Many consider US President Donald Trump to be the most controversial in the history of the United States, as his statements, decisions, and battles, even on social networking sites, formed a constant topic of conversation for the media, with whom he also fought a wide war of statements. Trump’s latest controversial statements are what Trump asked of his supporters in the presidential elections that will be held next November 3, as Trump called on them to vote early by mail before going to the polls to vote a second time, which forced the North Carolina Board of Elections to quickly warn that voting twice is illegal. At an election rally in North Carolina, the US President urged voters to vote twice, the first by mail and the second at the polling station, in order to test the system’s robustness in the face of fraud, he said. “Mail your ballot early, then go vote,” Trump said. If your ticket has not yet been tabulated, your vote will be counted. “You can’t let them steal your vote. These people are playing dirty politics, so if you have an absentee ballot, send it in.”
Desperate attempts to doubt
But these statements by Trump are not separate from his repeated attempts to cast doubt on the upcoming voting process that takes place through the mail system as part of the allegations of an outbreak of the Corona virus, as the US President recently repeated his skepticism that massive mail-in voting in the upcoming elections due to the Coronavirus pandemic may open the door to voter fraud. US Attorney General William Barr also joined President Trump in questioning voting by mail, saying that it may expose the elections to fraud. From the delay in the arrival of letters to the removal of mailboxes from the streets, opponents of Donald Trump accuse the president of seeking to destroy the general US postal service to make it impossible to vote by correspondence, as this vote may contribute to tipping the balance in favor of his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. The presidential election campaign has been focused for days on the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the reforms being undertaken by the agency’s new director, Louis DeJoy, amid great media fanfare, as Trump considers that voting by mail will be “disastrous,” which was opposed by election experts and a number of high-ranking Democratic officials. This prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, and others to invite DeJoy to a hearing before the House Oversight Committee on August 24. They said in a statement that DeJoy “is a major donor to the Trump campaign, and has acted as an accomplice in the president’s campaign to rig the election, launching sweeping new changes that lower delivery standards” for mail. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Democrats could get more funding for the Postal Service if they were willing to strike a deal on the economic stimulus package. American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein responded by saying, “We don’t want to have our hands tied by policies that slow down mail delivery.” He added, “The president wants to dry up mail funding sources to prevent people from voting. Everyone should have the easiest way to vote, regardless of who they vote for.” The union president stressed that postal workers “will do their best to prioritize ballots” and ensure they arrive in time to be counted.
Rising anger against Trump
The Washington Post reported that the Postal Service informed states that it would not be able to deliver millions of ballots to be counted before November 3. Democrats want to fund this two-hundred-year-old public service whose white and blue pickup trucks roam the streets of the United States. Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to her colleagues on Saturday that the issue is “funding for sound and fair elections in our country.” But this is not the case for Donald Trump. He made it clear Thursday in an interview with the right-wing Fox News channel that he does not want to fund the Postal Service “so that it is not equipped for universal mail-in voting,” which he does not want.
Biden is the beneficiary
Democratic challenger Joe Biden sees the issue as “a reflection of Trump. He doesn’t want an election.” Former President Barack Obama also commented on the issue, who said, “We have never seen a president say, ‘I will bring the Postal Service to its knees, and I will say clearly why.’ Observers believe that Trump opposes mail-in voting to prepare people for the possibility of objecting to the results if he is defeated in the vote. Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said that Trump “at least wants to raise enough questions to make people lose their confidence.” Trump also realizes that voting by correspondence could encourage African Americans and Latin Americans to vote, who seem more inclined to abstain from participating, due to their often precarious situations. He also realizes that Democratic voters tend to vote by mail more than his supporters.
