August 12, 2020/Media, Press

Editorial Board: Trump “is planting falsehoods about mail-in ballots” and launching an “assault” on the Postal Service

News & Observer: “His aim is to inhibit the Postal Service from delivering an essential message this November – the will of the people.”

Raleigh – In a scathing new editorial out this morning, the News & Observer’s editorial board bashed Donald Trump’s “assault” on the US Postal Service, accusing him of trying to tamper with vote by mail processes to influence the outcome of the November election.

The board said Trump seems committed to “diminishing” the Postal Service and its ability to deliver mailed ballots because he “fears a robust mail-in vote this November will make him a private citizen again.”

As of yesterday morning, more than 174,000 North Carolinians have requested absentee ballots — 7.4 times ahead of the total number of requests at the same point in the election cycle four years ago. Registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters account for 81 percent of all ballot requests so far, while registered Republicans make up just 19 percent of requests compared to 36 percent at this point in 2016.

Highlights:

  • The president who ran on the slogan “Make America Great Again” appears to be bent on diminishing one of the nation’s oldest and most quintessentially American institutions – the U.S. Postal Service.
  • Why? Maybe because President Trump fears a robust mail-in vote this November will make him a private citizen again.
  • Behind in the polls and facing a surge of people planning to vote by mail because of the pandemic, Trump claims that mail-in voting is ripe for massive fraud although there is no evidence of it, even in states that routinely conduct their elections mostly by mail.
  • Even conservatives who otherwise support Trump’s agenda should reject his political, self-serving assault on this nonpartisan service that serves everyone.
  • On the eve of the most important election in a generation, a Republican president who lost the popular vote in 2016 is planting falsehoods about mail-in ballots and slowing down the movement of the mail.
  • Congress needs to block this autocratic ploy to disrupt the flow of the U.S. mail and the exercise of democracy.
Read the full editorial HERE