Aug.24

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

Ties 1

GOP 48

Postal Service Is Preparing to Block Delivery of Absentee Ballots

In March, Donald Trump signed an XO that orders the USPS not to deliver any absentee ballots in states that have not turned over all their voter files to the federal government so that every absentee ballot can be checked against the list to see if the voter is on it. This XO is wrong in so many ways. Let us count them:

1. Elections are run by the states. The federal government plays, at most, a minor role here.
2. The minor role the feds play (like setting a uniform Election Day) is played by Congress, not the president.
3. There is no legal basis for the president to demand the states hand over their voting rolls.
4. Even if the states do hand over the rolls, the USPS is required to deliver almost all properly franked mail.
5. Even if a state makes an effort to turn over its lists, there are sure to be thousands of errors in it.
6. It is virtually certain the USPS could not actually carry out an accurate matching without extensive trials.
7. The possibility of the administration intentionally removing voters in selected precincts is enormous.

This XO got to the courts immediately and both a district court and an appeals court have ruled that the XO is unconstitutional. Trump has appealed to his buddies on the Supreme Court to save the day for him. Other than item (7) above, it is not even clear this XO will be a net benefit to the Republicans, as it will reduce turnout among (1) rural voters far from a polling place and (2) older voters, some of whom have limited mobility.

Trump has occasionally claimed the XO is to combat fraud, but once let it slip that the real reason was: "It'll guarantee the midterms [for the GOP]." Some red states have turned over lists but no blue state has. This could matter because there are competitive House districts in some blue states.

Despite the two court rulings, the USPS has now finalized its plan to execute the XO as soon as the Supreme Court blesses it, as it usually does. The 95-page plan describes in detail how it will carry out the XO. To start with, in any state that does not supply its voter list (despite there not being any law saying it has to), the USPS will not deliver any absentee ballots, not even in states that have all mail-in elections. Democrats have called foul, of course, but no Republicans have. Maybe the next Democratic president has to awaken them to the dangers of presidential overreach by ordering all states to turn over their lists of everyone who has a firearms permit, with failure to do so resulting in their absentee ballots not being delivered. This might just get their attention. They then might even vote for a bill stating presidents cannot order states to turn over any state list of any kind unless there is a federal law naming some specific list and ordering states to turn it over.

When the USPS asked for comments on the proposed new rule (as it is required to), it got 200,000 comments. There was no breakdown given on how many were for and how many were against the proposed rule, probably because they were all transferred to /dev/null (UNIX, Linux, and MacOS) or $null (Windows powershell) immediately after arriving.

Postmaster General David Steiner defended the rule by saying: "If a state wants to use the postal system, they must follow federal mail regulations set by the agency because the Postal Service is not constitutionally obliged to defer to a state's preferences for how to administer mail-in voting." True, but federal law requires the USPS to attempt to deliver all properly franked domestic mail that meets the USPS' size, weight, content and safety requirements. That a recipient is or is not on some list is not one of the requirements.

The president has already usurped major powers explicitly granted to the legislative branch (e.g., by going to war, by levying tariffs, by impounding funds, by dismantling federal agencies, all without congressional approval). Now he is working on usurping state powers. At this point, it is up to the Supreme Court to say if this is what James Madison had in mind (or at least wrote down). (V)