Democrats strike back at U.S. Postal Service and Trump showdown

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling on the House to return to Washington, possibly next weekend, for an unprecedented session during presidential convention season.

The long-dreaded post-election showdown involving Trump’s false claims about voter fraud is already here – more than two months ago – due to the building battle in Washington over the Postal Service.

The comment has left him open to accusations that he is deliberately trying to deny voters the right to vote who fear going to polling stations due to the pandemic that has been exacerbated by his mismanagement and has now killed more than 170,000 Americans.

“The Postmaster General and Top Postal Service Executives Must Respond to Congress and the American People on Why They Push These Dangerous New Policies That Threaten to Silencing the Voices of Millions Just Months Before the Election Democratic leaders, including Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said in a statement announcing the hearing they want to have next week with DeJoy, a major fundraiser. of Trump.

See Trump and Biden’s face-to-face poll

The swift democratic mobilization places the raging dispute over the sanctity of the November vote at the center of the election campaign and escalates tensions that could lead to a prolonged political and legal tangle if the November result is close.

Already, several states say they are considering legal action against the Trump administration over concerns about the USPS and postal voting.
Many Democrats are also concerned that DeJoy’s policy changes, which have slowed delivery times, removed high-speed letter sorters from the commission, and included warnings that postal ballots will no longer be treated as a priority, will have a severe impact on the November elections. 3.

Strategically speaking, highlighting Trump’s comment last week that he opposed $ 25 billion in new funding for the mail system, as it would lead to more postal voting, could also boost polls. Democratic efforts to convince voters to vote early and potentially leader for party candidate Joe Biden.

The effectiveness of democratic action in the House is unclear. A stand-alone bill to fund the postal service may not go beyond the Republican-led Senate. The White House would likely demand concessions on a new economic stimulus bill in exchange for agreeing to such measures. Negotiations between the two sides collapsed this month amid Democrats’ insistence on more money for state and local governments, the GOP slashing long-term unemployment benefits for millions of Americans and issues such as USPS funding.

Millions more voters are expected to vote by mail this year, given their mistrust of showing up at polling stations with the still raging virus. Trump has responded to the prospect with false claims that postal voting is rife with fraud and will lead to the most corrupt election in history.

Trump's finger pointing on USPS is latest attempt to rewrite history in real time
His new disinformation campaign comes as a national CNN / SSRS poll released on Sunday shows the presidential race has tightened significantly with Biden to 50% versus Trump’s 46% among registered voters, just on the margins of ballot error. A previous Wall Street Journal / NBC poll had pushed the former vice president up 9 points.

Trump’s outlook has been affected by his erratic handling of the coronavirus – which has helped plunge the U.S. economy, which he hoped to climb until re-election, into free fall.

The president, however, says victory should be assured because of what he called successful leadership on both issues.

“I hope to win, how can you not when you see numbers like this on both the virus and the economy?” the president said at a press conference at his New Jersey golf resort on Saturday.

The United States has more Covid-19 cases and more deaths than any other country. While some countries that have done a much better job than the United States in suppressing the virus are battling a resurgence, the scale of the American tragedy remains staggering. For 16 of the 20 days leading up to Saturday, the United States reported more than 1,000 new deaths a day, according to Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

USPS and White House pledge to stop removing sorting machines

Despite Trump’s damaging claims, there was a sign the administration was starting to realize that the president’s fraud accusations and concerns about the sanctity of the USPS could bounce back on him.

“Sorting machines by election day will not be disconnected,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday. CNN and other news outlets reported on Friday that the Postal Service had reduced hours of operation in several states and was removing mailboxes from some neighborhoods, union officials said.
The agency also said on Sunday it would stop removing collection boxes until the end of November, citing “recent customer concerns” about the decisions.
The concession came after the USPS warned nearly all 50 states and Washington, DC, that mail-in ballots might not be received by polling stations in time to be counted.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden’s finalist in the Democratic primary race, warned on the “State of the Union” that more than the integrity of the postal service was at stake.

“What is most important, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Progressive, Conservative, do you believe in American democracy?” Sanders asked.

“Do you think that in the midst of a pandemic, when we have already lost 170,000 people, people have to put their lives on the line to go to a polling station, or can they vote by mail? “

Meadows, however, signaled on the same show that the White House would not let go of its pending massive voter fraud warnings – and an attempt to make a false distinction between “mail ballot” and “mail vote” despite stringent systems. instead to ensure the authenticity of all votes.

Said by Tapper that there was no evidence of fraud in the postal ballot in the general election in the United States, Meadows replied: “There is no evidence that there is not neither. more.”

Trump: ‘There is fraud, there is theft’

In addition to trying to skew the election ahead of time by limiting postal voting, Trump could also renew his baseless claims because he is preparing for after the election.

He warned on Saturday that the postal ballots could delay the election result by “several months or years”.

“These ballots are all going to be lost. They are going to disappear … the ballots are lost. There is fraud. There is theft. It is happening everywhere.”

Election experts say voter fraud is minimal relative to the size of the U.S. electorate and that there is no evidence that postal voting systems already in place in several states are more prone to irregularities.

Trump appears to be either offering himself a way to save face if he loses big to Biden, or to lay the political foundation for multiple legal challenges in a desperate attempt to cling to power if he narrowly loses.

He is playing with fire as his claims risk seriously damaging the prospects that the election will be seen as free and fair by all voters. Such a national consensus is the very foundation of the American political system.

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