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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Has Launched a Three-Pronged Attack on the Election
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/trump-has-launched-three-pronged-attack-election/615034/And it starts with undermining the U.S. Postal Service.
As President Donald Trump reflects on his sinking approval ratings and grows more desperate by the day, hes been floating a dictators dream: postponing the November election. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Trump loyalists, including the Federalist Society co-founder Steven Calabresi, swiftly rejected this authoritarian fantasy. So Trump has retreated to a fallback position: casting doubt on the legitimacy of any election he doesnt win. That starts by inventing fables about how voting by mail invites massive fraud and interminable delayexcept, Trump now tells us, in Florida, where Trumps elderly supporters will surely rely on it.
Trumps attack on voting by mail has several fronts, but one is by far the most serious: his attempt to slow down mail service, perhaps in a targeted way, while also insisting that only ballots counted on November 3 are valid. In addition to casting doubt on the entire election, another purpose of this scheme is to engineer a scenario in which Trump can pressure Republican-controlled legislatures to ignore the popular vote in their Democratic-leaning swing state (think Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and instead select an Electoral College slate that supports him. Trumps attempt to cut short the counting of valid votes is flatly contrary to constitutional law and federal statutes. Even so, states can and should do more to protect Americans mailed-in votes. States should immediately enact new legislation or take other legal steps clarifying that they intend for Congress to honor electors they choose, and that they may need a bit of time to finalize choosing themideally doing so by December 23 and no later than January 6, 2021, when Congress meets in special session to certify the election results. Through state-level action, Trumps efforts can be neutralized.
We can see glimmers of Trumps approach in what he said about Floridas tight 2018 gubernatorial and Senate races, and hell say it again to delegitimize the counting of mail-in ballots that might cost him reelection. Weve received a frightening preview in the Census Bureaus recent announcement that it plans to cut off population-counting efforts one month early, well before needed to meet the December 31 deadline for delivering census results to Congress.. This decision was made after the Trump administration itself had asked for more time, not less. Its the same play: When Trump doesnt like the numbers coming in, he stops counting.
Halting vote-counting after Election Day requires Trump to stage a three-pronged attack: slowing mail delivery, then urging Republican state legislatures to deem Election Day failed because of the many uncounted votes, and finally denouncing as illegitimate all vote-counting that continues after Election Dayeven as slowly delivered mail-in ballots keep arriving. Leading the first step is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, whos reportedly shutting down post offices and slowing mail delivery under the guise of cost-cutting. Employees say that piles upon piles of letters and packages remain undelivered, stranded for weeks on end. These efforts undermine public confidence in the Postal Service and threaten to slow the distribution of blank ballots to voters and the return of completed ballots to state officialswith a likely disproportionate effect on Democratic-leaning urban voters, for whom the coronaviruss circulation in cities makes mail-in voting particularly appealing. The likely surge in mail-in ballots that the pandemic will encourage suggests that tallying the election results wont be completed on November 3 but will take days, possibly weeks, to complete accurately.
Trump will almost certainly use this delay as an opportunity to cast doubt on the whole election. He may even try to urge Republican-controlled legislatures in states that tend to vote blue but supported him in 2016 to deem Election Day failed given the uncounted votes, as well as pressure those legislatures to then exploit a federal law that allows them to come up with a new way to appoint presidential electorssuch as handpicking a slate committed to Trump.
Trump may additionally think his hand is strengthened by another federal law that tells Congress to respect each states final resolution of ballot disputes if made by December 8. This date may well be too soon for all mail-in ballots to be counted when the pandemic is sure to increase the number of such ballots cast. But that provision is a mere safe harbor: It doesnt require that states resolve ballot disputes by December 8. The only statutory deadline for a state to send its tally is December 23, and the only deadline for receiving a states tallythe true constitutional deadlineis January 6, when Congress meets in special session to certify the election results. . . .
As President Donald Trump reflects on his sinking approval ratings and grows more desperate by the day, hes been floating a dictators dream: postponing the November election. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Trump loyalists, including the Federalist Society co-founder Steven Calabresi, swiftly rejected this authoritarian fantasy. So Trump has retreated to a fallback position: casting doubt on the legitimacy of any election he doesnt win. That starts by inventing fables about how voting by mail invites massive fraud and interminable delayexcept, Trump now tells us, in Florida, where Trumps elderly supporters will surely rely on it.
