Sabotaging the Postal Service: Trump’s Last Chance to Stay in Power
As President Trump’s first term in office approaches an end and with a few weeks left to the debate season, eyes have turned towards the polls. Based on its model, The Economist forecasts that Biden will win the election, asserting that since 1952, polls never moved after Labor Day. The Washington Post went as far as thinking that President Trump, aware of his potential loss, already started to “salt the earth behind him”. With less than two months left until the 2020 US Presidential Elections, Trump’s behaviour already hints at his future attempt of delegitimizing the elections if he were to lose a second term in office. But how is that possible and what makes the current situation so particular?
The first three quarters of 2020 centred around the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic recession as well as the 2020 US Racial Unrest movement: crises that Trump failed to correctly address according to the public opinion. Now, as the numbers suggest, the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be highly ineffective and Trump admitted to “play[ing] it down” to avoid panic. Undoubtedly, Trump’s COVID-19 policy and the evolution of the pandemic within the upcoming weeks will have severe impacts on the outcome of the elections. One way the pandemic will affect the elections is by accelerating the trend of mail-in voting, a form of an absentee ballot, amongst voters. Voting by mail seemed to become a trend in the United States, as 25% of voters voted by mail in the 2016 and 2018 Presidential and Midterm Elections. Research indicates that Blue States vote more by mail. Recognizing this very early, Trump tried to downplay it. He spoke against mail-in vote as early as Spring 2020, calling it corrupt and dangerous.
In June, Louis DeJoy, a major Trump Donor, was named the CEO of the United States Postal Service (USPS), becoming the first Postmaster General in 30 years to take this position without already being in the industry. Leading an independent agency having the special status of being attached to the federal government, DeJoy rapidly took drastic measures: banning overtime hours, dismantling mail sorting machines, and removing mail collection boxes throughout the US. Although these served as effective ways to reduce costs in an agency experiencing severe budget deficits, these measures caused delays in mail delivery, potentially making postal voting logistically impossible. In July, the USPS sent out notices to 46 States saying it “can’t guarantee ballots will arrive on time”. Since then, DeJoy rolled back on his measures, and although he denied slowing down mail distribution in an attempt to sabotage the elections and assist Trump, clearly DeJoy and Trump have a very close relationship. Louis DeJoy donated more than $2.5 million to Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2016.
President Trump hoped to be saved from the growing and threatening Blue Shift, a recent phenomenon, identified by Prof. Foley at the Ohio State University, which consists in a shift of the final vote results from being in favour of a Republican win on election night to announcing a Democratic win a few days later. This comes after counting provisional ballots, such as postal ballots, which means that President Trump could lead on election night before losing points a few days later. With 85% of California voters and 81% of Washington D.C. voters expected to use mail-in voting in 2020, the Blue Shift poses a real threat to Trump. Hawkfish, a US political analysis company belonging to Michael Bloomberg, called this phenomenon the “Red Mirage”.
In consequence, Trump’s objective is to declare a win after the preliminary results. The delays in mail ballots and having them arrive later than the deadline served for this purpose. Now that both the House of Representatives and the Senate looked into the case, it seems unlikely that DeJoy will take additional measures. However, DeJoy announced that the USPS already dismantled 95% of the retired sorting machines and that they do not plan on restoring them.
That being said, Trump still has not given up and went as far as delegitimizing mail-in voting as a threat that could make the 2020 Presidential elections “rigged”, even though he voted by mail himself. In August, Trump admitted to trying to sabotage mail-in voting: he recognized that the USPS needed extra funding in order to function but decided not to “sign off on any relief bill that includes emergency federal funds”, saying that he does not want “universal mail-in voting”. Earlier on, reasoning the illegalities in mail-in voting and in-person polling safety, Trump even asked for the delay of the elections. However, Trump failed to postpone the elections as the constitution stipulates that the presidential mandate cannot be extended after January 20th. As the situation currently stands, many voters expect Trump to undermine the election results if the results indicate his loss. The 2020 Presidential Election stands as a unique case in American democracy as voters on both sides of the electoral spectrum fear uncertainty in voter behaviour, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic recession, and the 2020 US Racial Unrest.