Allow Postal Service to deliver for voters
The United States Postal Service was around at the start of American democracy. Its latest mission is to save American democracy.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our country has lost 175,000 fellow Americans. Other victims include millions of business owners and workers.
Now the pandemic threatens the Nov. 3 general election. In Florida and elsewhere, the virus likely won’t be under control in time for many people to have confidence about voting in person. On Tuesday, roughly 2.2 million people voted by mail in the statewide primary, about one million more than in 2016.
So in Washington and Tallahassee, the goal should be to make mail-in voting as easy as possible. Doing so would depend on helping elections offices handle a surge of mail-in ballots and giving the Postal Service money to deliver ballots as quickly as possible.
For weeks, however, President Trump has repeatedly lied that voting by mail invites rampant fraud and a “rigged election.” Trump has become more hysterical and fact-challenged on the subject as polls show him trailing Joe Biden.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a megadonor to the president and the Republican Party — has become the president’s co-conspirator. Dejoy, who got the job in June, banned overtime and removed mailboxes and sorting machines. If continued, those actions would prevent the Postal Service from meeting the demand for mailin ballots.
What could that mean? Daniel Smith, an elections specialist at the University of Florida, notes that four years ago in Florida’s general election, 90,000 mail-in ballots arrived on Election Day, the deadline. Eighty thousand more came a day earlier. “Even a slight delay this year,” Smith wrote on Twitter, “could lead to massive disenfranchisement.”
This month, the Postal Service’s general counsel warned Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee of a “mismatch” between when the state allows people to submit mail-in ballots and the USPS’s ability to deliver them. That warning also went to 45 other states.
Trump, who votes by mail, has speculated that mailboxes could be robbed and states might send ballots only to Democrats. His hundreds of comments questioning the legitimacy of a mail-in election — if he loses — sound as if they came from the Russian operatives who want Trump to win.
In fact, George W. Bush’s Justice Department found that vote-by-mail fraud almost never happens. It’s also easy to detect, as happened in 2018 with a Republican who ran for Congress in North Carolina. In May, postal workers flagged bundles of invalid ballots in a New Jersey city council race.
During this extraordinary time, expanded voting by mail is the best way to ensure that all votes get counted. That depends on giving the Postal Service all necessary resources. Instead, Trump wants to hobble it.
Ironically, the actions of a Democrat gave Trump his opportunity. In 2015, as he was beginning to campaign for the presidency, Sen. Bernie Sanders decided to oppose President Obama’s five nominees to the Postal Service board. Sanders believed that the nominees would try to cut costs and service, especially in rural areas like his home state of Vermont.
After Sanders blocked a vote, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shelved the nominations for the remainder of Obama’s term. Other board members left when their terms expired. Not long after Trump took office, all of the nine presidentially appointed seats were vacant.
Though the board generally has been non-partisan, Trump named Robert Duncan chairman. Duncan is a former Republican National Committee chairman and chaired a super PAC that raised money for Trump.
After naming the required Democrats, Trump had a 4-2 majority on the board. His appointees then approved Trump’s choice of DeJoy as postmaster general. The deputy general position is vacant.
DeJoy told a Senate committee Friday that the Postal Service will prioritize ballots. We’re skeptical. DeJoy quickly forced out or reassigned two dozen USPS executives. His supposed cost-cutting delayed mail, making life harder for Social Security recipients awaiting their checks and veterans awaiting their prescriptions.
House Democrats included $25 billion for the Postal Service in their HEROES Act. With Senate Republicans refusing to act on a second COVID-19 relief bill, the House will vote today on just the Postal Service money. Speaker Nancy Pelosi correctly questions whether DeJoy actually will rescind some of those new policies, as he promised to do.
Broward County Supervisor of Elections Peter Antonacci said his office barely was able to deal with the 13,000 mail-in ballots that arrived on Election Day. “We have to be much better,” he said, for the Nov. 3 general election.
Turnout could be triple that of the primary, which was 26 percent. His office already has sent out 500,000 ballots. That’s almost half the voters in the county.
Antonacci believes that many voters will embrace mail-in voting even after the pandemic. That could be another reason to question what DeJoy said will be many more changes for the Postal Service next year.
This November, however, it is clear that many Americans are as passionate about safety as they are about voting. Congress should give the Postal Service emergency money. Gov. Ron DeSantis should stop urging people to vote at the polls and streamline systems for counting ballots. Voters should send ballots early and check on their status.
There will be time next year for larger questions about mail and package delivery. In 2020, democracy depends on the Postal Service functioning through snow, rain, heat, gloom of night — and national pandemic.