by David Catron
In the absence of an extremely unlikely recovery of public confidence in the President and the Democrats, the voters will attempt to return the White House and the Senate to the Republicans in November. As to the presidency, Trump is the beneficiary of an accelerating collapse in the traditional Democratic coalition that rested on a foundation of white working class and minority voters. And there aren’t enough “highly-educated” voters to prop up this crumbling edifice. With regard to the Senate, the Democrats face a brutal map this year. Of the 33 seats up for election, 23 are held by Democrats. Even worse, several of these are in states that Trump won by double digits in 2016 and 2020.
In pre-COVID America, it was possible to look at such data and predict a good Republican year with a reasonable amount of confidence. Indeed, a recent CNN report conceded that Trump could win the White House back even if he loses Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Unfortunately, most of the swing states that will decide the presidential and Senate elections are governed by Democrats who have unequivocally embraced mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. This means millions of votes counted in 2024 will have ostensibly been cast by people who never go anywhere near a traditional polling place. Moreover, these votes will be transported by entities that have little incentive and less ability to keep them secure.
Sadly, this includes the U. S. Postal Service (USPS). Most Americans have long since stopped paying bills through the mail and, last year, the USPS itself issued a warning against mailing checks, according to a story in the Washington Post: “Mail theft is surging, the U.S. Postal Service reports, and federal regulators have warned banks and other financial institutions of rising check fraud.” Yet we are expected to believe that voting by mail is safe. Indeed, the Post has published countless op-eds encouraging its readers to ignore warnings from election integrity experts about the lack of security associated with mail-in ballots. As recently as last week, however, the USPS issued this less than reassuring update on its main security initiative:
Today, the U.S Postal Service (USPS) and U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) announced an update on Project Safe Delivery, a joint initiative to protect postal employees and secure the nation’s mail and packages … Customers are encouraged to report stolen mail as soon as possible by submitting an online complaint to the Postal Inspection Service at www.uspis.gov/report or calling 877-876-2455. Additionally, individuals are encouraged to report allegations of Postal Service employee misconduct, including attempts to corrupt a Postal Service employee, to the USPS OIG at 1-888-877-7644 or www.uspsoig.gov.
It’s obvious that the USPS and the USPIS are engaged in a running gun battle with the perpetrators of mail theft. Still, the important swing state of Nevada opted to allow all elections to be conducted by mail beginning in 2022. The Silver State’s recently elected Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, attempted to end universal vote-by-mail, but the Democrat-dominated legislature blocked the effort. Meanwhile, the local CBS affiliate in Las Vegas reports, “A technical issue was causing primary mail-in ballots across Nevada to show as counted when voters had not mailed their ballots or voted at all.” Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s Democratic Secretary of State, shrugged the issue off as a mere “glitch.”
Michigan is another crucial swing state that has significantly expanded mail-in voting. Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature approved dozens of new election laws in 2023, including “permanent absentee voting.” Previously, voters who wanted to vote by mail had to apply for an absentee ballot before each election. Under the new law, voters can apply online and get “no-reason” absentee ballots for all future elections unless they move out of the state or choose to opt out. In addition, the state provides pre-paid postage for all absentee ballots. For a sense of how “expansive” Gov. Whitmer’s new voting laws are, this is how the far left Brennan Center for Justice reacted to them:
Michigan enacted 12 expansive voting laws in 2023, the most of any state. While the number of laws doesn’t always indicate the breadth of the voting-access reforms, Michigan’s new laws put in place a wide range of major expansions. Of the six laws passed in Michigan since our last roundup, four expand access to voter registration. These laws extend automatic voter registration to new government agencies, open up pre-registration to those as young as 16, and widen access to online voter registration. The other two laws allow voters to apply online for a mail ballot and repeal a prohibition on hiring transportation for taking voters to the polls.
These people insist such laws expand “our democracy.” In reality, of course, they facilitate election skullduggery. In the 2024 scenario noted above, CNN suggests that Trump can win the White House back even if he loses Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But that requires him to win the two swing states that have led the movement to expand mail-in voting — Nevada and Michigan. Is it possible for Trump to recapture any of the other three? It’s theoretically possible, but as I pointed out here, the Democratic governors of all three have demonstrated that the veto pen is mightier than election integrity. They have killed every election integrity bill, particularly those involving mail-in voting, that somehow reached their desks.
Which brings us back to the U. S. Postal Service. As Hans A. von Spakovsky asked in the American Spectator after the 2022 midterms, “If you won $500 million in the Powerball lottery, would you put your winning ticket into an envelope and trust the U.S. Postal Service to deliver it to the state agency that administers the lottery?” The obvious answer is, “Hell No!” Yet this is the organization many voters will trust to deliver their ballots in an election that will decide the fate of the republic. There is very little doubt that the voters will attempt to return the White House and the Senate to the Republicans in November. Nonetheless, many will foolishly entrust that winning lottery ticket to the USPS. Thus, the election may get lost in the mail.
– – –
David Catron is a recovering health care consultant and frequent contributor to The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at @Catronicus.
