Skip to main content
opinion
Open this photo in gallery:

U.S. President Donald Trump talks with the press after arriving on Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., on Aug. 14, 2020.Susan Walsh/The Associated Press

Louis DeJoy, a long-time ally and super-fundraiser for Donald Trump, became Postmaster General of the United States in May of this year.

Since that time, he has been overhauling the agency with measures, strangely enough, that have had the effect of slowing mail delivery.

At first, it seemed the purpose was cost-cutting for the perennially money-losing agency. Now the intent is becoming more insidiously clear.

If you throttle the mail service, reduce it to a crawl, what a strong case it makes against mail-in voting. President Trump has railed against mail-in voting, believing it favours the Democrats. “The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In Voting is allowed to take place, & everyone knows it,” he tweeted on July 26.

At the postal service, as Mr. Trump’s lackey, Mr. DeJoy has replaced top executives, including two overseeing day-to-day operations, with a new team that is doing his bidding. Overtime work has been eliminated. Across the country, the number of mail-sorting machines have been reduced. Carriers have been instructed to leave mail behind at distribution centres.

Democrats are alarmed. They should be. The evidence that Mr. Trump is deadly serious about finding a way to invalidate, sabotage or delay the election continues to mount. It gets more likely by the day.

On top of what his megadonor Mr. DeJoy is doing, Mr. Trump is threatening to defund the postal service of its operating budget. In an interview Thursday with the Fox Business network, he said he opposes a proposed US$25-billion in emergency funding for the service as well as a Democratic proposal to provide US$3.6-billion in additional election funding to state governments. The measures are being fought over as part of a new COVID-19 relief package.

Richard Nixon at least attempted to cover up his skulduggery. Mr. Trump does it in broad daylight. In that interview, he came right out and stated that the Democratic Party “need that money in order to make the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots … 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.”

He later left open the possibility of a deal being reached with them while still holding on to the claim that it will be a fraudulent election if mail-in voting goes forward.

In previous pandemic relief packages, the White House made sure that grants for the postal service were left out, even though so many Americans are dependent on an efficient postal service for their prescriptions in these times. Mr. Trump has long castigated the agency for having cut delivery rates to the benefit of companies such as Amazon.com, whose proprietor, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, he loathes.

House Democrats – 175 of them – this week sent a letter to Mr. DeJoy expressing opposition to what he was doing and how it could impact the election.

Of course, he denies any mischievous plotting, saying he is only trying to increase postal service efficiencies. Because of the coronavirus, it is expected that maybe twice as many voters will go the mail-in route this time as compared to 2016, which will lead to, potentially, 80 million mail-in ballots. Mr. DeJoy claims, despite the actions he’s been taking, that the agency is prepared to cope with the surge.

In some states, ballots have to be postmarked by election day in order to count. In the majority, including many swing states, the ballots have to be received by election day, which means if a ballot is sent in a few days before the deadline and doesn’t get there in time, it won’t count.

That may be a dandy prospect for Republicans who won’t be doing mail-in voting – Mr. Trump having demonized it so much – to anywhere near the degree Democrats do.

The potential for malfeasance, for mischief, for chaos, is enormous. Democrats could conceivably lose because a large number of ballots arrive a day or two late.

Given the anticipated flood of mail-in ballots, there is a strong likelihood that many states won’t be able to have them counted on election night. It could take days or even weeks. This will only add to the disarray.

There’s also the possibility that Mr. Trump’s campaign against mail-in balloting could backfire. Since it is such a key to voter turnout, his discouraging of supporters from going that route has state and local Republicans worried he’s digging himself a hole.

It’s another reason why Donald Trump could be tempted to do anything he can to delegitimize the election. Then, having done the rigging, he will claim that the vote is rigged. Vladimir Putin will be impressed.

Keep your Opinions sharp and informed. Get the Opinion newsletter. Sign up today.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe