08/14/20
Donald Trump Can Do More Than Attack Post Office Funding. He’s Mounting A Legal War Against Mailed Ballots.
The president’s attack on the U.S. Postal Service presages a legal fight to stop absentee ballots from being counted.
President Donald Trump stunned even hardened observers when he admitted on national television Thursday morning that he would not agree to additional U.S. Postal Service funding because it would make mail-in balloting easier.
“Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he said. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”
Later Thursday, Vice reported that the Postal Service is removing machines that sort mail ― including ballots ― from offices without an explanation, further raising alarms that Trump will degrade the post office to hurt mail-in voting.
But starving the Postal Service of funding is just one tool at the president’s disposal to slow or stop the counting of ballots sent by mail. Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are already engaged in litigation to prevent voters from easily casting absentee or mail-in ballots. In Pennsylvania, they are trying to block the implementation of ballot drop boxes ― curbside boxes where voters can drop their absentee ballots to be picked up by election officials. In California, the RNC tried to stop the mailing of ballots to all voters, but failed. And the Trump campaign is also challenging a new Nevada law that would mail ballots to all active voters.
Trump administration figures are also discussing potential executive actions that could curb mail-in balloting in an effort to undermine democratic elections, according to Politico. These include directing the Postal Service not to deliver mailed ballots and ordering state officials to stop counting absentee ballots on Election Day, even though the president doesn’t have legal authority to do either of these things.
The plot is simple: Trump hopes to emerge from Election Day with a slim lead, but with millions of absentee ballots still left to count. Then he will fight tooth and nail to stop those ballots, which he has long painted as “fraudulent,” from ever being counted.
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