WILL TRUMP’S POSTAL ‘SABOTAGE’ STEAL YOUR VOTE?

Trailing in the polls by double digits, Donald Trump and his administration are trying to strangle the U.S. Postal Service so that voters afraid of the COVID-19 pandemic have diminished odds of getting an absentee or mail-in ballot delivered to them and returned by mail in time for their vote to be counted in the November general election.

Trump has made no secret about it. Almost daily, he says mail-in voting is “bad” and falsely claims it’s prone to fraud. He has accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the election. He has made it clear he may not accept the vote. He is doing everything he can to plant the seed of doubt in voters’ minds that the outcome of the election may be “rigged.” He is projecting onto his opposition and Democrats all the ways in which he himself is trying to abort the American right to vote.

Joe Biden’s lead has been durable over the past few months and, according a new Washington post-ABC poll, there’s a clear reason: Americans remain broadly concerned about the novel coronavirus pandemic and also think Trump’s response to the pandemic has been insufficient.

In fact, according to the poll, about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they’re worried they or their families might contract the coronavirus — and a fifth of that group say they plan to vote for Biden. Looking only at GOP voters, the figure is 1 in 6. Among all Americans, a whopping 85% don’t think the virus is under control (even twothirds of Republicans) — a view government experts share.

That’s where absentee and mail-in voting comes into play. With a record 75% of Americans having varying degrees of access to vote absentee or by mail in 2020, a desperate Trump administration is trying to hobble the Postal Service. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major GOP fundraiser and donor to Donald Trump, is citing “efficiency” gains as his reasoning for cutting overtime and ordering mail left uncollected and undelivered. Trump says he will not increase funding for an emergency pandemic election mail crunch.

Now two Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Monday urged the FBI director to open a criminal investigation into the mail delays and seek postal leaders’ testimony next week.

“There is overwhelming evidence that Postmaster General DeJoy and the [Postal Service’s] Board of Governors have hindered the passage of mail,” wrote Reps. Ted W. Lieu of California and Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “At least 19 mail sorting machines, which can process 35,000 pieces of mail per hour, have been dismantled and over 671 are slated for reductions later this year.”

Meanwhile, expecting a deluge of absentee mail-in ballots come November, U.S. Postal Service General Counsel Thomas

J. Marshall has warned election officials in 46 states — including Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama — that the agency can’t guarantee coronavirus-weary voters their mail-in ballots will arrive in time to be counted in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

His July 29 letter to Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett, one of dozens of similar letters sent to states obtained by The Washington Post, cautioned that Tennessee election law timelines for mail-in ballots appear “incompatible” with both the Postal Service’s delivery standards and its recommended time frame to ensure on-time delivery.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday said the House will cut short its summer recess to consider legislation that would counter the “sabotage” at the Postal Service.

Certainly secure ballot drop boxes might help on Election Day and the early voting days leading up to it, but Tennessee law requires ballots to be returned by mail. Hargett recently told the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration that Tennessee doesn’t allow drop boxes for fear voters might be pressured to vote a certain way.

“If someone knows you have got an absentee ballot, they can say, ‘Hey I will be glad to take that for you and drop that off for you.’ They can ask to watch you fill that ballot out or they cannot turn it in at all for you,” Hargett said. “We believe it’s a great security measure to have someone returning their own ballot by the United States Postal Service.”

Unless the mail isn’t running. Then that drop box is the next — and free — best thing to a drive-up mail box.

Of course, in our super-majority GOP General Assembly, there’s virtually no chance that Republican Gov. Bill Lee would call a second special session just to get that no-drop box law changed by November.

Perhaps this is another time for a lawsuit to force Tennessee’s hand, as happened when our legal restrictions limiting absentee voting mostly to voters over 60 were swept aside by a Nashville judge who ruled in June that Tennessee must allow all registered voters the option to cast an absentee ballot in light of the pandemic. Tennessee absentee voting doubled in the primaries.

Hargett and Attorney General Herbert Slatery fought back, taking the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court with a compromise, telling justices they were prepared to offer absentee ballots to voters who have health conditions or live with someone at risk for COVID-19. With that offer, justices’ overturned the lower court’s ruling that there be an absentee mail ballot option for all eligible voters in November.

And now the mail is being forced to a crawl.

Folks, this is not rocket science. Voting is an American right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

We must demand that our officials get it together.