Trump blurts out his true motivation on mail ballots

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...-blocking-post-office-funding-mail-in-voting/

Back in March, President Trump seemed to blurt out the real reason he opposes expanded voting by mail in the 2020 election. Referring to provisions in the Democrats’ coronavirus stimulus bill to vastly increase funding for voting by mail, he said on Fox News that the bill had “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

He’s doing it again.

Speaking with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network on Thursday morning, Trump appeared to confirm that he opposes Democrats’ proposed funding for mail-in balloting and the U.S. Postal Service in order to make it more difficult to expand voting by mail.

“Now they need that money in order to make the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he said. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

Trump also alluded to this idea at a news conference on Wednesday evening, noting that Democrats are now asking for $3.5 billion for universal mail-in voting and an additional $25 billion for the Postal Service.

“They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess,” Trump said. “Are they going to do it even if they don’t have the money?”

He added: “But therefore they don’t have it. They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in votes.”

And: “Therefore, they can’t do the universal mail-in vote. It’s very simple. How are they going to do it if they don’t have the money to do it?”

Trump has argued, as he did Wednesday, that the post office is unreliable and that mail-in ballots lead to fraud — despite basically no evidence of large-scale fraud. Trump and the White House have regularly cited dubious evidence in making the case, including pointing to ballots that have been rejected for reasons unrelated to fraud and dodgy data about voter registration numbers.

There is really no excuse for this kind of talk. There is no excuse for the actions Trump has been taking, such as refusing to fund the USPS back in April. There is no excuse for the crap the Postmaster General is doing such as shutting down sorting machines. It's a sad day in American history when a U.S. President essentially comes out against the act of voting. It's important to recognize how serious and how terrible this is. Trump is going to try and steal the election. That's the bottom line.

Ikari · Aug 13, 2020

A blind dog knows that Trump put his cronie in charge of the USPS specifically to undercut its ability to try to knock out Mail-In as an option. Trump's only real strategy now is to suppress the vote, any way he can.

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

Ikari said:
A blind dog knows that Trump put his cronie in charge of the USPS specifically to undercut its ability to try to knock out Mail-In as an option. Trump's only real strategy now is to suppress the vote, any way he can.

Yeah, and I think this is going to have very serious consequences. I honestly think the act of suppressing the vote in this way has the very serious potential of leading to a second Civil War.

At this point, if it's a close race, whichever side loses, is not going to accept the results of the election.

Each side's preferences have already been baked in:

Americans who prefer in-person voting favor Donald Trump | YouGov

Normally, “for whom will you vote” is the burning question in an election, but this year, “how will you vote” may be just as important. The coronavirus epidemic drove voting by mail to historic levels in the primaries and has fueled strong interest in it for the November election. Subsequently, President Donald Trump and the Republican Party mounted an aggressive effort to oppose an expansion of mail balloting.

The result: We now see a massive partisan difference – who voters will support for president – when we tabulate by how they want to cast their ballots. YouGov’s most recent surveys conducted for Yahoo News in late June and July show that those who want to vote by mail prefer Joe Biden over Trump by a whopping 70 to 14 percent margin, while those who prefer to vote in person prefer Trump by better than two to one, 59 to 28 percent.

The share that wants to vote by mail is not small. The same two surveys, conducted between June 29 and July 14, find nearly half (45%) of registered voters nationwide say they would prefer to vote by mail, rather than in person. If translated into actual voting behavior, that preference would represent more than double the rate that actually voted by mail in 2016 (21%).

And again, thanks to the aggressive push-back against mail voting by President Trump and his allies, preference for type of voting differs greatly by party identification. By a 75-to–25 percent margin, Republicans (including leaners) prefer to vote by in-person, while a slightly less lopsided 65-to–35 percent margin of Democrats (including leaners) prefers to vote by mail. Non-leaning independents are more divided but narrowly prefer to vote by mail (54% to 46%).

Trump is going to risk destroying our country in order to get re-elected.

Cardinal · Aug 13, 2020

Meanwhile, in Ohio...

Ohio rules out extra ballot drop boxes for November election

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) announced Wednesday that the state is barring county boards of elections from offering more than one drop box for completed absentee ballots this November.

Three weeks ago, LaRose asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) for a legal opinion on whether extra ballot drop boxes were allowed under state law. LaRose said Wednesday that he has yet to receive the opinion, and claimed it has become too late to make changes on how Ohio will administer this year’s presidential election.

Chomsky · Aug 13, 2020

Ikari said:
A blind dog knows that Trump put his cronie in charge of the USPS specifically to undercut its ability to try to knock out Mail-In as an option. Trump's only real strategy now is to suppress the vote, any way he can.

Hell, even the deaf cat heard it - too!

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

Cardinal said:
Meanwhile, in Ohio...

Ohio rules out extra ballot drop boxes for November election

Wow. Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this is straight-up electoral sabotage.

Chomsky · Aug 13, 2020

Cardinal said:
Meanwhile, in Ohio...

Ohio rules out extra ballot drop boxes for November election

If anything wins the election for Trump, these are the examples.

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

Chomsky said:
Hell, even the deaf cat heard it - too!

I think what Trump is doing...right now... is serious enough...damaging enough to the Republic...that he should immediately be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.

Cardinal · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
Wow. Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this is straight-up electoral sabotage.

We would have no problems knowing what to call it if it happened in another country.

Drawdown · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...-blocking-post-office-funding-mail-in-voting/

There is really no excuse for this kind of talk. There is no excuse for the actions Trump has been taking, such as refusing to fund the USPS back in April. There is no excuse for the crap the Postmaster General is doing such as shutting down sorting machines. It's a sad day in American history when a U.S. President essentially comes out against the act of voting. It's important to recognize how serious and how terrible this is. Trump is going to try and steal the election. That's the bottom line.

