Discussion
RE: https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/117209346171417433
Great (as usual) thread by @heidilifeldman on the current status of the various cases challenging the administration's executive order on vote-by-mail.
Note that how / whether the exec order will affect mail voting in the midterms effectively rests entirely on procedural issues at this point. The merits haven't been addressed (or even fully briefed) yet, and won't be before November.
@mattblaze @heidilifeldman If Republicans can't claim victory in the mid-terms with some veneer of legitimacy, such as by making outrageously false claims of voter fraud and/or "rigging" to their dwindling base - as they've already done - then they'll just resort to force. I hope Americans are ready for it.
Everyone else seems to be appalled by Trump's treatment of the military. I'm more circumspect, 'cos it means Trump is eroding yet another pillar of his support. He may yet need that bunker.
Also, in addition to the legal timeline, there is a practical reality to contend with here: there is no USPS system that implements the executive order yet, and nothing for states and county election administrators to integrate (and test) their own systems with even if they wanted to.
And there is simply no time for that to happen before ballots have to start going out for the November midterms, which is very soon (based on both statutory deadlines and practicalities).
And there are states (both red and blue) that rely on vote by mail as a primary voting method. Requiring those states to not send out their ballots until the USPS systems are ready is tantamount to telling them they can't hold elections in November, which is a position that even the most rabidly pro-administration court is unlikely to take.
@mattblaze @heidilifeldman and yet, preventing the election has been trump's agenda all along. "That'll never work" doesn't matter to him. He doesn't want any of it to work, that's the point.
@hyc @heidilifeldman Maybe. I don't know. I don't think canceling the election is something the vast majority of the country actually wants, however.
@mattblaze As near as I can tell the goal is send enough states' electoral votes through the Supreme Six's fuckery that the election can be decided by the court.
@Flux What electoral votes are you talking about? There is no presidential election in November.
Remember that elections in most states are run by county offices - that's where the ballots are printed, sent from, returned to, and processed and counted. These offices range from moderately sizeable (places like NYC and LA) to utterly tiny, skewed toward the latter.
Just the election office IT side of complying with the executive order and integrating their systems with the USPS is a MASSIVE undertaking, something normally done with a year or more of lead time and funding.
And all this is setting aside the equally important problem that the database of citizens that these ballots are supposed to be checked against also doesn't exist in any coherent, reliable form.
In other words, no matter what the courts rule, the reality is that there is simply no way for this to happen before ballots go out for the November election. @heidilifeldman
So there are basically two ways for this to go, and I honestly have no idea which one it will be:
(sane option): Everyone recognizes that this can't happen, and the EO has no effect until the courts have ruled on the merits (after November)
(chaos option): USPS refuses to accept/deliver blank ballots in the coming weeks, despite having no mechanism for states to comply, and we end up in completely uncharted territory.
@mattblaze @heidilifeldman Washington State has a solution, whereby a voter can bypass the USPS for ballot delivery. See https://tinyurl.com/VOTE2026PNW for the #SeattleSolution
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