USPS Funding Row: Dems 'Desperate to Do Anything They Can' to Make Trump Look Bad, Ex-Diplomat Says

© REUTERS / SARAH SILBIGERU.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks about stalled congressional talks with the Trump administration on the latest coronavirus relief during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., August 13, 2020.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks about stalled congressional talks with the Trump administration on the latest coronavirus relief during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., August 13, 2020.  - Sputnik International
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As the row continues between President Trump and the House of Representatives over the amount of financial support available to the Postal Service and its reform ahead of mail-in balloting on Election Day, the US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is expected to testify before the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee on Monday.

Michael Springmann, attorney, author and former diplomat from Washington DC, reflects on how the existing differences between the Trump administration and the House regarding mail-in voting could play out in the upcoming presidential election. 

Sputnik: The House of Representatives has passed a bill to provide $25 billion in support to the US Postal Service and block policy changes that could affect mail-in balloting on Election Day. However, the legislation will now go to the Senate, which is expected to vote against it, according to Mitch McConnell. Given that the pandemic isn’t over yet and the US is still fighting to protect the economy, why are we seeing these efforts among Democrats to pass such a law, given that it will inevitably be defeated in the Senate?

Michael Springmann: I think by and large that it is pure and simple politics in the hopes of putting Donald Trump again in a bad light. Trump is his own worst enemy. But in this case, it is clear that the Democrats are working to score points, creating I think essentially a fictitious situation with the post office. And so far, the only people who have testified about problems with the mail and ballots and prospects for the election have been Democrats and people from the post office union. So there's been no real clear situation to explain the problems that they claim are being attributed to the post office trying to save money. In this case, what's happening is that the post office is supposedly trying to save money because it's no longer a government agency, it's a quasi-public corporation and has to exist on the money it makes from selling stamps and mailing packages and things like this. But by and large, I think it's simply an electoral gimmick. It's just about two months to the next election for president. And the Democrats are desperatemto do anything they can to ensure that Donald Trump looks bad and loses. 

Sputnik: We’re now less than three months away from Election Day and it’s crucial to establish a viable and transparent voting process. Nevertheless, we’re seeing chaos around the mail-in ballots issue. Why is that? 

Michael Springmann: Well, it's simple. There's too much of a chance for fraud in the election despite what the Democrats say. I've seen newspaper articles recounting major difficulties in the balloting. In New York City, the subway was closed overnight because of the virus. And yet people were expected to come to work and open polling stations and things like that. It was delayed there. People were terrified, supposedly, of this hysteria about this virus. And this has been played up by the news media and by the Democrats. And this is another issue that they've got. They wanted to mail-in ballots which will flood the entire postal system. And you can't have a post office working to deliver mail when tens of millions of people dump more mail in the system. Unfortunately, if you dump tens of millions of mail-in ballots, you're going to flood the system, you're going to delay counting, and you're going to have issues with fraud - the preprinted ballots for the candidates, supposedly checked off and then signed by absentee voters. There's no way of checking who voted. Were they allowed to vote? Were they citizens? Were they registered to vote and so forth. And I think additionally, they've done things like in Virginia where there was a nonprofit organization that set out to bring underrepresented people into the electoral system, and they mail that all these absentee ballots for primaries and the return address on the envelopes was wrong. And that was just one instance of one organization trying to bring more people into the system. When you've got all the stuff printed up, you're going to have problems with counting. You're going to delay the results of the election. And the longer it's delayed the more there will be more lawsuits. A few years ago in Florida (in 2000) with the Democratic and Republican candidate, it went on and on and on to the Supreme Court, which said, no more lawsuits, the Republican candidate is the winner. So I think that there's too much probably too much chance to defraud the election and to wind up with a miscount everywhere.

© REUTERS / Rebecca CookA United States Postal Service (USPS) worker handles the mail in a drop-off box behind a post office in Oak Park, Michigan, U.S. August 17, 2020
USPS Funding Row: Dems 'Desperate to Do Anything They Can' to Make Trump Look Bad, Ex-Diplomat Says - Sputnik International
A United States Postal Service (USPS) worker handles the mail in a drop-off box behind a post office in Oak Park, Michigan, U.S. August 17, 2020

Sputnik: Six key swing states -- Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania --allow voters to request mail-in ballots. In your opinion, how likely is it that all this scandal over USPS will push voters towards one candidate or the other?

Michael Springmann: I think that it's still problematical as to whether the Democrats and their mail-in ballots will affect people's minds. I know they're working to terrify people. They've done a great job with the virus or they're even having people who were killed in motorcycle crashes listed as dying from the coronavirus. I think allowing mail-in ballots without any question is ridiculous. And the fact that America is somehow just can't get out to vote during the day is amazing. They seem to wait until the last minute. They claim they have to work. They can't go to a polling place because they're afraid of getting the virus. They're afraid of long lines. 

So it's set up to be mass confusion and a mass problem and hopes that the Democrats will win. I don't know whether this is going to work. I think other things the Democrats have done, like have these race riots across the country with looting and general insurrection, are doing more to push people towards Trump than this business of having mail-in ballots. It will take until Christmas to be counted that I do know. 

Sputnik: According to Mitch McConnell, “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and House Democrats have spent weeks ignoring the urgent needs of American workers and families, but they rushed back to Washington the instant that overblown conspiracy theories about the United States Postal Service convinced them their own jobs might be at jeopardy.” To what extent has this rhetoric regarding the USPS and mail-in voting been politicized? 

Michael Springmann: It’s been entirely politicized! McConnell was right in that the Democrats have done nothing. They haven't had all these negotiations between the Democrats and the Republicans about whether or not they would have another relief bill for the people who are running out of money again, since the economy is pretty much shut down. They couldn't do this. And Trump decided by executive order he will start paying people some money. So I think the whole thing is politicized. I think it's designed to get Democrats through and win the election by either terrifying people to use easily fraudulent mail-in ballots or to show that they will have a reason to contest the election when the results finally start coming in, which will undoubtedly be very much delayed due to the tens of millions of people mailing this stuff into the electoral polling places or where they want to count the ballots. So I think the whole thing is politicized, is simply aimed at defeating Donald Trump by whatever means possible. And for example, in New Zealand, they can delay the vote by some three months. Yet here in the United States, we have to have it. We have to mail it in. We can't delay it. We have to contend with the virus, etc. as basically a political fraud.

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