This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated September 4, 2020
An election during a pandemic will require many to vote by mail. President Trump may claim that it is rife with fraud, but evidence over many years shows that to be untrue. He knows that he cannot win if more Americans vote.
Trump recently bragged that by blocking $25 billion in funding to the Postal Service, it will hinder people’s ability to vote and help his election chances. A Pennsylvania Judge recently asked his campaign for evidence of mail-in ballot fraud after they sued to prohibit vote-by-mail drop boxes in the state. The campaign’s 524-page response could not cite one instance of fraud.
Judge in Pennsylvania asked Trump campaign to provide evidence of mail-in ballot fraud after it sued to prevent state from using drop boxes for mail voting
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) August 20, 2020
In 524 pages Trump campaign couldn't cite a single instance of mail-in voting fraud https://t.co/rjYvOopkog
Palm Beach County, where the Trumps officially reside, uses drop boxes where ballots can be cast. The Trumps requested absentee ballots to vote in August’s Florida primary and submitted those ballots to a third party to turn in, a practice he refers to as “ballot harvesting.” Florida allows anyone to request an absentee ballot for any reason and voters can designate someone to pick up their ballot for them.
Without any evidence, Trump constantly rails that all of the mail-in voting policies mentioned above lead to mass fraud, while never criticizing them in his home state and personally taking advantage of most of them to cast his own ballot. If the U.S. mail is so susceptible to fraud, why did the president mail millions of $1200 checks to Americans a few months ago.
In addition to his false fraud claims, Trump has set out to break the means by which mail-in voting relies: The United States Postal Service. The position of Postmaster General has always been non-political, but in early May, Louis DeJoy assumed the role, despite millions of dollars in donations to Republican Candidates and Trump-related campaign entities. DeJoy has no experience with the Postal Service and he and his wife have between $30-$75 million in assets of direct competitors to the USPS.
USPS has started reducing post office operating hours across several states and removing letter collection boxes, according to union officials.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 15, 2020
Officials say that in the last week the USPS removed collection boxes in New York, Oregon, Montana and Indiana. https://t.co/kzPYEj0FZU
Throughout August, the removal or locking of blue mailboxes began in large numbers. Post office operating hours were reduced in several states. Overtime was slashed and strict schedules instituted, leading to trucks often leaving nearly empty.
Then it was confirmed that 671 mail sorting machines across the country, with a total sorting capacity of 21.4 million pieces of mail per hour, had been removed since June without any reason given. That is about 10 percent of all such equipment. Reductions were concentrated in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin, all key swing states in the upcoming election.
Shortly after DeJoy said he wanted to "avoid even the appearance" that any policies would slow election mail, USPS instructed all maintenance managers around the country not to reconnect or reinstall any mail sorting machines they had already disconnected. https://t.co/KPoNIIRXI4
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 21, 2020
Explanations for these actions have been hard to come by, with “cost-saving measures” being the only one provided. Unplugging or even throwing out, as has been captured on video, machines that sort millions of pieces of mail per hour so that postal workers now must do it by hand, does not save money.
A decision to treat election mail as marketing mail for the first time ever, as opposed to first-class mail, has since been reversed. DeJoy testified before Congress on Aug 24 that the removal of sorting machines will stop, but he clearly stated that he will not resume use of the 671 machines he has removed.
Internal Postal Service documents show that service has slowed exponentially since these drastic changes were implemented. Seniors and Veterans are not getting their prescriptions on time. Now, some Americans are complaining that the US Mail needs to turn a profit and that we cannot rely on it to vote, meaning the intentional sabotage is having its desired effect.
“In addition to his false fraud claims, Trump has set out to break the means by which mail-in voting relies: The United States Postal Service.”
The Postal Service is a service, not a business. It is required by the Constitution. Over 100,000 of their employees, nearly 20% of their entire workforce, are Veterans.
Mailing a birthday card from coast to coast in 3 days via FedEx costs $26, as opposed to 55 cents with the USPS. Even if every eligible voter in the country voted by mail, it would only be a 0.16% increase in the Postal Service’s volume.
Impeding the delivery of the mail is a federal crime and the intentional obstruction coming from the leader of the Postal Service is the only significant case of fraud related to mail-in voting we will see this election cycle.
