Stealing an election in broad daylight

link


Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s mail service, displacing the two top executives overseeing day-to-day operations, according to a reorganization memo released Friday. The shake-up came as congressional Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy and the cost-cutting measures that have slowed mail delivery and ensnared ballots in recent primary elections.

Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles.

The reshuffling threatens to heighten tensions between postal officials and lawmakers, who are troubled by delivery delays — the Postal Service banned employees from working overtime and making extra trips to deliver mail — and wary of the Trump administration’s influence on the Postal Service as the coronavirus pandemic rages and November’s election draws near.


American Prospect:

“The Postal Service has informed states that they’ll need to pay first-class 55-cent postage to mail ballots to voters, rather than the normal 20-cent bulk rate. That nearly triples the per-ballot cost at a time when tens of millions more will be delivered. The rate change would have to go through the Postal Regulatory Commission and, undoubtedly, litigation. But the time frame for that is incredibly short, as ballots go out very soon.”



If Biden wins the election, I hope he doesn't 'take the high road' and give a pass to his predecessor like so many other Presidents ( Hello, BHO).  There needs to be a day of reckoning for every one of these unAmerican scumbags.  Give K. Harris a mandate and let her give'em hell. 


I'm down for a scorched earth approach.


conflict of interest? what's that?




I would suggest that they aren't trying to "rig" the election, or steal it -- they are trying to create chaos and doubt over the result.  They want to say it's "rigged" and use that as a basis for lawsuits in dozens of states after Election Day.

And I'm coming to this conclusion because mail voting does NOT advantage Democrats.  Making it harder to vote by mail will likely suppress as many Republican votes as Democratic votes.  The whole plan is to **** up the process so badly that Trump can claim he didn't lose, regardless of the outcome.

It's going to be bad however this election turns out. Because even if Biden were to get 60% of the vote and win 38 states, Trump is going to file suits and try to get GOP legislatures to certify his electors.  it's going to be a shitshow.


ml1 said:

I would suggest that they aren't trying to "rig" the election, or steal it -- they are trying to create chaos and doubt over the result.


 I'm not sure there's much difference between the two.


drummerboy said:

 I'm not sure there's much difference between the two.

effectively "rigging" the election would give Trump a win.  And it would all be orderly and on the surface would appear to be a normal election.  With what they are doing it doesn't matter which candidate wins, and it won't likely be orderly or normal in any way.  And it carries great risk of undermining all elections across the country.  What they are seemingly planning is even more dangerous IMHO than trying to suppress votes and control the outcome.  What they appear to be doing would be blowing up the entire electoral process.


ml1 said:

drummerboy said:

 I'm not sure there's much difference between the two.

effectively "rigging" the election would give Trump a win.  And it would all be orderly and on the surface would appear to be a normal election.  With what they are doing it doesn't matter which candidate wins, and it won't likely be orderly or normal in any way.  And it carries great risk of undermining all elections across the country.  What they are seemingly planning is even more dangerous IMHO than trying to suppress votes and control the outcome.  What they appear to be doing would be blowing up the entire electoral process.

OK, but I would have to assume that the end game is for Trump to somehow remain in office. Otherwise why bother?

I'll answer that question myself - because our electoral process is just another institution necessary for democracy, that needs to be undermined. So that's why they bother. Just a desire for the wanton destruction  of democratic institutions.


Assuming Biden wins (and that is a big assumption -- 538 currently gives Trump a 29% chance, which is not small!), it sets us up for a very contentious, grinding, dispiriting era of active sabotage and attacks on the legitimacy of the government that will make McConnell's tactics in the Obama era look respectful and genteel in comparison. While I hope a Biden presidency makes strong progress on issues like climate change, health care, and nuclear non-proliferation, one of their biggest issues will be simply keeping the country together as a working concern amidst an escalating cold civil war.


PVW said:

Assuming Biden wins (and that is a big assumption -- 538 currently gives Trump a 29% chance, which is not small!), it sets us up for a very contentious, grinding, dispiriting era of active sabotage and attacks on the legitimacy of the government that will make McConnell's tactics in the Obama era look respectful and genteel in comparison. While I hope a Biden presidency makes strong progress on issues like climate change, health care, and nuclear non-proliferation, one of their biggest issues will be simply keeping the country together as a working concern amidst an escalating cold civil war.

I think this is probably why Biden was the best Dem candidate. A huge task for a Biden administration will be to undo the damage Trump has done to the government. Biden's long Senate history plus his 8 years as VP makes him the candidate with the deepest institutional knowledge. You can't put something back together if you don't know what it should look like in the first place.


regarding 538 - I think they had Trump at a 30% chance of winning in 2016 too.


drummerboy said:

regarding 538 - I think they had Trump at a 30% chance of winning in 2016 too.

 I don't remember the exact number (it was 20% in my mind, but could be wrong), but yeah -- 2016 was, among other things, a reminder that people really don't understand statistics. Myself included -- even though I knew, intellectually, that Trump had a real chance of winning, it was a real gut punch when he won. I hadn't really internalized what the numbers meant.


