
Trump blocks postal funds to prevent expanded mail-in voting - maydemir
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53772526
======
aerovistae
This is so insidious and depressing. Nothing the Republican party does
surprises me anymore. He outright said today that he's doing this to stymie
mail-in voting, and the Republican party supports him on it. The president is
outright saying "I want to hinder the vote for everyone, across the board" and
the Republican party supports it. It's so sad.

This is a taste for Americans of what it must feel like for many people across
the world in less fortunate countries _every day_ , for as long as anyone can
remember. I can't imagine living with this indefinitely with no hope of
change.

~~~
pstuart
It's only going to get more brutal -- Trump is terrified of losing the legal
protection of the presidency and will not hesitate to do literally anything to
hold on to it.

This election is a referendum on the survival of humanity.

I recognize that the previous sentence seems hyperbolic but I believe it to be
the case. I'm terrified.

~~~
syshum
In some ways I agree, but I bet I disagree what they referendum is because a
Biden/Harris Presidency Terrifies me

~~~
qdigital
What exactly about a Biden/Harris presidency terrifies you? Strong language
there.

~~~
syshum
Well I am a libertarian, Both Biden and Harris are known "Tough on Crime"
Authoritarians,

I also oppose 99% of their platform including government run healthcare,
extreme theft errr taxation, open social programs for anyone that happens to
be physically located inside the boarders, their Identity / Social Justice
Warrior politics, I could go on and on

I support federalism, I support individual liberty, I support meritocracy. all
of which they stand against

~~~
tashoecraft
Literally every candidate must be seen as "Tough on Crime" because the public
wont vote for anyone who doesn't make this appeal. This became a big
Republican stance that Clinton embraced that helped him win the election. So
please show me the not "tough on crime" politician that has any shot at
winning an election.

~~~
tvaughan
This was when the Republicans had majorities in both chambers of Congress,
Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, and the Republican's Contract on
America was passed, unfortunately. The Democrats shifted right because they
thought that's what would win them elections.

Sure, Biden and Harris are terrible candidates because they're 1990s
Republicans, but they're a million times better than Trump and Pence. The
smear campaigns against them are an attempt to elevate Trump and Pence so he
seems only as awful as Biden And Harris. Don't take the bait. Don't defend
them. For a Republican to warn liberals that Biden and Harris don't deserve
anyone's vote because they're those "tough on crime" types when it was
Republicans who shut the government down to force through "tough on crime"
legislation and codify "tough on crime" as a requisite to hold political
office is some serious b.s.

------
WarOnPrivacy
Florida introduced absentee ballots just after the 2000 election. Since then
it's been extensively used by deployed military along with anyone else who
wants it. Dozens of general and primary elections later, we can see it didn't
put those elections at risk.

As a side note, effectively crippling mail-in voting would prohibit many FL
elderly (mostly R) from voting.

~~~
auganov
President Trump has explicitly said he's okay with the system in Florida.

Universal mail-in voting is different in that every registered voter gets a
mail-in ballot without even requesting one.

~~~
pwinnski
He's said he's okay with Florida because of Florida's Republican governor.
That's not my because, it's his.

Also, he votes by mail-in ballot to Florida.

~~~
jki275
Absentee ballots are very different from the systems states are putting in
place to mail ballots to everyone.

------
bitxbit
This is a very strong case for a general public strike. The only way for this
administration and the Republicans to back off is for the financial market to
crash.

------
nine_zeros
Up until a few years ago, such news only came from distant third world
countries. How much have we regressed!

------
jdc
American democracy hangs in the balance. It's time for some very loud civil
disobedience, folks.

------
war1025
I like Trump in general, but the USPS is also basically my favorite government
organization, so this irks me.

USPS has always provided superior service for us compared to UPS or Fedex.

I am hopeful they'll be able to fix their budget issues by fixing their cost
structure.

It seems completely asinine to block their ability to make sound financial
decisions and force them into providing an inferior service instead.

~~~
RealityVoid
Looking from outside the country: how? How can you like him? I know I will
probably not start a good discussion by my question. But I hope to do so.

What could someone like in this man? I struggle to find any redeeming
qualities.

Not from the US, but looking from the outside, it seems your country is
collapsing on itself and people are cheering on this word little individual
that shows little abilities. Just puzzling to me.

~~~
war1025
> How can you like him?

Consider that all major US media outlets are driven by ad-spend, which is in
term driven by views. Views are driven by outrage. Trump is a great target for
outrage. The media love to hate him. He loves to let them hate him.

If you turn off the news, the country is in general humming along just fine.
Stock market is doing great. No new wars. Finally doing something to address
major trade imbalances with China.

If you listen to the news, everyone and their mother is dying in the streets
of coronavirus. In reality, roughly 1-3% of the population has even caught the
virus. Deaths are way down from March/April.

For a country and a president that are supposedly incompetent to the point of
collapse, things are going pretty damn great.

