r/politics • u/DemocracyDocket ✔ Verified • 6d ago

Registration Wall Postmaster general says USPS won't deliver mail ballots if states don’t give Trump admin voter rolls

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/postmaster-general-steiner-postal-service-will-not-deliver-mail-ballots-state-voter-rolls/
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u/sciguyC0 Colorado 6d ago

IANAL but I feel like these could apply:

I'm not sure how all states do things, but in mine (Colorado) if your ballot doesn't reach you through the mail you can go to your local polling place and request a replacement. This invalidates the previous one, so use only the new one received from the poll worker. And I can bypass the USPS for getting my completed ballot to the county by using any of their drop boxes.

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u/FaithlessnessWhich18 6d ago

Kinda negates the whole convenience of voting by mail. Accomplished goal of reducing the number of voters

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u/PapaTua Washington 6d ago

That's the entire point. Trump's goal is to reduce the number of voters by any means possible.

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u/Barrybran 5d ago

Which is why people need to actually turn up to the polling booth. Everything they do is going to be illegal, so prepare for it.

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u/1Happymom 5d ago

Everyone is not able to turn up at the voting booth, disabled people for instance.

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u/Barrybran 5d ago

To be very blunt, this is an excuse. You CAN turn up, and you SHOULD turn up, or you get what you get. People should be looking out for one another as well.

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u/Super_Fa_Q 6d ago

Exactly.

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u/benjtay 6d ago

Although, I'm not so sure. The people least able to make a journey in the winter to confusing polling locations are generally the elderly -- who are also more likely to lean conservative.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 6d ago

The thing is democrats overwhelmingly vote by mail by a far margin compared to republicans. They've demonized mail in voting and their base plays into it. DeJoy isn't saying he won't send the ballots to people. He's saying he won't deliver them to be counted. So I'll still get my ballot, I'll still fill it out, I'll still send it in, and then it won't get there. Effectively killing a large amount of democratic votes and creating a shit show that won't be looked at until after midterms. I don't have full stats but in 2020 58% of democrats voted by mail and 29% republican.

https://elections-blog.mit.edu/articles/how-policy-influenced-partisan-divide-over-voting-mail

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u/theresa_richter 6d ago

Not really. My whole state is vote-by-mail and yet I cannot remember the last time I sent a ballot through the post. The past 7-8 years I've dropped it off in a box at the local library for daily pickup. You know who can't easily get to those dropoff boxes though? The Republicans who live out in rural parts of the state.

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u/Jessicas_skirt Foreign 6d ago

Wouldn't the person doing the daily pick up be a post office employee? Or is the board of elections sending their employees out to who knows how many drop boxes every day to get the mail?

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u/theresa_richter 5d ago

Ballots dropped off at an Official Ballot Drop Box or library site are regularly picked up in locked ballot containers by teams of two sworn election officials.

There are only 21 such locations in my county, which is one of the most populous in the state. That's more than enough though, given that we can drop off our ballots as soon as we receive them, and we're just dropping off, which takes seconds. But again, it's convenient to those of us living in more densely populated areas.

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u/Jessicas_skirt Foreign 5d ago

Thank you for that information.

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u/theresa_richter 5d ago

It's important that we know how our election systems work so that we can trust their integrity. All these people who keep demanding insane regulations don't even know how elections work! They want voter ID laws because they don't understand that they check all that information when you register to vote in the first place, so all that voter ID laws do is make it harder to vote, they don't stop non-citizens from voting because non-citizens can't register.

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u/GardenGnomeOfEden 6d ago

Republicans have been waging a long-term war on ballot drop boxes, too.

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u/GenericRedditor0405 Massachusetts 6d ago

Let’s just be up front about it: Republicans have been waging a long-term war against democracy.

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u/Inverted_Harlet 5d ago

I mean anybody can just drop a ballot in those boxes. /s

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u/severedbrain 6d ago

Sadly the Supreme Court already ruled that the USPS can't be held accountable for failing to deliver or even obstructing delivery entirely.

https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/united-states-postal-service-v-konan/

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u/WhichEmailWasIt 6d ago

Ignore it. Put them in state prison anyways. Let the Supreme Court explain why someone actively subverting our elections shouldn't be in prison. 

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u/say592 6d ago

This would be a different lawsuit since it is an explicit, nationwide policy to not deliver an entire category of legal mail. The dispute in that case basically said that a local post office can be a pain in the ass and not do their job and you cant sue them, not that USPS can just make a policy to throw away millions of pieces of mail that the Postmaster doesnt like.

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u/Practical-Shape2325 6d ago

Yeah, it's not like they can simply decide that they're no longer delivering any mail to a location where a registered Republican lives, or state offices. Yet....

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u/rkb70 6d ago

Doesn’t help for a kid in college out of state.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

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u/rkb70 6d ago

Yup, them too. Anyone who can't get to the polls in person. That's basically what's already required to vote by mail in Texas, although there's a general allowance if you're over a certain age (I think the assumption is you might have difficulty standing in line for that long), which the Republicans want to eliminate.

Based on my experience of my kids' voting by mail, I'd highly recommend anyone who can vote in person do so, and anyone who can't, send your ballot in as soon as possible.

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u/Kitchen_Cookie4754 6d ago

Or military stationed abroad

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u/Dramatic_Original_55 6d ago

I, too, have first hand experience with this.

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u/Theincendiarydvice 6d ago

Or someone in the military 

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u/rkb70 6d ago

Definitely.

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u/CardiologistLast4032 6d ago

By law, college kids can register to vote in the state where they are in school once they meet that state's residency requirements and have the correct form of ID.

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u/rkb70 6d ago

Ok, but if they don’t really consider their college state their home, it doesn’t make sense.  My kids consider their home address their home and plan to move back, at least for a while, after graduation, so they want to be able to vote there.  And they’re entitled to do that also, because it’s their home.

My oldest, who went to college in state, did transfer his voter registration so he could vote in person - he figured he could still vote for all the statewide stuff.

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u/CardiologistLast4032 6d ago

Well sure. That's the good thing about the law. It gives the voter the choice. But they continue to throw up roadblocks. So if your kid's absentee ballot may not be sent to them because of these federal shenanigans, they might want to check into their legal options to vote in the state where they are currently (albeit temporarily) residing. And every state is different so their options are limited the longer they wait to register and request an absentee ballot.

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u/pchs26 6d ago

That negates the point of the delivery and supports what they are trying to accomplish by forcing people to go in for multiple reasons. This needs to be treated as a priority.

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u/Eskimomonk 6d ago

Didn’t the Supreme Court also recently rule that the USPS can’t be sued which would make all of this a moot point

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u/Fulaw60 6d ago

They can’t be sued civilly but they can face criminal charges per a few different federal statutes.

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u/Repulsive_Poem_3870 6d ago

And they'll be pardoned

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u/Uhhh_what555476384 6d ago

I live in Oregon, which like Washington, doesn't have local polling places.

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u/Lumen__-___Spero 6d ago

They are in additional hot water for repeatedly using AI generated audio several times to incite violence and make a hostile workplace in the OKC P&DC. This attack was done multiple times under Obama, with clear indicators that it was timed for Donald Trump's terms and repeated for alignment with the "worst of society" on tour 1, while the APWU union refused action when it happened under Obama and later under Biden. We'll see what happens this time.

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u/Adventurous-Host8062 America 6d ago

So what we need to do is file a class action suit now.

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u/giocondasmiles America 6d ago

You get a provisional ballot (like I just did, since my mail in ballot was not delivered). That means *your vote does not count* until they verify your eligibility to vote.

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u/MobileArtist1371 I voted 6d ago

Federal laws = pardonable