PVW said:

 I don't remember the exact number (it was 20% in my mind, but could be wrong), but yeah -- 2016 was, among other things, a reminder that people really don't understand statistics. Myself included -- even though I knew, intellectually, that Trump had a real chance of winning, it was a real gut punch when he won. I hadn't really internalized what the numbers meant.

 it's why it irritates me so much that it's "conventional" wisdom that the polls were wrong in 2016.  Undoubtedly some pundits' interpretations of the polls were way off.  The NYT analyst had Clinton with a greater than 90% chance of winning, and that was not supported by the polls.

Fivethirtyeight really nailed it if we look at it the way it was intended, which was as a probability.  They got the popular vote margin pretty close, and a more than 1 in 4 chance of Trump winning the Electoral College was fairly decent odds. And when we see what a needle he had to thread in three states to do it, it makes perfect sense.  If we re-voted that election 100 times, Trump would probably not have won more than 20% of the time.  Maybe less.


Meanwhile, if you want to avoid the USPS from mucking up voting, you can install multiple drop boxes across the state to avoid the postal system

Unless you're Rep. Secy of State in Ohio, who has banned more than one box per county.

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/08/ohio-secretary-of-state-frank-larose-no-extra-ballot-drop-boxes-for-november-election.html




thoughts from Jamelle Bouie on the subject

There’s no mystery about what President Trump intends to do if he holds a lead on election night in November. He’s practically broadcasting it.

First, he’ll claim victory. Then, having spent most of the year denouncing vote-by-mail as corrupt, fraudulent and prone to abuse, he’ll demand that authorities stop counting mail-in and absentee ballots. He’ll have teams of lawyers challenging counts and ballots across the country.

He also seems to be counting on having the advantage of mail slowdowns, engineered by the recently installed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Fewer pickups and deliveries could mean more late-arriving ballots and a better shot at dismissing votes before they’re even opened, especially if the campaign has successfully sued to block states from extending deadlines. We might even see a Brooks Brothers riot or two, where well-heeled Republican operatives stage angry and voluble protests against ballot counts and recounts.

If Trump is leading on election night, in other words, there’s a good chance he’ll try to disrupt and delegitimize the counting process. That way, if Joe Biden pulls ahead in the days (or weeks) after voting ends — if we experience a “blue shift” like the one in 2018, in which the Democratic majority in the House grew as votes came in — the president will have given himself grounds to reject the outcome as “fake news.”

The only way to prevent this scenario, or at least, rob it of the oxygen it needs to burn, is to deliver an election night lead to Biden. This means voting in person. No, not everyone will be able to do that. But if you plan to vote against Trump and can take appropriate precautions, then some kind of hand delivery — going to the polls or bringing your mail-in ballot to a “drop box” — will be the best way to protect your vote from the president’s concerted attempt to undermine the election for his benefit.


Like I said - in broad daylight

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/08/trump-ruining-the-postal-service-is-just-a-way-to-hurt-democrats/

From the Washington Post:

President Trump said Thursday that he does not want to fund the U.S. Postal Service because Democrats are seeking to expand mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic, making explicit the reason he has declined to approve $25 billion in emergency funding for the cash-strapped agency.

“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,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo. He added: “Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”


Write to your congressman/woman (and your senator): do not accept a covid-support bill that does not also fully fund the USPS


I sincerely hope that any attempt to steal the election is met by massive resistance including millions of people in the streets. 


basil said:

Write to your congressman/woman (and your senator): do not accept a covid-support bill that does not also fully fund the USPS

 The frustrating thing is that it appears that Congress can't do anything about Trump's unwillingness to fund the USPS. 


cramer said:

basil said:

Write to your congressman/woman (and your senator): do not accept a covid-support bill that does not also fully fund the USPS

 The frustrating thing is that it appears that Congress can't do anything about Trump's unwillingness to fund the USPS. 

Well, that's not totally true. If we could find a handful of Republicans to take a stand on the COVID bill to demand that it include USPS funding, that might do something.

But, you know, they're Republicans. This cohort will go down in history as the most spineless group of politicians in our history.




drummerboy said:

cramer said:

basil said:

Write to your congressman/woman (and your senator): do not accept a covid-support bill that does not also fully fund the USPS

 The frustrating thing is that it appears that Congress can't do anything about Trump's unwillingness to fund the USPS. 

Well, that's not totally true. If we could find a handful of Republicans to take a stand on the COVID bill to demand that it include USPS funding, that might do something.

But, you know, they're Republicans. This cohort will go down in history as the most spineless group of politicians in our history.


 Democrats can't be the only ones that are having problems with the mail. One would think that some Republicans are complaining to their Congressional representatives. But so far it seems that this hasn't happened. 


cramer said:

basil said:

Write to your congressman/woman (and your senator): do not accept a covid-support bill that does not also fully fund the USPS

 The frustrating thing is that it appears that Congress can't do anything about Trump's unwillingness to fund the USPS. 

The House can simply not approve a Covid relief bill unless it also includes USPS funding. Simple as that.


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