~~~
RealityVoid
> For a country and a president that are supposedly incompetent to the point
> of collapse, things are going pretty damn great.

Even _assuming_ everything is great, would it _really_ be his merit? I mean,
everything that man did has been counter-productive for your country. He is a
bumbling idiot. He really is. What merit does he have? I just can not see it.
The fact that "well, we're not all dead yet" is hardly a criteria for success.

And no, my bad opinion of him is not because "the media" \- my bad opinion
stems from reading his book "The art of the deal" about a decade ago (that was
highly recommended by friends - they said it's great!) - and in there he came
off, to me, as a corrupt scumbag. All his behavior since only reinforced this.

It looks to me like the slow motion fall of an empire. And empires fall all
the time, think about Great Britain, a bit over a hundred years ago they were
the "the empire on which the sun never sets" \- wonder if in another century
people will look the same at the US.

~~~
war1025
You didn't ask why you would like him. You asked why I would like him.
Obviously we disagree. What's it really matter?

~~~
RealityVoid
Still, you did not say why you did like him. You just said "it's not that
bad". Hardly the same thing. Will admit, you said that you feel that the trade
balances with China are being addressed, and, well, that's _something_.

~~~
war1025
And the stock market is doing great.

And we haven't gotten into any new wars.

And we have significantly scaled back our existing wars in the Middle East.

And, whether its to his credit or not, health insurance prices have stopped
spiking 10-20% per year.

And he's nominated two conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

And he moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

And he just brokered a peace deal between Israel and the UAE

And tensions with North Korea have been de-escalated, even if that effort
didn't go very far.

And he addressed funding imbalances in the UN

And my taxes went way down

And he's not a Democrat, so the media is actually critical of him, instead of
fawning over how dreamy he is at every turn.

Immigration isn't a big issue for me, but I prefer his stance over open
borders.

So I guess there's a random list that you may also tell me isn't actually a
list.

------
xg15
> _Democrats denounced Mr Trump 's comment, saying his position is an attempt
> to prevent Americans from voting him out._

I mean, his comment was _openly admitting_ that...

------
sg47
The Republican party wants to be a dictatorship. They are putting party over
country. They don't want to lose and win at all costs. I wish Obama had done
something like this to make sure Trump didn't get elected (this statement is
intended to trigger Republicans and force them to defend Trump's actions)

~~~
Tostino
There were so many things which aren't horrible for our democracy which could
have been done to change how 2016 turned out. Not taking a shit on the
progressive wing of the party at every step may have helped some, actually
campaigning in some of the states she assumed to have in the bag and then lost
may have helped too.

Obama doing something anti-democratic, illegal, etc to ensure Trump wasn't
elected is not a step I would ever support.

------
jungletime
Since the election of the president by law has a fixed date. All votes cast on
time, but that arrive late or get lost don't count.

As a citizen, you can do everything right, vote and your vote will still not
count.

Whats wrong with pencil and ballot dropped into clear acrylic box, simple and
works 100%.

~~~
tashoecraft
Run out of pencils, voter makes mark on both candidates (check on one, x on
other), counter decides to drop a bunch of additional ballots in, your vote is
visible to the outside so the person who paid you to vote a certain way can
verify.

Voting is a hard problem.

~~~
jungletime
This is why you have representatives from both parties next to the ballot box,
and third party observers, to make sure this doesn't happen.

------
briantakita
Ballot box stuffing has occurred numerous times in American History. Even ids
are not a panacea.

[https://www.theepochtimes.com/fake-id-seizures-on-the-
rise-m...](https://www.theepochtimes.com/fake-id-seizures-on-the-rise-most-
from-china_3458249.html)

Plato's critique of a Democracy is it's the son of Oligarchy & degenerates
into Tyranny...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes)

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
Regarding absentee ballots, all 50 states combined yielded 143 fraud
convictions over 20 years. Those numbers are so low that there's not any way
to massage them into an actual risk to elections.

Source Heritage Foundation
[https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud](https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud)

~~~
briantakita
Absentee ballots != mail in ballots

~~~
donarb
Oregon has distributed 100 million ballots over the past 20 years in its vote
by mail system. In that time there have been just 12 cases of voter fraud.

~~~
briantakita
According to organized crime syndicates, there is almost no organized crime.

