Of Conspiracies and Voting: Which is the REAL Power?

As conspiracies go, this isn’t like QAnon. https://t.co/IMyjt73Qai

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) August 19, 2020

Consider this in the context of all those lawsuits Trump wants to bring when election returns don't go his way:

President Trump has spent months raging against mail-in voting systems calling them “rigged,”“corrupt,”“fraudulent,” and threatening to withhold funding from the Post Office so the Democrats won’t “steal the election” from him.

And now—surprise!—a lot of people think Trump may want to prevent people from being able to vote by mail.

I mean, how do people come up with the nutty conspiracy theories?

As of Tuesday, at least 21 states were planning to sue the Post Office and U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy (a Trump supporter-cum-government-appointee) for operational changes made ahead of the election—including the removal of Post Office dropboxes and sorting machines—which have resulted in mail slowdowns. Oh, and last week the Post Office sent letters to 46 states and the District of Columbia warning that it could not guarantee that ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted.
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In a normal election year, without coronavirus and a sitting president denouncing mail-in voting systems, people may have looked at mail slowdowns and drop boxes being hauled away and locked up and not really thought much of it. But, when Trump tweets things such as “MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE. IT WILL ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY. WE CAN NEVER LET THIS TRAGEDY BEFALL OUR NATION” it’s kind of hard to fault people for thinking the president might up to something.

Because he is.

Let that sink in, because the courts will; then go on to what's happened so far in reality (rather than in "sky-is-falling-land"):

Behind the scenes, Trump’s presidential campaign is suing Nevada over its mail-in voting system and trying to invalidate absentee ballot requests in three Iowa counties. Earlier this summer, Trump’s lawyers took Pennsylvania to court for its mail-in system but failed to produce any evidence of vote-by-mail fraud by the Friday deadline the judge imposed. (Oops.)

Trump’s brand of conspiracy theories tend to work better on Facebook and Fox than in court. A plaintiff typically needs evidence to pursue a claim. But all you need to go viral are some foot soldiers shameless enough to put their faces on the story and go on TV. Like White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.

There, Meadows claimed mail-in systems send “millions” of ballots to “empty mailboxes,” which “disenfranchises” voters.

“But there’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” Tapper said.

Meadows replied, “There’s no evidence that there’s not, either. That’s the definition of fraud, Jake.”

Actually, that’s the definition of a smear. Go ahead. Prove to me you don’t beat your spouse, abuse puppies, commit other various crimes against humanity. THERE’S NO EVIDENCE YOU DON’T. SEE!?!

In discussion with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo earlier this month about why he would not agree to Democratic requests for emergency Post Office funding Trump said, “They need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots…If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”

So: The president says that mail-in voting will destroy his party. He says that he “can never let” mail-in voting happen. And he then says that by denying the Post Office funding, then they won’t have the capability to process mail-in voting.

Boy, it’s a real mystery why people think Trump might shut down the Post Office to help him win reelection.

That interview alone will probably feature in every lawsuit brought by every state to stop the destruction of the USPS.

As I've said before, you can't bring suits in 25 or 30 states the day after the election, claiming voter fraud just because you don't like the outcome.  You also can't do it to overturn election results (courts don't do that).  At most you can delay vote counts, but there's a constitutional deadline on electors reporting to the meeting of the college to transmit their votes to the Congress (who oversees election of the POTUS.  It's not cable news, and it's not AP; it's not even the Supreme Court.).  In the end, it's pretty much this simple:

(2) Trump repeatedly said he believes mail-in voting will cost him the election. Then the Postal Service suddenly started taking actions that were out of the ordinary. Because the president wanted it to.

As conspiracies go, this isn’t like QAnon. You don’t have to decode anonymous internet posts and do a whole Pepe Silvia thing. It’s pretty straight forward: Trump say mail-in voting bad. Mail has problems. Trump stop mail.

EOD.  End of problem, too.  Which will reach a swifter end if the vote turnout swamps the polls and goes so decisively against Trump he'd have to get the courts to throw out results in 25-30 states. (Narrator:  the courts won't throw out results in even 1 state.  Historical reminder:  the Supreme in Bush v. Gore didn't throw out any results in Florida, they just halted the recount and ordered the results as reported before the recount, to stand.  I don't think Trump could get that result again in one state (besides, he'd be asking for the recount), much less in 25 or 30 states.  Voting is the ultimate power of the citizen.  USE IT!)