Would you like to break out in stress hives today? I’ve been putting this out of my head for months now, shrugging it off with a simple “no one will take this seriously,” but here we are, 95 days away from the election, and Donald Trump is just sitting on Twitter and repeatedly claiming that mail-in ballots are somehow “inaccurate” and “fraudulent.” They are neither.
Mail-In Voting is already proving to be a catastrophic disaster. Even testing areas are way off. The Dems talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race. Even beyond that, there’s no accurate count!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
People were pointing out that absentee voting and mail-in ballots are exactly the same thing. As for “universal” mail-in voting, there are several states conducting universal vote-by-mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah. All other states allow for vote-by-mail/absentee ballots, because of course they do. That’s how most military personnel vote too, so he actually attacking the military vote. And the count IS accurate. All of this is just regular old GOP voter suppression. None of the Republicans in Congress will say sh-t because this is their last stand, their last hope of keeping any kind of majority anywhere: suppressing the vote.
As for the idea of “delaying” the election, as he mentioned in that tweet and as he’s mentioned in recent interviews… he literally cannot delay the election. And yes, it’s a bit rich for him to argue that schools should go back this fall but the election should be delayed.
If anything, we should just move the election up.
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 30, 2020
The CRAZY thing about Trump saying we should delay the election is the US GDP fell by 32.9% in the 2nd quarter. The largest recorded drop in history.
And more than 1.43M people filed for unemployment benefits for the 1st time last week, rising for a 2nd week.
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 30, 2020
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WENN and Avalon Red.
We all know the source of the “great embarrassment” currently. It would take an act of Congress to delay the election. It won’t happen.
I’d like to think that, when the time came, his security detail would haul him out. (Yeah I may be naive)
Let’s also not forget, the US Govt/Internal Revenue has NO TROUBLE with accepting checks MAILED IN, (ON THE DOT no less!), for tax revenue. If it’s ok for that, it’s SURE as shit ok for this!!
Trying to steal another election then via mass voter suppression.
It’s going to get worse still. His armed racist lunatics will be at the polls. I don’t know if we come out of this, but I did know the last months were going to be the worst. I’m in fighting shape.
I can totally see his ‘army’ at polling stations stopping people from voting and trying to bully people into voting for him – you know they are desperate and stupid enough to try as they know they will get away with it.
Could a person lie and say yeah I will vote for him and then write in Biden? In my area I have to declare that I want the Democrat ballot so I couldn’t just lie and change my vote if someone was trying to threaten me. (It might be the same everywhere else, I’ve only ever voted here though!)
@Digital Unicorn
Voter intimidation is a federal crime:
52 U.S.C. § 10101(b) states “No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose…”
@Meghan
Are you referring to the sample ballots handed out by the Democratic and Republican parties at the polls? Because an actual ballot 1) should always have all candidates of all parties running for all offices and 2) should never be filled out before you cast your vote. Nor should you have to declare any kind of political affiliation or intent to vote one way or another. If someone tries to intimidate you or refuse to give you a ballot, that is illegal, as per the law cited above.
Meghan, for PRIMARIES you will (usually) be given the ballot of your declared party for the major candidate. I believe there will still be judges of both parties on that. For the GENERAL ELECTION you would get ALL candidates of ALL party affiliations on the ballot.
Meghan,
It depends on if the state has an “open” or “closed” primary. If it’s closed then you get a ballot for your affiliated party. If you are registered independent, you don’t get to play. If it’s an open primary state, you get a ballot with R on one side and D on the other and you vote accordingly but ONLY on one side of the ballot. If you vote both, it’s spoiled and doesn’t count.
SMDH 🤦♀️
Trump actually votes by mail because I believe he claims FL as his official residence.
THIS! Trump has voted by mail for years. Granted his wife & child can’t figure out how to do it properly, but in Oregon, we’ve been fine using it for years. It increases voter turn out, which I get that he is against cuz he’s anti-democracy.
“Trump has used the absentee voting system in at least three elections: Trump voted by mail during New York’s mayoral election in 2017, cast an absentee ballot during the state’s midterm election the following year, and again used a vote-by-mail ballot in Florida’s primary election in 2020.
In 2017, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their daughter, Ivanka Trump, all cast absentee votes during New York’s mayoral race. These votes made headlines at the time because it was reported that Melania and Ivanka filled out their ballots incorrectly (and therefore were invalid) while the president listed the wrong birth date”
Tiffany and Jared did too and both mailed them to the wrong district.
