The U.S. Postal Service sent letters to 46 states and Washington, D.C. warning that it cannot guarantee that mailed-in ballots for the November election will arrive in time to be counted. The Washington Post got the letter through a records request. The letters were sent at the end of July from Thomas J. Marshall, general counsel and executive vice president of the Postal Service, but were planned before Louis DeJoy, Trump campaign donor and willing lackey, got his appointment in June, according to the Post. (Here's the letter sent to Minnesota's Security of State Steve Simon on July 29.)
Seven states, with a total of 40 million voters, got a narrow warning saying that for some voters, ballots could be delayed. But 40 other states—representing 186 million voters and including the battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida—got the more serious warning "that their long-standing deadlines for requesting, returning or counting ballots were 'incongruous' with mail service and that voters who send ballots in close to those deadlines may become disenfranchised." Some states have scrambled to move their deadlines, either bringing forward deadlines for requesting and casting ballots or setting deadlines for when the ballots have to be received and to begin tabulating them. This opens states up to legal challenges, which we've already seen the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (they're basically one and the same) undertake. There are now some 60 suits in at least two dozen states over the issue of mail-in voting. Republicans are suing in Pennsylvania and Nevada to stop the states from setting up drop boxes for ballots. They're suing to retain strict photo ID and signature requirements for absentee ballots. They're suing to make sure getting a ballot to the elections office on time is as onerous for people as possible.
Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 9:19:11 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
The Inspector General for the Postal Service confirmed to CNN Friday that it is conducting a review of “policy changes recently imposed under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and is also examining DeJoy's compliance with federal ethics rules.” The investigation was requested by Sen. Elizabeth Warren. As of 5:18 EDT, Friday, Trump hasn’t fired this IG.
And they're sabotaging the Postal Service. Even removing mail boxes from the blue areas of red states, in this case Montana, where the blue boxes have been disappearing from the state's college towns and most populated areas, like some in Missoula "[a]cross from the center of University of Montana," and "[d]owntown in front of a large senior citizen living facility and several office buildings."
Vice News has also reported on Postal Service internal documents it obtained outlining existing plans to slow down the mail sorting process by removing sorting machines. The Postal Service originally proposed removing 20% of the machines but revised the plan down to 15%, taking 502 out of service according to the document Motherboard received. One document is dated May 15, suggesting that the plan was in the works before DeJoy took the position. But those documents are not reflective of how this is playing out, according to the Post.
They've obtained a grievance filed by the American Postal Workers Union that says the Postal Service has removed 671 mail sorting machines from across the country since June, concentrated in high-population areas. That represents a reduction in national mail sorting capacity of 21.4 million pieces of mail per hour. But the Vice disclosures make it clear that the plan to start hobbling the Postal Service has been in the works for months—DeJoy just stepped in to carry it all out. And then some. It's hard to know whether the warning from Marshall, the general counsel, to the states was a genuine attempt to save this election or an effort to stoke more panic.
What is clear, though, is that this requires immediate action from across the board—from state AGs to try to get injunctions to stop this interference with the mail (a federal offense, by the way) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who could start immediate investigations and impeachment proceedings against DeJoy. Waiting until Sept. 17 to have him come to the House for a hearing on all this is not acceptable.