Can't get a new car without the money to pay for it either. At least law abiding people can't. Democrats probably can.

Chomsky · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
Wow. Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this is straight-up electoral sabotage.

Absolutely. If they (Trump-GOP) win, this is how the will do it.

Trump's crony running the Post Office is now removing sorting machines, 'to reduce costs'.

This is how democracies die. Of course it can only succeed if you can control the public. To do that, you need to send in the military to your cities, to act upon the citizens. It looks like they've got that covered, too.

Chomsky · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
I think what Trump is doing...right now... is serious enough...damaging enough to the Republic...that he should immediately be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.

In a functioning democracy, that might happen. But not in what's turning-out to be a Trump-GOP coup.

Ikari · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
Wow. Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this is straight-up electoral sabotage.

Duh!

Of course it is, the GOP really fears the ramifications of their Trump worship for 4 years. The writing is on the wall, they stand to lose big if they don't do something. And all they can do is to interfere with the elections on a scale we've never seen a political party engage in before. From shutting down polling sites, to a narrative against Mail-In voting, to sabotaging the USPS, everything they are doing is an attempt to rig the election in their favor by suppressing as many votes as possible.

Republicans ****ing hate America, that's all there is to it. They only love their own fascist power.

Ikari · Aug 13, 2020

Chomsky said:
In a functioning democracy, that might happen. But not in what's turning-out to be a Trump-GOP coup.

I mean, if it were just Trump doing these things then there could be hope that the GOP would support efforts to stop him. But it's the GOP doing this, Trump is just doing what the GOP is having him do on this front. So there's no chance for accountability.

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

Cardinal said:
We would have no problems knowing what to call it if it happened in another country.

Let's call it like it is then.

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

Drawdown said:
Can't get a new car without the money to pay for it either. At least law abiding people can't. Democrats probably can.

We can find enough money to allow people to vote by mail.

If anyone supports what Trump is doing right now, they are a traitor in my view.

Drawdown · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
We can find enough money to allow people to vote by mail.

If anyone supports what Trump is doing right now, they are a traitor in my view.

Trump isn't doing anything. All he did was state the obvious. No money=No change.

Praxas · Aug 13, 2020

Drawdown said:
Can't get a new car without the money to pay for it either. At least law abiding people can't. Democrats probably can.

So a new wall and tax cuts for the rich can be done, but an infrastructure for voting can't? Gimme a break, anyone and I mean ANYONE that supports what Trump is doing is a Traitor to the United States of America.

Rexedgar · Aug 13, 2020

Cardinal said:
We would have no problems knowing what to call it if it happened in another country.

I haven’t heard the Administration comment on events in Belarus.

Belarus election: Second protester dies as UN sounds alarm

W_Heisenberg · Aug 13, 2020

Ikari said:
I mean, if it were just Trump doing these things then there could be hope that the GOP would support efforts to stop him. But it's the GOP doing this, Trump is just doing what the GOP is having him do on this front. So there's no chance for accountability.

I don't think there are any good outcomes at this point.

Our democracy dies on November 3rd, or there's a Civil War, or both.

For the first time in my life, I'm genuinely worried about the future of our Republic.

Linc · Aug 13, 2020

Drawdown said:
Trump isn't doing anything. All he did was state the obvious. No money=No change.

The only thing obvious about Trembling Trump saying anything is that it will be insane word salad. TrumpQins are mesmerized by his hypnotizing Mussolini hand motions.

Drawdown · Aug 13, 2020

Yawns. Why just the other day the democrats saw this huge conspiracy because a post office in a state Trump won by 10 points took out a mail sorter at 1 facility because of a consolidation and eliminated overtime.

Rioting and looting must be interfering with democrats' ability to refill their lithium.

Cardinal · Aug 13, 2020

Rexedgar said:
I haven’t heard the Administration comment on events in Belarus.

Belarus election: Second protester dies as UN sounds alarm

A window into our immediate future?

Rogue Valley · Aug 13, 2020

Drawdown said:
Can't get a new car without the money to pay for it either. At least law abiding people can't. Democrats probably can.

Whataboutism.

The US Postal Service has not made a profit in decades if ever.

Fix it AFTER the election. But that would be against Trumps entire purpose to ruin the USPS BEFORE the election.

The GOP can't win elections without cheating. From purging state voter rolls and closing voting stations to ruining the Post Office.

Ikari · Aug 13, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
I don't think there are any good outcomes at this point.

Our democracy dies on November 3rd, or there's a Civil War, or both.

For the first time in my life, I'm genuinely worried about the future of our Republic.

Well our democracy has been dying for some time, actually. But it's really accelerated hard during the past 4 years.

Trump blurts out his true motivation on mail ballots

W_Heisenberg

Ikari

W_Heisenberg

Cardinal

Respected On All Sides

Chomsky

Social Democrat

W_Heisenberg

Chomsky

Social Democrat

W_Heisenberg

Cardinal

Respected On All Sides

Drawdown

Chomsky

Social Democrat

Chomsky

Social Democrat

Ikari

Ikari

W_Heisenberg

W_Heisenberg

Drawdown

Praxas

Rexedgar

Yo-Semite!

W_Heisenberg

Linc

NIMBY

Drawdown

Cardinal

Respected On All Sides

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way

Ikari

Trump blurts out his true motivation on mail ballots

Respected On All Sides

Social Democrat

Social Democrat

Respected On All Sides

Social Democrat

Social Democrat

Yo-Semite!

NIMBY

Respected On All Sides

Lead or get out of the way

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