This is an attempt at a dictatorship. They will ramp this up day by day until the election is permanently canceled.
LP- do you think they could successfully cancel the election or delay it? Could it happen?
It’s up to the states.
Minx: that is not accurate. The dates of elections are set by the Congress. It would take an act of the Congress to push up, push back or otherwise alter an election date. States do not have that power.
Wiki:
“While the United States Constitution does set parameters for the election of federal officials, state law, not federal, regulates most aspects of elections in the U.S., including primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), the running of each state’s electoral college, as well as the running of state and local elections. All elections—federal, state, and local—are administered by the individual states.”
Minx: you’re still incorrect. Via NPR: “Trump also does not have the power himself to move the date of the election, which was set by an 1845 federal law placing it the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
The date could move theoretically with action by Congress — but that would require agreement both by the Democrats who control the House and the Republicans who control the Senate. Neither side supports the idea.”
The date of the election is set by Congress. No state can move it.
LP, if there is no election isn’t he out of office come Jan 20 anyway? Could this be a way to no longer be president without conceding defeat? In the vein of (in Trump’s best whiny voice): “I didn’t lose, they kicked me out”.
Correct if there is no election he is out on January 20. He is trying to instill fear. He knows he is loosing. He pulled his commercials out of Michigan yesterday and is trying to defend Texas. No he cannot delay the election. Congress and the Supreme Court would stop him. Even if he was stupid enough to try.
I believe if there is not an election the Speaker of the House becomes president. Pesident Nancy Polosi. Okay with me.
Lizzie is correct. The Constitution provides that if an election cannot be held on the congressionally set date, the President does not get to just continue on (because that would be a dictatorship). The speaker of the house becomes invested with the powers of the office until the election is held.
So there is literally nothing he can do to remain in power after January 20th – except win the election. Pushing it back will not extend things. What he IS doing, in my mind, is trying to cripple the legitimacy of the Biden presidency. He’s trying to argue that Biden’s win will not be legitimate, so conservatives feel free to flaut the administration and try to hobble it at every turn. That’s what the goal is.
Technically and legally, his term ends January 20, 2021. However, Trump doesn’t believe in the Constitution and, from the looks of it, the leaders of the GOP don’t either.
We are in trouble.
@Lizzie omg that is the best thing i’ve read in ages!!! i can’t stop smiling at the thought
If he tries to stay in without being re-elected, I suspect the public reaction will dwarf the Portland protests in passion and fury.
There’s got to be a reason he’s so against mail in voting. Methinks it’s the in person machines that are rigged.
He can’t actually delay the vote, as it’s not in his power. And as Kaiser notes, one can’t open schools then expect people to accept an election delay.
But what he can do is get his people to think Biden only won because of fraud and because he couldn’t delay the election. It’s his way of saving face. Plus, it gives him a platform to start that TV network he wants to replace Fox. Which is why he ran for President in the first place.
He knows it’s over and is setting up a post Presidency career as the loudest right wing voice on TV. Which he’ll try and use to get Nagini elected the first woman President in 2024. If he and she are not jailed first.
Mall in voting means more people have opportunity to vote. People don’t have to juggle being at work, picking up the kids or dropping them off, in some cases traveling long distances, finding a parking space, or standing in bad weather somewhere in a line for hours – add a deadly virus to that. High voter turnout has never boded well for Republicans.
He’s thinks mail in voting is favorable to democrats even though there isn’t evidence this is true. He’s both trying to suppress the vote and setting up the narrative of fraud in the event he loses. This will be his reasoning when he refuses to cede the presidency. It’s right in front of us.
As I said below he’s also purposely trying to sabotage the USPS. Both trying to slow everything down and hurt our credibility. Post office has the highest approval rating of federal offices ftom the american people.
Voter suppression is more difficult with mail in voting. Closing polling stations and such tricks won’t be as effective.
This. Suppressing minorities votes is more difficult with mail in voting. Closing polls is very effective in suppressing votes, like what they recently did in Kentucky.
This is exactly what he’s doing. He’s setting it up so that he can say that the election was “rigged” when he loses. It’s exactly what he’s done with every election, including 2016. That way he could cover his ass if he had lost in 2016, and he could be all fussy about the Dems taking back the House in 2018.
