YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE IS AT RISK!
By John P. Flannery
Our postal service has been slowed, by Postmaster General Louis de Joy, and on purpose, given his sworn testimony before the U.S. Congress, delaying prescription medicines to patients, needed retirement and disability checks, personal notes among persons in isolation; more than that, 46 states have been warned by the postal service that mail in ballots will be delayed this presidential election year.
In order to “streamline” service, de Joy has pulled those large blue mail boxes off the streets, taken out of service those massive machines that sort huge volumes of mail including ballots, and postal workers have been cut back in overtime to deliver the mail.
Aaron Gordon, at VICE, filed a story disclosing how the postal service was removing 20 percent of the letter sorting machines — 502 machines.
Aaron also reported that “there are detailed plans to reroute mail to sorting facilities further away …”
Union officials reportedly said, “This will slow mail processing.” And it has.
In recent days, an award winning investigative reporter, Peter Lance, vouched for the research of a postal contractor, Claire McKean, who uncovered “a pattern of zip code targeting [by the Postal Service] that followed the partisan history of the selected zip codes.”
One of her principal findings was — “That the unique choice for the zip code zones in the [Post Office’s] ESAS study [commenced in July] would provide detailed data that … could strategically slow mail-in votes to Democratic/Liberal Blue Zip Code Zones and speed their mailing in Republican/Conservative Red Zip Codes zones.” (McKean’s study can be found at
We should keep in mind that it’s a crime to obstruct or retard the mail, to remove any correspondence from the postal system, for any service officer or employee to delay or obstruct the mail, and for any federal employee to use his official position to interfere with the election of any president, or vice president.
All 50 states have turned to mail in ballots to keep voters safe from the virus by avoiding, as much as possible, the distancing challenges of standing in line in person at a polling place on election day.
Mr. Donald Trump has been dropping in the polls and losing ground in battle ground states he narrowly won in 2016.
Trump plainly fears that mail in ballots could make the difference, deliver the coup de grace, to his re-election bid.
He has therefore launched an agit prop campaign falsely claiming that mail in ballots introduce fraud in the election when there’s no evidence they do.
Utah Senator Mitt Romney said, “I don’t know of any evidence that voting by mail would increase fraud.”
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin charged, “The Trump Administration is launching an all out war on the U. S. Postal Service.”
Mr. Trump himself, is voting by mail in ballot in Florida. How embarrassing.
So Mr. Trump’s attack against mail in ballots suffers somewhat of an identity crisis since, at the same time that it’s okay for him to vote by mail in ballot in Florida, Republicans brought a law suit in Pennsylvania, a battle ground state, to challenge their no-excuse mail in ballots.
Governor Tom Wolf approved a bill passed by the State legislature because of the dangers of the virus when voting in person.
The federal judge in Pennsylvania, J. Nicholas Ranjan, appointed to the bench by Trump, who heard the challenge, demanded the Republicans demonstrate proof of fraud.
None was forthcoming in the hundreds of pages that they filed in response.
After public demonstrations at de Joy’s home and an outcry for his removal from office, De Joy announced that, going forward, he would stop removing mail boxes from the streets, and sorting machines.
Of course, he’d already crippled the efficiency of the postal system.
Neither rain, nor hail, nor sleet, nor snow, so the saying goes, will hinder or stop mail delivery, but, ahem, watch out for that de Joy.
Shouldn’t we now restore the mail boxes that were removed, and the sorting machines, in other words, restore the Post Office to its former operational platform?
De Joy said loud and clear that no mail boxes will be returned to the streets. No fast sorting machines either. No remedial action will be taken.
De Joy insists that there will be no problem handling ballots on election day.
Nice trick given that there are delays aplenty now.
Accordingly, the House passed legislation in a special session on Saturday to restore the boxes and machines and transfer the twenty five billions of dollars in funds necessary to keep the postal service going — but the Senate and Mr. Trump won’t move on the bill. It doesn’t suit their political objectives this presidential election season to have a fully operational post office.
The U.S. Constitution provides in Article 1, Section 8, clause 7, that Congress has the power “to establish post offices and post roads.”
There is no power to dis-establish the post office.
The model for the Post Office has long been that it was “a universal service obligation,” meaning “the idea that there are certain services that every American deserves to receive at a low price.”
This year the Post Office is not only the vehicle for medical, business and personal contacts, necessary and informal, but it is also a critical component when exercising the right to vote.
If there’s anything that cuts to the core of what a Republic is — it’s the right for every person to vote.
We founded this nation fighting taxation without representation.
No democratic nation can exist without representation.
When Virginia’s proud son, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in the Declaration of Independence, however, that we were all equal, we were not.
Women couldn’t vote.
Slaves couldn’t vote.
Indentured servants couldn’t vote.
If you were not propertied, you couldn’t vote.
We’ve struggled ever since to make “more perfect” that unfulfilled promise of equality before the law.
We may well wonder what our first Postmaster General. Benjamin Franklin, would say about abusing the function of “his” Post Office in order to suppress the right to vote.
I suspect he’d repeat what he said when the constitution was published — “You have a Republic if you can keep it.”
To keep it, our Republic, we must restore the Post Office, fire the current Postmaster General for his admitted misconduct in maladministration, and get out and vote like mad by mail or in person.
JPF
