Trump wants to use the post office to control who votes by mail.: another sneak attack on the Constituion

 Trump wants to use the post office to control who votes by mail. It is: another sneak attack on the Constitution. One of Trump's plans to control federal elections in order to turn a loser into a winner for him is to target mail-in voting, a blatant sneak attack on the Constitution that puts control of elections in the hands of states instead of the federal government... The pretext for this extreme power grab is based on the totally unproven lie that there is " widespread fraud" in mail-in voting or that illegal migrants are voting.  MAGA has swallowed that BS hook, line, and sinker. without questioning. It works for them. 

Update 6/3/2026 per my Facebook post:.Trump's threat to force the post office to screw up mail-in ballots in time for November got a response from the Colorado legislature in a bill Gvo. Polis signed. It would increase the time mail-in ballots can be counted so that if the feds try to play footsie with the post office and take over the November election count, they will face extended time for Colorado clerks to correct. Trump wants the post office to be the arbiter of which mail-in ballots to count...only those on federal registration lists..which do not exist, clearly an unconstitutional act and and a violation of the Constitution, which gives states the power. https://coloradosun.com/2026/05/12/colorado-mail-ballot-elections-change/

There are reasons why this attack on mail-in voting has failed so far. It is an extremely popular voting method among both Democrats and Republicans. Not only is the pretext a lie with no proof, but it's also a sneak attack on another unconstitutional attempt to use his executive orders to gain federal access and control over voter rolls and who votes.  

Trump has already tried to get states to turn over the personal details of those on their lists. like driver's licenses and social security numbers. It is pretty obvious why this is important to Trump's turning a predicted election against him into a victory for him by such underhanded methods. Twenty states have refused. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-administration-has-sued-more-20-states-refusing-turn-over-voter.  He has tried to force them to do so by depriving them of the federal funds they need, among other pressure tactics.

One reason Trump fears mail-in voters is to force in-person voting so he can intimidate with armed ICE at a swing polling place. If those who fear they will be harassed, they can vote by mail. They can also avoid in-person mailing by dropping ballots off in designated places, and that one does not even require stamps. Another reason is that it gives Trump access to more personal data than state lists contain, so he can target those who support him or oppose him with individualized suppression/support methods, from TV ads to targeted scare-tactic mail to attempts to kick off and challenge those with certain last names, especially Hispanic, off the lists that are unjustified.  Like Trump's unevidenced lawsuits (no proof, just theories), the attempt alone creates a burden on voters to fight it, even if he loses in court. 

He also tried to get the SAVE Act passed. It is better known as "show me your citizenship papers to get registered," and unrealistically limits what kinds of papers would be accepted. That act also included a clause prohibiting universal mail voting, requiring all mail voters to submit an application to receive a mail ballot. The SAVE Act was killed in the Senate on March 23, 2026, because it suppressed both Republican and Democratic voters.

Here is why universal mail ballot systems are so secure and why Trump would love to get it under his thumb.

This anti-universal mail-ballot clause is essentially what the abuse of the post office would accomplish under Trump's executive order. Eight states, including Colorado and the  District of Columbia, have this universal system. For the horrified: everyone gets a ballot mailed to them; a potential cheater, FYI. Just getting a ballot sent to you because you appear on a state registration list does not mean it is counted in the vote totals, whether the ballot is returned by mail, dropped off at a secure official box, or at a polling station. That is, because county and state election officials only count ballots in totals from registered voters on their rolls when they scrutinize mail-in ballots they receive. They compare handwriting signatures on the ballots and other data with state data and a voter's signature on record at the state, gotten when the voter registered.  Modern computerization makes this possible.  No wonder Trump would like to get his hands on those state rolls. He could throw the entire election process into chaos and lo delay well after election day.   While this attempt to pass SAVE failed in Congress, he is trying to back door it with an executive order to have the post office only to accept a voter on a FEDERAL voting roll to which he does not now have full access, nor is there a complete one with all data from all the states that exists. 

So, let's try it another way: he proposes, by executive order, that the post office accept ballots only from those on federal voting lists, not only on state voting lists, but FEDERAL ones. Let's see how far that gets by judicial scrutiny.  My guess is he is not fooling the justices either: it is just another unconstitutional method he can use to subvert the outcome of elections he fears will not go his way.

ttps://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/postal-service-trump-attack-mail-voting-proposed-rule/

Here is where Colorado fits into Trump's unconstitutional subversion scheme: https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/trumps-power-grab-includes-federalizing.html

Heads up, pro Democracy forces in November 2026: Gabbard, DHS/ICE/Trump have other plans taking shape now

There are fears that Tulsi Gabbard is laying the groundwork to turn the Trump regime into a mass Tina  Peters, to seize voting machines based on the fantasy that Trump lost the 2020 elections because of fraud that has never been proven by any evidence.  Heads up for November..  This is part of a larger concerted attempt by Trump et all to try to scew with the results in the November midterms. It is a plot to destroy the integrity of the election by a variety of means.  The pattern is clear; the intent is now obvious.

