Save the USPS, Protect our Vote

Trump knows he can’t govern. He knows he can’t win an election legitimately. He knows that without taking extraordinary measures (i.e., cheating), he will lose the 2020 election in a landslide to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

He knows that if he loses the election, he will will most likely face criminal charges for the countless acts of malfeasance he has committed, both during the 2016 campaign to secure power illegitimately, and throughout his tainted tenure as #TraitorInChief.

In this knowledge, he has resorted to desperate measures to try to hold onto power and avoid being held to account for his numerous crimes. Here are some:

  1. Blocking ballots, intimidating voters, spreading misinformation. Undermining democracy is at the heart of Trump’s 2020 campaign. Trump knows that voting from home via the mail is safe and trustworthy—he votes that way himself, from his home in Florida. He tells the American people that voting from home is plagued with fraud—but only in largely Democratic districts. He has no evidence for this, because it is false.

    The truth is: Out of millions of ballots cast by mail in past elections, the number of fraudulent ballots tends to be in the single digits.

  2. Seeking to launch Burisma 2.0 as a “September Surprise,” by laundering Russian disinformation through the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee. This effort is occuring through the Chairman, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), as well as Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).  They are hoping the public has forgotten about sworn Congressional testimony during Trump’s impeachment, and will accept more hacked and false information Russian disinformation conduit Rudy Guilani and other Ukranian operatives.
    These Burisma 2.0 documents have been classified by GOP leaders as “Confidential” and are restricted to the “Gang of Eight,” thus making them less accessible for public review and rebuttal. However, our Speaker Pelosi, as well as Sen. Schumer, Sen. Warner, and Rep. Schiff are on the Gang of Eight, and both of our Senators, Sens. Feinstein and Harris, are on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

    Since GOP leadership will never agree to declassify this information, our ask should be for one of our MOCs to read the relevant documents into the Congressional record. The American people have a right to know what Russian operatives are doing to actively interfere in the U.S. electoral process this year.

  3. Steadfastly refusing to fund the USPS, as required by Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, because doing so would enable people to vote from home using the mail, and postal voting has a much higher adoption rate among Democrats than among Republicans and Independents. Trump knows, and has openly admitted, that if people are able to easily vote by mail, he will lose the election.

    He laid out his plan in a recent press conference: “They (the USPS) don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess. Are they going to do it even if they don’t have the money?”

  4. Appointing long-time Trump donor Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General. DeJoy has no prior experience working within the USPS to qualify him, but he does have $30 million in stock in XPO Logistics, a USPS overflow-mail subcontractor, as well as tens of millions of dollars in stock of companies that compete directly with the USPS, some of which have recently tripled in value.

    It appears DeJoy has been appointed for the express purpose of slowing mail delivery, in a deliberate and intentional effort to sabotage Americans’ ability to use the mail to exercise their Constitutional right to vote, as well as to undermine the ability of the USPS to function efficiently, making privatization of the USPS—a long-term goal of the GOP—appear to be a more reasonable option.

Some of the tactics DeJoy is using to achieve these goals include:

    • The “Friday Night Massacre” (terminating or “reassigning,” aka demoting) 23 senior officials of the USPS; 

    • The removal (and in some cases destruction) of nearly 700 high speed sorting machines from large city mail centers across the country, necessary to handle the high volume of mail-in ballots for the 2020 election; 

    • The removal of blue mail boxes across the country, that would enable voters to easily post their mail-in ballots, without having to wait in long lines at polling places or travel long distances to electoral offices in the middle of a pandemic.  (We have been told this action has been “temporarily halted” until after Election Day, at which point USPS’ “needs” will be reassessed.)  

    • The elimination of overtime (customary and necessary to deliver mail in a timely fashion at peak periods throughout the year - like the holidays and at election time), even if it means leaving mail behind and undelivered;

    • The shortening of some postal office hours, even if it means leaving mail behind and undelivered;

    • Ending the prioritization of ballots mailed using bulk rates. States will have to either cough up first-class postage or risk ballots arriving late or being recycled.

In addition to all the aforementioned acts of treason against the American people, the Republican National Committee is giving millions of dollars to state Republican parties to recruit 50,000 volunteers—including veterans and off-duty law enforcement officers—to directly intimidate prospective voters and challenge ballots at "key precincts."  Such blatant voter intimidation is illegal, unconstitutional and must not be allowed to stand.

Trump and the Republican Party know that our vote has power. What we need to remind them of is that we won’t let them take it from us.

