutting measures started by Obama's admin.   Basically saying it is only 'coincidental' that what is happening now is happening just before an election.       Nice deflection but not believable. 

[TGHusker]

With lawyers like these, tRump's charges of ballot fraud has no chance in court. 

They are building their whole case not on historical evidence (which is virtually non-existent) but on  what

'could happen'.    Trump's lawyers reflect the type of brown nose ineptness displayed by the rest of his staff and by he, himself.

 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-campaign-lawsuit-pennsylvania-voting

Quote

 

Even in response to a federal judge, the Trump campaign was unable to provide evidence of voter fraud in its crusade against drop boxes in Pennsylvania.

 

Last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the campaign to show examples to back up their argument that drop boxes, where voters can deposit their ballots, will open the door to widespread voter fraud.

In their response, campaign lawyers declined to do so.

“Neither the original Complaint nor the Amended Complaint contains an allegation that ‘ballot harvesting,’ ‘manipulating and destroying ballots,’ double voting, and/or voter fraud from mail-in and absentee ballots actually occurred during the Primary Election,” the lawyers wrote.

“The claims asserted by the plaintiffs do not hinge on evidence of voter fraud actually occurring,” they added. The campaign argued that though it has no proof that fraud of this type has happened, it could — and that’s grounds enough for barring the boxes.

The campaign then loaded the 524-page document with articles about a handful of cases of voter fraud unrelated to mail-in voting or drop boxes.

 

 

Quote

 

The embarrassment is par for the course for the Trump campaign, which, led by President Donald Trump, frequently attacks mail-in voting as rife with widespread fraud. Experts of all stripes deny that assertion, and Trump himself often votes absentee.

He has openly admitted that he refused to negotiate on a COVID-19 relief package because it would fund the U.S. Postal Service and help the agency process mailed ballots this fall.

The Trump administration and campaign’s crusade against mail-in voting became a theme of the Democratic National Convention, where many power-brokers in the party urged voters to disregard his fear mongering and get their ballots in as early as possible.

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

It would appear the guy trying to destroy the Post Office is legitimately an experienced criminal.

 

 

[TGHusker]

On 9/6/2020 at 11:46 AM, Danny Bateman said:

It would appear the guy trying to destroy the Post Office is legitimately an experienced criminal.

 

 

Yes draining the swamp indeed.  It is just getting swampier - with some ugly swamp monsters

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/06/politics/dejoy-gop-fundraiser-contributions/index.html

 

[BigRedBuster]

I know nothing should shock me any more about this administration.....but.....this actually sort of blows my mind.