Voter Suppression: USPS

file Picture; Tom Abbott

Full disclaimer, my husband is a USPS worker.

I am sure by now you have heard the claims from the president. Vote by mail, automatic vote by mail, will lead to a fraudulent election. He gives no real reason, but he already admitted that for the service to be able to handle the load they need funds, and he is against that funding. There is more, plants are removing sorters, the kind used to process letters, and would make processing ballots easier. These machines also help process your bills, and the occasional letter, Let’s be clear, the postal service does not handle as many letters as it used to. Packages are king at this point.

These new policies, including barring overtime and letting mail accumulate go against not just the spirit fo the post service, but US Law. Delaying the mail is a felony. Here is the language from the US Code (my bold):

(a)Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail entrusted to him or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any carrier or other employee of the Postal Service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post office or station thereof established by authority of the Postmaster General or the Postal Service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(b)Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, improperly detains, delays, or destroys any newspaper, or permits any other person to detain, delay, or destroy the same, or opens, or permits any other person to open, any mail or package of newspapers not directed to the office where he is employed; or

Whoever, without authority, opens, or destroys any mail or package of newspapers not directed to him, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

At this point, there is no doubt that there is intent to do exactly this. The United Staes Post Master General is an officer of the postal service. Why is he doing this? It’s clear that the president is not going to be reelected at this point. There is a lot of evidence of this. States are deciding to use the mail for ballots because of COVID. It is an emergency measure…