Tell your Members of Congress: Stop the Sabotage of the Post Office!

As a result of all these deliberate and orchestrated efforts to sabotage the USPS described above, the postal service has had to issue written warnings to 46 out of 50 states that it might not be able to deliver their ballots in time, based on current state election rules. 

DeJoy’s financial conflicts of interest, his interference in the U.S. Mail, and his interference in the U.S. elections—all at the direction of Donald Trump—are all federal crimes. After significant pressure from constituents like us, Congress has agreed to return from its month-long August vacation early, to begin hearings into DeJoy’s illegal actions, on August 24th, instead of waiting until their planned return in September, which would have been too late. 

Fortunately, our pressure is working! Louis DeJoy has agreed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. Still, we must remain diligent and keep up the pressure, to make sure he shows up!

Here’s what you should ask your Members of Congress

  • Demand that if Louis DeJoy fails to appear, he be arrested by the House Sergeant at Arms for Inherent Contempt

  • Demand subpoenas for other witnesses from the Board of Governors and USPS whistleblowers, including the 23 ousted officials

  • If your MOC is a member of the House Rules Committee, please ask them to adopt Congressman Ted Lieu’s (D-CA33) proposed Rules Change to abandon the 5-minute limit on the time allowed for each Representative to question a defendant under oath; 

  • Presuming that questioning would be led by the House Committee on Oversight & Reform, ask them to consider assigning Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA45) to lead that effort.

Contact your Members of Congress today.

What other actions can we take to protect our vote this election?

PERSONAL STORIES

Recall that it was the power of personal stories that enabled us to save the Affordable Care Act.  We can replicate that success today. Americans from all walks of life - including Trump’s own base - are angry about mail delays affecting their life-saving medicine, social security or disability checks, bills, and small business trade. All of these have historically always relied on the USPS.  Fortunately, there are several places where you can submit your own personal story (besides your own MOC’s website, that is, of course!)

  1. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs, is conducting an investigation into the harm being done to Americans by the intentional slowdown at the USPS. You can submit your personal stories directly through Sen. Peters’s website. Don’t forget to also send your story to your own Senators!

  2. The Postal Workers’ Union has also established a website where you can also submit your story: https://stories.usmailnotforsale.org/tell-your-story

  3. And finally, our very own Indivisible Northridge (in Southern CA) has set up a website where you can very quickly and easily record a personal video to tell your tale! The videos that are submitted will then be compiled as part of a viral social media campaign, to get the word out far and wide! https://flipgrid.com/saveusps

  4. You can also send a personal email to the United States Postal Service Board of Governors, which has the authority to hire and fire the Postmaster General, as well as to reverse the destructive policies he has implemented. All of the Board members are Trump appointees, but when they accepted the position, they probably didn’t anticipate the public spotlight being focused on them. And these members also have full-time jobs as executives overseeing the operations of their own corporations; being brought up on federal charges of interfering with the U.S. Mail and with U.S. elections is probably not in their companies’ best interest.  You can tell them what you think of their Postmaster General and the significant harm he has caused here:

HIT THE STREETS

MoveOn has announced a nationwide day of action to save the post office, on Saturday, August 22nd at 11 am local time, with RuralOrganizing.org, NAACP, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, SEIU, and Working Families Party. You can find their tweet announcing the mobilization here.

They are inviting people to show up at local post offices around the country, to save the post office from Trump and declare that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy must resign.  If you're interested in joining this action, they are requiring participants to fill out this form, which you should do ASAP.

CONTACT YOUR STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL

State officials are taking notice of the Post Office chaos. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ09) “made a criminal referral to the New Jersey Attorney General, asking him to empanel a grand jury to look at subversion of NJ election laws by Donald Trump, Louis DeJoy, and other Trump officials, in their accelerating arson of the post office.” 

Six other states are considering similar actions, according to the Washington Post:  “Attorneys General from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Washington and North Carolina, among others, have begun discussions on how to sue the administration to prevent operational changes or funding lapses that could affect the election. They expect to announce legal action early this week, according to several involved in the talks.” 

While Donald Trump or fixer U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr could potentially interfere in any legal actions taken against DeJoy at the Federal level, up to and including a full pardon, they have no authority or control over state legal actions or outcomes. As such, our ask here is to contact your state Attorney General to begin legal actions on the state level.

Contact the Office of Attorney General Xavier Becerra and ask him to take similar legal action against Louis DeJoy.  You can submit your comments via the CA AG’s public comment website.  

Deep DiveAnna KrasnerUSPS, post office, dejoy