The last post for US democracy?
Trump accused of trying to steal the election by sabotaging postal votes
DONALD Trump was yesterday accused of a ‘campaign to sabotage’ the next presidential election by starving the US postal service of funds.
It is claimed he is deliberately running down the service so millions of voters will not be able to use a postal ballot in the November election for the White House.
Democrats have thrown down the gauntlet and, in a highly unusual step, the US House of Representatives is being called back early from summer recess to block the president’s plan.
Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants politicians to vote on a bill that would protect the US postal service from having a huge chunk of support being withdrawn.
Mr Trump claims he is cutting funding because of the risk of fraud in postal votes.
Analysts say his chances of losing the election will increase with a higher turnout. It is estimated around half of voters will prefer a postal vote rather than going to a ballot box while the coronavirus pandemic continues.
In a letter to Democratic politicians, Mrs Pelosi also called on her colleagues to appear at a post office in their local district today for a co-ordinated protest.
‘In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is election central. Americans should not have to choose between their health and their vote,’ she wrote.
The legislation being prepared for the vote in the Democrat-controlled House would prohibit the postal service from making any changes to the services it had in place on January 1 this year.
Customers and politicians have complained about its distinctive blue mail boxes disappearing from streets since major Republican donor Louis DeJoy was appointed by Mr Trump as postmaster general in June.
The Postal Service said it will stop removing the boxes until the outcome of the vote and an emergency hearing to take place in Congress next week. Mr Trump said last week he was blocking a $25billion emergency cash injection sought by the Postal Service to help with processing an expected surge of postal ballots, known as ‘mail-in’ votes in the US. He acknowledged in an interview that he wants to stop what he called the ‘scam’ of mail-in voting. Mr Trump has repeated unsupported claims that increased mailin voting will undermine the credibility of the election.
Yesterday, two Democrat congressmen called on the FBI to investigate whether Mr DeJoy may have committed a crime in slowing the mail. They cited reports that mail-sorting machines were being dismantled and other delaying mechanisms being put in place.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost out to Joe Biden as Democrat presidential candidate, said: ‘What you are witnessing is a President... doing everything he can to suppress the vote.’
‘Suppress the vote’