President Trump, Mail-in Voting and Funding for the US Postal Service
Bizarre as it sounds President Trump wants to block increased funding for the US Postal Service so that Americans cannot vote by mail in the Presidential election in November during this period of the Covid 19 pandemic. To make it more convoluted the President and his wife just asked the battleground state of Florida for their own mail-in ballots.
Establishing the Postal Service is one of the key responsibilities assigned to Congress by the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7. Founding father, Benjamin Franklin was the nation’s first Postmaster General, appointed by the Continental Congress in 1775 at a salary of $1,000. It was one of the first and most important institutions knitting the colonies together as a new nation; it facilitated our commerce and communication.
The postal service is now the third largest civilian workforce in the US. It has a monopoly on the delivery of first and third class mail. Its revenues have been growing for packages and declining for letters due to the growth of the Internet and texting and e-commerce; overall it was $5 billion in the red for the second quarter of 2020. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/0508-usps-reports-second-quarter-fiscal-2020-results.htm The same patterns continued in the third quarter where the USPS was $2 billion in the red; USPS delivered 12 billion pieces of first class mail and 2 billion packages in the quarter. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/0807-usps-reports-third-quarter-fiscal-2020-results.htm
Congress approved a $10 billion loan from the US Treasury to the USPS in the CARES Act for its operating expenses deficit. Negotiations with Treasury concluded as of the end of July. The new Postmaster General, a major Trump donor, Louis Dejoy, has been shaking things up at USPS, resulting in a sharp slow down of mail deliveries. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-administration-postal-service-elections/index.html Today, USPS warned 46 states that it would not be able to deliver mail in ballots in a timely fashion for November’s election. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/512086-postal-service-warns-46-states-mail-ballots-may-not-be-delivered-in-time-to
Why on earth would President Trump and his appointees add interference with the most universally respected and valued component of the federal government to their laundry list of failures to govern effectively? According to a recent NPR poll, the President is now trailing Joe Biden 53/42. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/14/902265017/poll-biden-expands-lead-a-third-of-country-says-it-wont-get-vaccinated In the same poll, Trump voters indicated their intent to vote in person vs. mail in balloting by a 72/24 margin. In the reverse image, Democratic voters intend to vote by mail, rather than in person by a 62/36 margin. That’s why!
Some states are already being proactive about the prospects of mail delays by developing convenient drop boxes for mail in voters who want to drop off their ballots, rather than take risks with USPS. I voted this way in the presidential primary in March; it was a breeze once I found the drop box. Hard as it may be to contemplate let alone believe, the Trump campaign and the RNC are suing states like Pennsylvania to prohibit convenient and secure ballot drop boxes. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901066396/ballot-drop-boxes-become-latest-front-in-voting-legal-fights
I increasingly believe the federal courts are going to have to intervene to prevent Trump’s massive efforts at voter suppression; maybe the USPS will need to be in some measure of receivership to insulate it from Donald Trump until after the November election is over. What good are our constitutionally enshrined voter protections under the 14th, 19th and 26th amendments if Trump and his minions can rig the elections machinery with the same ease and impunity as a Putin or Lukashenko?
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 8/14/20