What exactly is Trump's plan with the Post Office to impact the elections?

[Quixote1818]

To slow the mail down? Won't this just delay the inevitable? Is he trying to cast doubt on how the ballots are handled? Are they planning on rigging the sorters to throw out ballots from certain precincts?

Can someone help me understand what the plan is or are they just desperately flailing around throwing darts and seeing where they might land?

[live love laugh]

1. I don't understand why you think there's a blueprint.

The potential is there for chaos based on all we know so far. And they’re in charge. Act accordingly is what all can do.

[Baclava]

2. He knows the polls show he is failing, will throw his own monkey wrench in to jam the election

[EarlG]

3. I *think*

the plan is this:

Everybody knows that due to the pandemic it's likely there will be a massive increase in mail voting this year. Therefore, it's unlikely that the winner of the presidential race will be declared on election night, because there will be so many mail ballots to go through. THIS IS EXPECTED, and not a problem (if the president wasn't a psychopath).

So IF Trump can get his base to turnout in person at the polls, and IF he can delay mail-in ballots (expected to favor Democrats), then on election night, when the early results favor him even though there are still millions of ballots to be counted, he's going to loudly claim victory.

Then, he will continue to claim victory based on early election night results, and attempt to dismiss any ballots that are counted after election day as rigged, fraudulent, etc. He'll attempt to drag it through the courts, while still acting as if he is the legitimate president.

In other words, he'll try to create a giant clusterfuck which will end with him saying, essentially, well I was the president before this whole intractable mess happened, and I was ahead on election night, so therefore I must still be the president since we can't possibly get a real result.

He'll then try to get the Supreme Court to pull a Bush vs. Gore II, and declare the election in his favor.

[CrispyQ]

4. Chaos.

It will not only depress the vote, increasing his chances, but this also adds a whole level of chaos that we've never had in an election before. 2020 is going to rival Florida 2000 only on a national level.

[Casandia]

5. So I'm thinking the same thing, and I thought maybe...

he gets enough mail-in ballots removed/lost/ineligible/etc and then the VOTING MACHINES (especially those that do not leave a paper trail) on voting day all suddenly appear to have an overwhelming percentage of TRUMP votes. So then he claims that the mail-in ballots were rigged, while the voting machines were NOT. Just a thought...

[zipplewrath]

6. Basis for confusion

It's an attempt to create a basis for confusion and uncertainty so that the Republican governors and/or legislatures can intervene.

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. There are two main elements

1) disrupt the timely distribution of mail in ballots, to force voters to choose between in person voting or not voting at all.
2) disrupt the timely return of mail in ballots, so they will be excluded from the final count

[beachbumbob]

8. POST DATES on ballots will render the ballot uncountable in all states if goes past

a certain date, typically the day of the election.

the problem, this effects ALL mail in ballots and why local GOP officials screaming at trump to stop the nonsense

[LisaL]

10. I guess Trump is betting on more democrats trying to vote by mail.

[beachbumbob]

12. he has a pea brain and can not connect that republican voters vote by mail. GOP base is a much OLDER

base than democrats to begin with so COVID, tampering with mail service, mail in ballots will have a disproportionate impact on republicans . Throw in late bills, late payments and people who still write checks (older americans), nothing like a wake up at 65yrs old to see late payments and fees based on politicizing the post office.

[LisaL]

9. If you slow it down, people won't get the ballots in time, or won't be able to return the ballots in

time. Resulting in many ballots not being counted.

[JHB]

11. Eliminating the USPS has been a RW pet project for quite some time

It's why they enacted that insane law under Bush that it has to pre-fund retirements 75 years in advance, and have blocked any effort to reform that. Delivering stuff is a business for private enterprise, and the government shouldn't be competing, according to these zealots.

They don't have a lot of numbers, but they have a lot of dollars, and that means a lot of clout inside the GOP.

Add to that Democrats' efforts to expand vote-by-mail, which fixated Tripp's view of it as an attack on him, and you have a combination where powerful forces within the GOP see their big chance to push hard and get their wish.

And don't let people call this "Trumpism." It's some of the same "this is our big chance to grab all the marbles" maneuvering that Bush's people did to turn 9/11 into an excuse to carry out their pre-existing "take down Saddam" pet project.