TAKE CARE TO MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS

President Donald Trump’s un-american effort to promote doubts about the safety and propriety of voting by mail — combined with unprecedented reports in August that the U.S. Postal Service had taken steps to slow mail delivery nationwide — have made voters more worried than ever about the sanctity of the Nov. 3 — or perhaps any — election.

These events prompted a longtime reader to reach out to The San Diego Union-tribune to ask the newspaper to comment on election-related issues to address public anxieties. Here goes.

First, will final presidential results be known the night of the election, as Trump has said is unlikely?

On this, Trump might be right. Perhaps we should think about Election Day as Election Month. There are about a dozen states that appear to be toss-ups, and many states, like California, can take weeks to finish counting. But it is also true that in the last 50 years, only one presidential election — 2000 — was genuinely in doubt late on Election Day on the West Coast. In 2016, despite Trump losing the popular vote, it was clear he would win the Electoral College within hours after voting ended in the Golden State. State elections that take more a month to resolve — like Florida in 2000 — remain rare.

How about: Will the U.S. Postal Service be overwhelmed by ramped-up mail voting with several states, including California, sending every voter an absentee ballot to reduce the risks of in-person voting during a pandemic? And can Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis Dejoy — a Republican businessman and fundraiser with no relevant experience — be trusted to heed an order from a federal judge to stop his monkey-wrenching of deliveries?

Both questions are easy to answer. Even with Dejoy’s heavy-handed moves, there is simply no historical basis to think mail voting will be beyond the capacity of the Postal Service. In 2016, 138 million Americans voted in person and via mail in the presidential race. Even a 100 percent vote by mail wouldn’t rock an agency that handles on average 1 billion pieces of first-class mail a week. Especially because most states allow people to start sending absentee ballots in weeks before the election, it is incomprehensible that increased absentee voting will bring the Postal Service to its knees.

Should Dejoy be trusted? No. But there isn’t an army of Trump partisan hacks in the postal bureaucracy waiting to pull off the conspiracy the president seems to want. Vote early and your vote will arrive.

In an interview with an editorial writer, San Diego County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu didn’t hesitate. “I have all confidence” that the USPS would be able to deal with absentee voting, he said. Voters can sign up to track their mail ballot at wheresmyballot.sos.ca.gov. And if county voters don’t feel comfortable trusting their ballot to the Postal Service, there will be 126 places where people can drop off their ballots. More information is available at sdvote.com.

More than 1 million absentee ballots will soon be sent to county voters. To minimize any anxieties, voters should complete their forms as soon as possible and promptly mail them in or personally drop them off. Yes, the integrity of the election system is under unprecedented attack. Nevertheless, in San Diego, as elsewhere, it appears intact. Please vote.