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USPS, Election Integrity and the U.S. Postmaster General
Hours after Democrats asked Postal Service officials to testify on Capitol Hill about new policies posing “a grave threat to the integrity of the election,” Nancy Pelosi cut short the House summer recess. Representatives will vote on legislation to block new changes at the USPS that voting advocates assert will undermine casting mail ballots during the pandemic.
As we’ve been reporting, the new postmaster general Louis DeJoy—a staunch Trump supporter—wasted no time enacting such changes as ending overtime pay and removing some sorting machines. Not surprisingly, these changes have created great delays in service. In response, the White House chief of staff has indicated openness to provide emergency funding to help the USPS deal with a surge in mail-in ballots.
DeJoy has significant and personal financial interests in the Postal Service’s corporate rivals and contractors. The November election is expected to bring in up to 80 million ballots by Americans nervous about in person voting because of COVID 19. The Postal Service notified states in July that it might not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots. As a result, state attorneys general are considering suing the administration.
President Trump has unabashedly criticized mail voting as vulnerable to fraud. At the same time he requested an absentee ballot from his now home state of Florida.
Guest – Chuck Zlatkin, legislative director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.
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Politically this is a time of great opportunity and great peril. The economic, racial, and health crisis we have been put in will deepen in the coming months. As the pandemic spreads, the depression gets worse and racist police brutality does not go away. There has been a massive corporate bail out disguised as a stimulus package. It has left millions of people jobless, broke, sick, and facing homelessness.
Trump and his Republican Party, venal and incompetent, have given up trying to contain the pandemic, ameliorate the economic catastrophe, or rein in the police. The Republicans left Washington two weeks ago refusing to pass an economic package that would aid the unemployed, which now number more than 30 million. 175,000 people have already died from COVID-19 and millions face eviction.
The massive demonstrations in the streets, black led with the support of the majority of whites, has been an insurgency unprecedented in American history.
Guest – Ajamu Baraka was the 2016 vice presidential candidate of the Green Party. He is a leader of the Black Alliance for Peace, a contributor to Black Agenda Report and an activist in the Black is Back Coalition.
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