I also think he’s trying to create confusion about the election: when it is, how you can or cannot vote, etc so that people who don’t pay close attention to the actual rules and laws might be like “eh, this is too confusing, I don’t want to look it up and verify when the election is, or look into whether or not my state already has vote by mail, I’m just not going to vote this year.” Because lower turnout always benefits Rs.
He has no power to do so.
Everyone needs to call their representatives, Red state, blue state, from Senator all the way down the ballot to local county recycling clerk. And tell them with one voice that you believe in your state/ county to hold free and fair elections for everyone, that you know that they can do their job and they must speak up to SHUT this President down.
So many of our local officials take great pride in this civic service that they must provide, sometimes once a year. It’s ridiculous for this doofus to infer that they’re not doing their job.
Yes, there’s Republican voter suppression, but even the people involved in that still want to look like they can do their jobs to keep the old white Republican voters happy. They have to walk a thin line of plausible deniability and Trump is making it hard for them to even do that.
If he wants to tell his supporters the election has been delayed I’m cool with that.
As your friendly CB postal worker, the new postmaster general is purposely slowing mail down. Setting things up to both claim fraud and eventually privatize the USPS and sell it for parts.
Isn’t the USPS enshrined in the Constitution? I thought they couldn’t get rid of it. I’ve noticed a huge slowdown in my mail. Some days the truck stops at my mailbox but there isn’t anything in there when we check. We have informed delivery so we know what we are supposed to get each day.
@fluffy_bunny …I agree with you that there has been a huge slowdown in mail delivery. I’ve sent Priority Mail that took two weeks+ to arrive at destinations (normal is supposed to be 2-3 days), and First Class mail sent to neighboring states (just next to me) delayed by five days. I thought it was due to the pandemic, but now I’m not so sure.
If this is true, and I don’t doubt it? All concerned US citizens need to repeatedly call their elected officials demanding an immediate investigation. Don’t give up until there is one.
People are calling their representatives who then yell at the mail carriers when its the postmater general who is responsible. Weird logistic and administrative rules to deliberately slow us down.
Like today I had my own route plus half a route for someone who left a month ago. The other half hadn’t been delivered in two weeks bc there aren’t enough people, we are being blocked from hiring someone new, and overtime is case by case. So whereas the mail gets delivered no matter what (and overtime approved to ensure all routes are covered) it will sit. Does that make sense?
There are other bs rules in place but i tried to think of the easiest one to explain.
Is everyone ready for war?
I’m ready to rumble.
Hold my earrings
Canada will be popping champagne corks in your honour the day that f*cker and his low-life family are frog-marched out of the WH.
It’s all projection once again. He’s telling us what THEY are planning on doing. Messing with the mail in votes and letting a foreign power get at those votes to work in THEIR favor.
“It’s all projection once again.” Right?? He always gives everything away! It’s easy to make moves against him because he tells you right where to look–all the time. LOL, he is really the dumbest man alive.
I live in Oregon, and we’ve voted by mail since the 90’s. It’s a great system—low incidence of fraud, and is it ever convenient! Our local library has a locked dedicated mailbox where we drop off our ballots.
I’m with ypu Doodle. I’ve been voting by mail for more than ten years here in Florida, since I didn’t want to wait in lines but still wanted to be heard. It’s worked perfectly well. I have to say that I will go in person and put up with whatever it means if that becomes necessary.
Works well for us in California. Our Gov Newsom is sending mail ballots to every registered voter, 20.6 million, due to Covid 19. I’ve voted by mail in the last three elections. We can check online to see if our vote has been counted.
I live in Washington state, and we have been completely mail-in for years now. I confess I miss the civic-pride moment of lining up at a polling place with my fellow citizens, but I can’t complain about the convenience of filling out my ballot whilst parked on my sofa. We have drop-boxes but recently the state made the ballots postage-paid so it costs nothing to just drop it in your mailbox.
The Republicans don’t want the paper trail or the turn-out. In 2016, our state turnout was just over 80%.
Congress sets the election date, and Congress is having none of his lies. Where are we with his tax returns being released, the Cohen book? LP put up a video yesterday on his twisted and limping right leg. One of my hopes is due to his ongoing drug abuse and failing health he’ll be hospitalized sooner rather than later.
US Congress is both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Whatever the House of Representatives does? It still has to get through a McConnell-controlled Senate.
