Trump Says Election Rigged: Maybe by Him, GOP, USPS, and Foreign Actors

Early & Voting by Mail New Records

(That is a very good sign for us all)

Safe & Secure System and Reliable Ballot Counting

(Paramount to Public Trust)

Short introduction from CNN (August 15, 2020) in part here:

A lot of people have concerns about mail-in voting like whether or not the USPS is or will sabotage mail delivery, if “our vote will count,” and what about the state of American democracy in general during and after this 2020 election cycle. 

Fact: Voting by mail is actually very secure, despite what President Trump has said and continue to say (e.g., it’s rigged). 

However, if people don't trust that their votes will be counted, that's a full-blown crisis of our democracy. 

With millions of Americans turning to mail-in voting, many for the first time, because of the coronavirus pandemic, that means doubts about the ability of the USPS to deliver mail equal doubts about the whole election.

Now, this update as of October 31. 

Right on schedule and according to Trump's plan ... bet on it... mail-in ballots under fire and below is some background showing why Trump is pulling out his hair in rage: Trump is looking to the courts to prevent states from counting mail-in ballots that don’t arrive until after Election Day, which would overturn the long-standing practices of nearly half the states and represent a fundamental shift in how U.S. elections are decided.

Trump vented his disapproval of a Supreme Court ruling the day before that allows state officials in NC to extend the counting of mail-in ballots up to nine days after Election Day, so long as those ballots were mailed & postmarked by November 3. The postmark is stamped on mail by USPS that indicates when it was processed.

My Opinion: Good USSC ruling for NC – a ruling that all states should take to ease any uncertainty, e.g., properly signed ballots, properly sealed, and postmarked before Election Day verified by USPS bar code, etc., that should be the national standard. 

NC is one of 22 states, plus DC, where mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day are counted if they are postmarked by that day. 

In contrast, 28 states require that ballots need to be received on or before Election Day to be counted.

This potentially poses a 2020 problem, and one that Trump wishes for.

The coronavirus pandemic has driven a dramatic surge in mail-in and early voting by Americans reluctant to brave crowded polling sites on Election Day. States like HI and TX have surpassed the total number of votes cast in the 2016 election and other states are likely to follow.

Yet, millions of mail-in ballots sent to key battleground states have yet to be received by election boards. Making matters worse, USPS data shows absentee ballots in swing states are taking longer to be delivered, with more 1 in 10 postmarked ballots not being delivered within a three-day window (Washington Post report).

My 2 cents: Time is running out as Election Day and state-established deadlines for ballots to be in their possession so the focus remains on in-person voting and more importantly how the USPS handles the mail-in ballots and especially in view of PMG Louis DeJoy’s public statement re: retooling the entire USPS system and the fallout around that.

More on PMG DeJoy (Washington Post): He started right off the bat calling off a major restructuring and cost-cutting agenda. 

Service immediately nosedived: In five weeks after DeJoy’s orders took effect, more than 7% of the first-class mail was delayed (analysis from Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI office).

DeJoy implemented a stricter transportation schedule to crack down on late and extra dispatch and delivery trips, mechanisms crucial to timely service. 

He sought to cut 64 million work hours, or nearly two-and-a-half week’s worth of work, based on weekly payroll summaries filed to the Postal Regulatory Commission. 

His delays sparked a flurry of lawsuits amid concerns they could undermine an election in which an estimated 198 million Americans were eligible to vote by mail. Federal Courts in NY, PA, WA, and DC all blocked DeJoy from pursuing those changes. They ordered USPS to take extraordinary measures to restore service and delivery ballot mail.

Chief Judge Stanley A. Bastian of the Eastern District of WA ordered USPS to reconnect high-speed mail sorting machines (more than 700 of which were mothballed over the summer). Many of those machines were disassembled or used for scrap, but of the ones that remained serviceable, Judge Bastian commanded DeJoy to allow local managers to decide whether to reinstall them.

Plus, now several the mixed USSC rulings, which also is what Trump is counting on now with a clear 6-3 GOP-leaning court to give him another Bush v. Gore 2000 outcome that we saw in FL.

So, stay tuned and alert. 

Thanks for stopping by.