Trumps attack on voting by mail has several fronts, but one is by far the most serious: his attempt to slow down mail service, perhaps in a targeted way, while also insisting that only ballots counted on November 3 are valid. In addition to casting doubt on the entire election, another purpose of this scheme is to engineer a scenario in which Trump can pressure Republican-controlled legislatures to ignore the popular vote in their Democratic-leaning swing state (think Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and instead select an Electoral College slate that supports him. Trumps attempt to cut short the counting of valid votes is flatly contrary to constitutional law and federal statutes. Even so, states can and should do more to protect Americans mailed-in votes. States should immediately enact new legislation or take other legal steps clarifying that they intend for Congress to honor electors they choose, and that they may need a bit of time to finalize choosing themideally doing so by December 23 and no later than January 6, 2021, when Congress meets in special session to certify the election results. Through state-level action, Trumps efforts can be neutralized.
We can see glimmers of Trumps approach in what he said about Floridas tight 2018 gubernatorial and Senate races, and hell say it again to delegitimize the counting of mail-in ballots that might cost him reelection. Weve received a frightening preview in the Census Bureaus recent announcement that it plans to cut off population-counting efforts one month early, well before needed to meet the December 31 deadline for delivering census results to Congress.. This decision was made after the Trump administration itself had asked for more time, not less. Its the same play: When Trump doesnt like the numbers coming in, he stops counting.
Halting vote-counting after Election Day requires Trump to stage a three-pronged attack: slowing mail delivery, then urging Republican state legislatures to deem Election Day failed because of the many uncounted votes, and finally denouncing as illegitimate all vote-counting that continues after Election Dayeven as slowly delivered mail-in ballots keep arriving. Leading the first step is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, whos reportedly shutting down post offices and slowing mail delivery under the guise of cost-cutting. Employees say that piles upon piles of letters and packages remain undelivered, stranded for weeks on end. These efforts undermine public confidence in the Postal Service and threaten to slow the distribution of blank ballots to voters and the return of completed ballots to state officialswith a likely disproportionate effect on Democratic-leaning urban voters, for whom the coronaviruss circulation in cities makes mail-in voting particularly appealing. The likely surge in mail-in ballots that the pandemic will encourage suggests that tallying the election results wont be completed on November 3 but will take days, possibly weeks, to complete accurately.
Trump will almost certainly use this delay as an opportunity to cast doubt on the whole election. He may even try to urge Republican-controlled legislatures in states that tend to vote blue but supported him in 2016 to deem Election Day failed given the uncounted votes, as well as pressure those legislatures to then exploit a federal law that allows them to come up with a new way to appoint presidential electorssuch as handpicking a slate committed to Trump.
Trump may additionally think his hand is strengthened by another federal law that tells Congress to respect each states final resolution of ballot disputes if made by December 8. This date may well be too soon for all mail-in ballots to be counted when the pandemic is sure to increase the number of such ballots cast. But that provision is a mere safe harbor: It doesnt require that states resolve ballot disputes by December 8. The only statutory deadline for a state to send its tally is December 23, and the only deadline for receiving a states tallythe true constitutional deadlineis January 6, when Congress meets in special session to certify the election results. . . .
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Trump Has Launched a Three-Pronged Attack on the Election (Original Post)
CousinIT
Aug 2020
OP
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)1. K&R!
kurtcagle
(1,602 posts)2. Unintended consequences
As the mail slows, how money of those people in Red States are going to suddenly find their disability checks showing up late or not showing up at all? How many pensioners on social security are going to find that badly needed money is not showing up? How about paychecks that don't go through direct deposit, or income tax refunds that get stranded?
Yeah, I don't see this ending well for Trump.
louis-t
(23,292 posts)3. Fucking evil.
lpbk2713
(42,757 posts)4. His assault on America continues.
He never gives up.
chia
(2,244 posts)5. Bookmarking for reference
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)6. Trump is a prong who's launching an attack on the election
Fixed it for you