Dear MoveOn member,
Donald Trump has admitted that he's trying to sabotage the Postal Service in order to limit how many Americans can vote by mail during the pandemic.1
We need to combat these attacks by making sure everyone knows how to cast their ballots and that every vote is counted.
The headlines throughout the past days have been increasingly alarming: slowed processing times, collection boxes unbolted and removed from city streets, sorting machines removed from postal warehouses, 46 states and the District of Columbia told that the Postal Service cannot guarantee that all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted ....2,3 What is happening?!
As Rachel Maddow said on her show Friday night, "The post office is an earnest, beloved, all-American, nonpartisan, practical part of our lives. You mess with it, and you're messing with a lot of Americans—who apparently are in the mood to push back."4
And the pushback is working. On Friday night, Trump's hand-picked crony now in charge of the U.S. Postal Service was forced to back down on his plans to remove a large number of collection boxes across the country. Amid a firestorm of outrage, a spokesman told NBC News, "We are not going to be removing any boxes."5
It's a first step, and we have to keep the pressure on. And, simultaneously, we need to ramp up efforts to educate voters—especially young voters, voters of color, and first-time voters in battleground states—on how to vote by mail this fall to ensure their votes are counted.
Mar, will you chip in $3 a week to help stop Trump from dismantling the U.S. Postal Service for as long as it takes and help ensure that people can safely vote by mail this fall? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)
No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
On Thursday, Trump vowed to continue blocking coronavirus relief aid for the Postal Service.6
But it's not just that Trump is starving the Postal Service of resources. It's been weeks since Trump installed Louis DeJoy, a Trump and GOP political donor with no postal experience, as the head of the Postal Service, and last week the impacts of changes DeJoy has started to institute became more clear—and more outrageous.7
DeJoy has overhauled the Postal Service's management structure, reassigning 33 top officials with hundreds of years of experience among them to other positions.8
He's banned postal workers from making extra trips to ensure on-time mail delivery, leading to long delays across the country, and he's informed 46 states and the District of Columbia that voters in their states could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots.9,10
Then we learned that DeJoy plans to deactivate and remove 671 high-speed mail-sorting machines in the coming month from facilities in dense urban areas—which will cause further delays on everything from lifesaving medications to ballots.11
And, on top of it all, USPS collection boxes started disappearing from city streets in New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Montana—until the firestorm of public outrage forced DeJoy to back down Friday night.12
As Rachel Maddow commented, "The important thing here is that pushback works ... Hoping for the best doesn't work. Shame doesn't work. But noise does."13
We need to keep up the noise—locally and nationally. And we also need to ramp up our efforts to educate voters, especially young people, voters of color, and first-time voters in battleground states, about how to properly and safely vote this year.
Please, will you chip in $3 a week? Your donation will help keep the pressure on Trump and DeJoy for as long as it takes and help sustain a public education campaign to ensure each and every vote is counted. (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)
No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
The U.S. Postal Service is integrated into the fabric of our lives in a multitude of ways—including being a literal lifeline for many in the midst of the pandemic. And now millions more Americans need to rely on it to safely cast their ballot this fall.
We're not going to let Donald Trump and his political lackeys destroy a centuries-old institution and undermine our democracy. We can't, and we won't. But it's going to take all of us coming together to make noise and fight back.
Join us in the fight by chipping in $3 a week. (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)
No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
Thanks for all you do.
–Jenn, Mohammad, Michael, Melissa, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail," The Guardian, August 13, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141968?t=8&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
2. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141969?t=10&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
3. "Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141970?t=12&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
4. "The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC, August 14, 2020
http://act.moveon.org/go/141971?t=14&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
5. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141969?t=16&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
6. "Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail," The Guardian, August 13, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141968?t=18&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
7. "New Postmaster General Is Top GOP Fundraiser," NPR, May 7, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141972?t=20&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
8. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141969?t=22&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
9. Ibid.
10. "Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141970?t=24&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
11. "Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes," The Washington Post, August 14, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/141969?t=26&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
12. Ibid.
13. "The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC, August 14, 2020
http://act.moveon.org/go/141971?t=28&akid=271431%2E10220574%2EuC8RRb
PAID FOR BY MOVEON
This email was sent to Mar Alfaro on August 16, 2020. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
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