Thank you. Rep Nadler is tweeting on the subject. It’s a, “no way in hell for the house.” Rushed this am. What else is new.
Distraction. Constant chaos.
I look forward to a day when we can blissfully go more than 24 hours without having to pay attention to a “leader’s” tantrums or sheer ignorance.
I’m ready for President Pelosi if he tries to pull that BS. Until Biden is sworn in.
I spoke with some American family last night. And it scared me.
Please for the love of EVERYTHING please vote this Cheeto out. My American family tried to argue that Biden can’t get a sentence out without stuttering, so that’s why they need to vote for said Cheeto. The rest of the world is watching. We want you to be better. We know that Biden may not be your first choice, but he is the choice you have. It truly scares the rest of us if there are 4 more years of the current president.
He is trying to distract from John Lewis’s funeral and the news that his precious economy fell off a cliff 37%. He has no power to delay anything only the power to upset people. I also just saw a news alert that Herman Caine died from the Covid he got at Trump’s Tulsa Rally. He is liable to come out and say the Demon Spawn and Lizard people will be poll watching after he gets asked about this. His refusal to lead or even care is now literally killing off his election team along with 1000 people a day.
I’m watching the funeral and I’m in tears.
And can we give Bernice Kimg five minutes with him? They would have to scrape his melted remains off the floor before she finished saying “Hello.”
Absolutely! There is a REASON he was too much of a coward to go to the funeral!
I cried when Clinton spoke too and you had to pick me up off the floor when President Obama came on. Cheeto’s life cannot compare to John Lewis’ legacy and he knows it.
Then, the Florida Democratic Party called me asking me if I was voting for Biden. My response: “Hell yes! I’ve already put in for my absentee ballot.” Girl laughed. August 1st is the announcement for VP. Cannot wait to see who is going to go toe-to-toe with Mother’s Husband.
I live in WA and i adore mail-in voting BUT – you must send it in earlier than cypu think. Post marks do not matter. If it is not there in time, it will not be counted. You must send it in 2 wks early. Oct. 20th is voting day. Im sending mine no later than Oct. 15th.
EFF YOU DONALD. we’re voting and your tantrums can do nothing about it!
The US Constitution and federal law prevent the change the date. Also if there is a tie in Electoral College votes the House of Representatives break the tie with an individual vote. With the House majority Democrat he knows he ‘s done.
It’s ramping up now. We knew they would try to delay (and ultimately suspend) elections, and it’s only going to get worse from here. Guarantee you this is Miller or Barr at work behind the scenes. People need to stop pretending we aren’t exactly at the type of precipice where you either teeter and fall into outright fascism or stumble backwards enough to slowly regain your footing.
My husband and I were talking about this last night: fascism is here and its entrenching itself. I have always wondered, though, how they will convince all the crazies to turn over their guns because I believe thaT is a required component of a Dictatorship. And it hit me: They will use the BLM protests. They will call them riots. They will label participants as terrorists. They will convince their supporters that yes, these libs have guns and in order to disarm them, we have to ban all firearms. And the Trumpsters will actually fall for it and hand them over.
Trump with use his extremist, gun-toting followers as an illegal standing army to enforce Trump-run fascism. The type of idiots who already volunteer to ‘police’ the southern US border with their cache of privately-owned military grade weapons.
Yes, absolutely. It’s one of the reasons why that even though I am completely sympathetic to why the protests happened and why riots happen, and God knows the United States can’t even begin to pay a fraction of the shit we’ve thrown on black Americans, a part of me looked at the social discord with a sense of dread. I know how people like Miller and Barr and their cohorts think. History shows us that fascists know how effectively they can turn the “Other” into a violent bogeyman to convince people to hand over their rights for a false sense of security. You can already see how quickly they twisted “defund the police” into a campaign slogan to stoke racial division and class fear.
These people know *exactly* what they are doing. They are letting the economy collapse on purpose. That’s their backup plan. If elections go down in November somehow and knock him out, they’re setting up Biden for failure. They’ll wait two years, regrab the House by playing on people’s economic frustration and woes (just look at how they waited for Obama and his Congress to fix things, then whipped around and wrecked it again), then set up their golden boy Tom Cotton for the 2024 elections because he’s a far more competent type of fascist. It’s shocking to me how many people can’t see it unfolding right before their eyes. It shocks me that other world nations aren’t taking this seriously in terms on the ramifications it will have for the entire world if we fall. I’m literally having to force my family to give me their personal information so I can get them all passports because they still don’t believe it could go as far sideways as it could.