 2026. https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/tina-peterswill-get-shot-at-reducing.html

https://www.ms.now/news/gabbard-revives-deep-state-conspiracy-claims-alarming-democrats-who-see-a-pattern: 

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/06/gabbard-trump-election-midterms-voting-integrity-00769768

This is in addition to the Trump regime's efforts to ban mail-in ballots and get a nationwide voter lists with important information that would help target voter suppression efforts... which Colorado leaders are also taking action against. https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/colorado-attorney-general-phil-weiser-to-sue-over-trumps-executive-order-restricting-mail-in-voting

Nationwide: in addition to Gabbard's threats, another arm of Homeland Security has plans still not totally denied to place ICE armed and masked thugs at polling places to cut down on brown people voting against them.   This is more than an attempt to use the pretext of the 2020 election steal due to unproven fraud, but it is an effort to frighten away even brown citizens with proof of citizenship from voting. Now, wondervoting by mail is being opposed by Trump because if voters can avoid voting in person for fear of racial profiling and implied harassment, they can still vote by mail.  As one commenter to my recent blog posting wrote so very simply and so very clearly:"Because it;s America.  I'm a citizen and it's wrong to be intimidated by armed people as  I vote, also non-whites are going to get harassed ".

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/save-us-from-save-act.html

SAVE us from the SAVE act

Proof of citizenship stopped for voters' requirement: Update 6/24/26  https://abcnews.com/Politics/judge-permanently-blocks-trump-eo-requiring-proof-citizenship/story?id=134175354 

SAVE us from SAVE: The radical piece of legislation before the Senate would have at least three particularly obnoxious provisions designed to keep certain groups of people from voting, or would require extraordinary efforts and money to prove citizenship. Particularly harmed by the requirement to provide citizenship would be married women, the poor, and seniors who do not have passports or cannot find or get certified copies of birth certificates, divorce, and name change papers so they match driver's licenses with a photo. ID.. It would expose personal data now held by separate states to partisan centralized federal officials, for suppression targeting methods and dirty tricks. The motivation for this piece of legislation is not to enhance vote integrity but to give the advantage to the GOP in the midterms. Trump has admitted that. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/03/09/congress/trump-save-america-act-gop-00819673.

Their whole premise is built on a lie that illegals voted and caused Trump to lose in 2020, for which no evidence has ever been found. https://www.cato.org/commentary/rights-bogus-claims-about-noncitizen-voting-fraud#:~:text=If%20you%20believe%20Elon%20Musk%2C,5%2C%20%E2%80%9Cthey%20are%20importing%20votertrutrum;ians.

Another excuse Trump likes to make for his loss in 2020 was that there was extensive fraud in mail-in ballots. Therefore,  his answer: only ballots received by election day should be counted...cutting out most active miliary votes or subject to the whims of the postal delivery service. Some states would have to change their already existing rules and laws to conform.  In fact, a study taken exposes Trump's claim as BS and I cannot find any evidence to the contrary.  https://www.brookings.edu/articles/mail-voting-in-the-us-data-points-to-very-low-fraud-and-significant-benefits-to-voters/

More on the SAVE attack on voters' ability to vote:

1) It would keep married women from voting if their ID does not match their birth certificate names or even passport names. (estimated 50percent of voters do not have passports). What does your driver's license have as your photo ID name? Divorce papers would also have to be produced, or legal documentation of name changes would have to be provided.

2) All of your personal information, driver's licenses, social security numbers, and personal data held by State officials would have to be handed over to the Department of Homeland Security as they search first for registered illegals, turn out ICE to "protect" their own voting interests at polling places,, and God knows whatelse it could be used for if say a dictator who may not be one you supports takes over now or in the future.

3) This federalization enables big brother government to manipulate elections to suit the outcome they want by giving them the tools to identify targeting groups or kinds of legal voters that may not support them by voting roll purges and other strategies. The beauty of the current state control of such information is that 50 states can control their data instead of one federal government, in the hands of a party or single strong leader, being able to affect the outcome and votes in elections.

.

