—
President Trump continues to argue, without evidence, that voting by mail is plagued by fraud, even though he often casts ballots that way himself.
But the president has hit some judicial roadblocks in his efforts to curtail voting by mail.
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a state’s right to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day, if they arrive within a certain grace period.
Last week, a federal judge blocked President Trump’s plan to forbid the U.S. Postal Service from delivering mail-in ballots to states that refused to provide a list of absentee voters.
Michigan U.S. Sen. Gary Peters is the ranking member of the congressional committee that oversees the Postal Service.
Peters says he welcomes the court decisions, but he still has a few concerns.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
Gary Peters: The caution to all of this is twofold. One, of course, is that the Trump administration will likely appeal this decision. And two, the court decision affected 23 states that filed suit. Michigan was one of those states, so that can’t occur here in Michigan. But that still leaves it open for all of the remaining states in the Union. So, it is simply unacceptable.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: You’re the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service. At a recent hearing with the committee, the Postmaster General was arguing the President’s executive order would “match the ballots that a state believes they’re sending out to what actually gets sent out.” What is your response to that statement?
GP: It was ridiculous. I asked him very directly, “Under this executive order as the Postmaster General, does this mean if a state does not provide that voter information to you that you will not mail the ballots there?” And he said that is correct. “We will not mail any ballots unless that information is provided.” So clearly it’s blackmailing states that they want to provide that information.
And then his response was, “Well, states want to know that these ballots are getting mailed out.” That’s ridiculous. Because right now everybody believes that when you drop a letter into the post office box with an address you believe it’s actually gonna be mailed out. Do you need to provide a bunch of personal information before the post office actually delivers it to someone? That’s not the way the process works.
The post office has one job: Take a letter that’s dropped in a mailbox that’s addressed to somebody and then deliver it on a timely basis. And that’s how ballots should be handled as well. The clerks know who they are mailing those ballots to. They would assume, like every American, that the Postal Service will actually deliver them and then deliver them back to the clerk. So those arguments do not hold any water.
QK: You argued during that hearing that if this all went through, the Postal Service in many ways would actually be running elections. Because they would decide who should get a ballot or not.
GP: Absolutely. The U.S. Constitution is very clear that states run elections, not the federal government. The Trump administration is trying to do everything they can to take over elections at the federal level, which is unconstitutional.
We’re confident courts will continue to rule that it’s up to local communities and states, ultimately, to control elections. And yet the Trump administration is now trying to use the Postal Service to require that information be provided to the federal government before they actually will mail ballots. That gives the Postal Service tremendous power.
And when you have this voter information available to the federal government, who knows what it could be used for? We have indications that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was making inquiries as to how could they access this data that was going to be provided to the Postal Service. That could be used for potentially nefarious purposes. It’s simply unacceptable. We have to maintain the integrity of states to run their own election and not allow the federal government to attempt to do something that is clearly unconstitutional.
QK: Is there anything you see that could be done on a congressional level to argue against this order if by some chance it’s reinstated?
GP: The Constitution’s clear. If we have to pass specific legislation, we can look at doing that as well. Certainly, this court ruling is encouraging. But, again, it only applies to the 23 states that actually filed suit against the executive order. We’ll be looking at how we can make sure that applies to all 50 states.