People singing about revolution need to check themselves. Revolutions do NOT mean the progressive side wins. It can absolutely end worse off than it started. And either way, the body count at the end of the day is not going to be small if a real civil war starts up. A failed state spares nobody but the ultra rich and those wise and resourced enough to get out fast.
And everyone thought it was ugly now.
Just wait until he sends his personal goon squad out to suppress voters and gaslights the knuckledraggers who worship him into going to polling places and intimidating people into leaving. It’s going to get so much worse.
I think it’s precious that people still think the law or the Constitution is going to change or prevent anything considering it hasn’t slowed him down at all so far.
voting by mail is fine….he’s just a coward.
Yeah, HELL TO THE NO. Congress will never agree to this — thank God that Democrats took the House in 2018, or I could see Congress rolling over on it.
This is the clearest sign yet of how absolutely panicked Trump is. His tricks aren’t working this time. Promoting the demon sex doctor and tweeting about protecting the “Suburban Dream Lifestyle” aren’t ginning up his approval the way he hoped.
BYEDON 2020!
US Congress is both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans control the Senate and can stop anything the Democrat-controlled House puts forward to protect elections.
Not sure if I’m misinterpreting your response to the comment above – the House doesn’t need to push anything. Any bill to delay the elections would fail and never get to the Senate.
What would be interesting is if the governors of states request the aid of the military to protect voters from the Trump zealots mentioned above.
A different example to repeat the point – US Congress is made up of two entities, the House and Senate. A bill to protect elections put forward by Dem-controlled House wouldn’t necessarily pass the Republican-controlled Senate.
They don’t need a bill to protect elections. They want to change the date, and if they try it will never pass the House. I don’t think even the repubs want that.
Byedon 2020
VERY CLEVER!
It’s going to be a horror show until he loses and is escorted out. He’s using chaos and confusion to weaken us, but we will prevail.
I am just legit concerned over not only the Presidential election but the Senate election in my state. We vote at the local Baptist church and our guv’nah said you don’t have to wear a mask at your polling place. I don’t want my bright blue vote to get disappeared.
I have always thought that he would try to steal the election. I think he would do it even if he won a second term. And I think the religious right would back him all the way.
To everyone who is worried about goons threatening people at the polls.
Show up in a MAGA hat, vote Biden.
Problem solved.
I’m going to borrow my racist father’s hat even somehow my absentee ballot is not accepted in FL. I’m voting Blue down the line even if I have to show up at my tiny local library and wait. (I live in a heavy red area).
I’m going to vote by mail in just because I don’t want have to deal w lines etc. I will lose my shit if I hear a trumpster
Less than a third of Americans are hardcore Trumpers. I think if Trump somehow got himself around Congress to bring this to pass, the 2/3 of decent American voters would rise up. Everyone now is all “we will get him out in November, patience”, but if he actually tries to pull this crap…America has fought wars for its democracy in the past. I’m not advocating war, but if tyranny is the alternative, then I’m not sure what other realistic recourse there would be to major civil unrest.
This article from three years ago below reads more & more like factual prophecy. I’m reposting it now because it’s one of the Most Important Political Articles I’ve ever read. (I read a LOT and sometimes I deep dive into a variety of geopolitical situations for fun).
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/one-year-after-trumps-election-revisiting-autocracy-rules-for-survival
Anyhow I found it here from either a fellow commentator or one of the writers. So it feels like a good idea to repost it three years later.
Don’t feed the troll, people! He’s just doing this to wind us up & deflect from his total coronavirus sh*tshow. He thinks if he can erode our faith in the voting process then he’ll be able to cry “fake news” ehen he loses. This is not prelude to a coup. This is a master manipulator at work. He’s also a complete idiot surrounded by incompetent grifters out for themselves so expect this to explode in his face eventually.
Trump sent one of his fixers, who looks a lot like the one who harassed Stormy Daniels, the one Trump claims doesn’t exist, to my Match.com to intimidate me and attempt to destroy my family. Yet he needs ‘extra time’ because he is losing. He exhibits classic malignant narcissist traits. He is a big orange turd. Double standards. Entitled creep.
What?! Oh my goodness
I will crawl through broken glass, dragging an oxygen tank if I have to, but one way or another, we are getting rid of the cancer in the White House.