Democrats question changes in the Postal Service 2:41
(CNN) –– Democrats have launched an emergency effort to prevent what they warn is an attempt by President Donald Trump to pressure the United States Postal Service, one of the country's most beloved institutions, with the aim of suppressing votes in the November elections.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, asked the legislature to return to Washington, probably next weekend, for an unprecedented session during the presidential convention season.
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Democrats also demanded that the new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testify on Aug. 24 to respond to allegations that changes to his controversial new policy are intended to deliberately decrease voting by mail.
The much-feared post-election showdown - which includes false claims by Trump about voter fraud - has already started to occur more than two months earlier due to the fight in Washington over the Postal Service.
The aggressive Democratic counterattack - which comes just at the start of a two-week political watershed with the Democratic and Republican national conventions - comes on the heels of Trump's incessant false claims that the vote-by-mail inviting "catastrophe " in November. The president admitted last week that he opposed $ 25 billion in new funding for the agency, because it could supposedly be used to expand such access to remote voting.
The comment exposed him to accusations that he is deliberately trying to deny the right to vote to those who fear going to polling stations because of the pandemic that has been exacerbated by his mismanagement, and which has now claimed the lives of more than 170,000 Americans.
Trump and the controversy over the vote by mail and the Postal Service 2:26"The Postmaster General and top Postal Service leaders must answer to Congress and the American people why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election," Democratic leaders said including Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement announcing the hearing they want to have next week with DeJoy, one of Trump's top fundraisers.
The swift Democratic mobilization puts the dispute over the sanctity of the November vote at the center of the election campaign, and heightens tensions that could end in a prolonged political and legal mess if the November outcome is close.
Several states have already indicated that they are considering taking legal action against the Trump administration over concerns about the United States Postal Service (USPS) and vote-by-mail.
The action also comes with many Democrats concerned that DeJoy's policy changes - which have slowed turnaround times, removed high-speed letter sorters from commission, and included warnings that mail-in ballots are now they will not be treated as a priority - they could seriously affect the November 3 elections.
As a matter of strategy, highlighting Trump's comment last week opposing the $ 25 billion in new funding for the mail system (because it would lead to more mail ballots) can also boost Democratic efforts to convince to voters to cast their votes earlier and potentially for the party's candidate, Joe Biden, to lead the race.
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It's unclear how effective Democratic action in the House could be. A separate bill to fund the Postal Service may not pass in the Republican-majority Senate. The White House is likely to demand concessions on a new economic stimulus bill in exchange for accepting such steps. Negotiations between the two parties failed this month due to insistence by Democrats to give more money to state and local governments, GOP cuts in long-term unemployment benefits for millions of Americans, and problems including the USPS funding.
Millions of additional voters are expected to cast their vote by mail this year, due to caution in going to polling places while the virus is still spreading. Trump has responded to this possible scenario with false claims that voting by mail is riddled with fraud and will lead to the most corrupt election in history.
The president's new disinformation campaign advances as a national CNN / SSRS poll released this Sunday found the presidential race to be significantly close with Biden at 50% versus Trump's 46% among registered voters, right on the margin of survey error. An earlier Wall Street Journal / NBC poll put the former vice president up 9 points.
Trump's chances have been harmed by his erratic handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which affected the collapse of the US economy, which he hoped to use as an argument for his re-election.
Study shows that fraud in postal vote is almost non-existent 1:58The president, however, points out that victory must be assured by what he described as successful leadership on both issues.
"I hope to win, how can I not when you have numbers like this both in the virus and in the economy?" Said the president last Saturday at a press conference at his golf resort in New Jersey.
The United States has the highest number of covid-19 cases and deaths in the world. Although some countries did a much better job than the United States in containing the virus and are now fighting its resurgence, the scale of the American tragedy remains staggering. For 16 of the 20 days leading up to Saturday, the US reported more than 1,000 new deaths per day, according to Johns Hopkins University and the Covid-19 Tracking Project.
USPS and White House pledge not to recall more sorting machines
Despite Trump's false claims, there was a signal that revealed that the administration began to realize that the president's allegations of fraud and concerns about the sanctity of the USPS could backfire on him.
"The sorting machines from now until Election Day will not go offline," White House Secretary General Mark Meadows told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" on Sunday. CNN and other news organizations reported Friday that the Postal Service has reduced operating hours in several states and was removing letter-collection boxes in some neighborhoods, according to union officials.
The agency also said Sunday that it will stop removing collection boxes until the end of November, citing "recent customer concerns" about decisions.
- LOOK: US Postal Service warns states that it may not be able to deliver ballots on time according to current electoral rules
The grant came after the USPS warned nearly all 50 states and the city of Washington that elections offices may not receive ballots in the mail in time to be counted.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who faced Biden in the Democratic primary race, warned on the "State of the Union" program that more than the integrity of the Postal Service was at stake.
"Most importantly, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, a progressive, a conservative, do you believe in American democracy?" Sanders asked.
"Do you think that, in the midst of a pandemic, when we have already lost 170,000 people, people have to risk their lives to go to a voting station, or can they vote by mail ballot?" He insisted.
Meadows, however, hinted on the same CNN program that the White House will not cease its warnings of massive voter fraud, and in an attempt to make a false distinction between "absentee voting" and "voting by mail," to despite the rigorous systems that exist to guarantee the authenticity of all votes.
When Tapper told Meadows that there is no evidence of vote-by-mail fraud during the United States general election, Meadows responded, "There is no evidence that there isn't either."
Would you vote by mail for fear of the pandemic? 3:11Trump: "There is fraud, there is theft"
In addition to trying to tilt the election early by limiting voting by mail, Trump may also be renewing his unsubstantiated claims because he is looking at the post-voting day outlook.
The president warned this Saturday that the electoral ballots by mail could delay the result for "months or years."
All these ballots will be lost. They will disappear ... the ballots will be lost. There is fraud. There is theft. It is happening everywhere, ”he insisted.
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Election experts say that electoral fraud is minimal compared to the size of the US electorate, and that there is also no evidence that voting-by-mail systems that already exist in various states are more prone to irregularities.
Trump appears to be offering himself a way out if he loses by far to Biden, or is laying the political foundation for multiple legal challenges in a desperate attempt to hold onto power if he narrowly loses.
He is playing with fire as his claims risk seriously damaging the prospects that the election will be viewed as free and fair by all voters. That national consensus forms the basis of the American political system itself.
Donald Trump 2020 United States Elections Joe Biden United States Postal Service Mail Vote