The premise used to rationalize this legislation is stopping illegals from voting, a line MAGA has swallowed whole without any thought or care about evidence. For over 6 years, proof of the"steal" of the 2020 vote has been investigated, rejected by courts and hearings, and never proved. It is still just a theory to excuse a loss or a suspicion. Never mind, keeping certain voters from voting is a political strategy that MAGA embraces because they see a political advantage for them in the midterms. Heads up MAGA. You may not always be in control of the Oval Office, Congress, or the judiciary. What happens if the shoe is on the other foot, and the people you consider to be political enemies are now in power?

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-key-to-protecting-fair-and-free.html

If the Trump regime tries destroy Colorado's vote integrity in 2026 a buzz saw awaits

Update 1/30/2026  FBI raid in Georgia has little legal basis – but serves Trump’s goal to weaken trust in election results | Georgia | The Guardian    Why now? FBI raid in Georgia has little legal basis – but serves Trump’s goal to weaken trust in election results | Georgia | The Guardian Why now? Here is why, as the British press tries to explain this to its readers. It is to undermine our faith in the integrity of our voting. My comment: This kind of action constitutes an attempt to create a pretext for federal takeover and control of elections by separate states. The beauty of having elections controlled separately by each of the 50 states is the protection it provides from just a tyrannical wannabe who wants to control who can vote and the outcome of the vote. The tyrant may succeed in a state or two, but not in the entire nation. It is a matter that may both suit an egomaniac power-mad tyrant, but it also serves to try to shape public opinion to accept the end of our ability to trust that our elections are free and fair, the fundamental undermining of democracy that is a government of, by, and for the people, regardless of whoever sits in the Oval Office. All voters of any affiliation must understand that there is an effort to make sure your voice expressed in a vote can be ignored and you no longer count in determining who governs you if this trust is broken and breaking the trust is what such actions like the Fulton raid is also about. Note: Felicia Muftic is a former Denver elections official who holds trust in the integrity of elections sacred.

Update 1/29/2026: Trump's obsession with the 2020 elections, an attempt to prove it was stolen 6 years later, and his FBI raid on the Fulton County, Georgia, voting records could be attributed to an out-of-control personality quirk of an egomaniac who never admits a loss, or worse. Trump looks like he has an obsession with rewriting history to fit a false narrative and to justify anti democratic power grabs.. In recent history, communists and fascists, from Hitler to Mao, have used this propaganda tactic.

What is most scary about this is that there is a concerted drive to undermine fair and free elections more easily by putting voter records kept separately by 50 states per the Constitutiion into the hands a federal control and to set up the acceptance of a FBI loyal only to the president to undertake such similar actions to do so in the future, including November 2026 and 2028. Political scientist Jason Stanley warned about this in his recent book.Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future: Stanley, Jason: 9781668056912: Amazon.com: Books

FBI searches Atlanta election office, chasing Trump 2020 vote fraud claims | Reuters

Continuing with original post:

The Trump regime is threatening to hurt Colorado voter integrity in November.  The Colorado Secretary of State is ready protect our vote from the Trump attempt to federalize voter counts and elections in direct contradiction to the Constitution. Expect Trump et al will try to keep Colorado's vote from being counted, as well as any blue states,  throwing the results of who gets the majority in Congress into chaos and dispute. They will meet a buzz saw if they try such tricks on Colorado. Colorado has a plan and backup plans. 

Threat of force won’t change Colorado secretary of state’s mind on voter rolls, mail-in ballots 

Trump's false pretense of such dirty tricks is still: the 2020 election was stolen because all of those illegals voted and mail-in votes are all a fraud, their propagandists and a delusional Trump claim.. In over 6 years, such attempts to prove these claims have failed. They think if they can get voters' personal information, they can prove their pretext, the Constitution provisions delegating elections to states be hanged. The DOJ has requested Colorado’s voter rolls, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, and is attempting to change the post office delivery terms of mail-in ballots to be counted by local officials.  There may be hope as a federal judge blocked the DOJ request for Oregon 1/27/26. Federal judge blocks Trump DOJ access to Oregon voter rolls

  This Trumpian scheme smells like a pretext to keep the House in GOP hands by throwing the 2026 midterms into chaos.  In the longterm, it is also a way to put the control of elections in the hands of the federal government over vote outcomes, voter participation, and election results.  If Trump and his administration can't win one way (the predictions are he will lose control of the House), they will find another way, and this one is ugly.  It will mean the end of fair and free elections that we can trust.

Trump's newest attack democracy's rule by people via a vote: ban mail in ballots and voting machines

 Trump to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines in executive power play

This is one more attack on federalization of voting to give an advantage to "his" voters, in addition to watering down racial minority representation in Congress through a mid-decade gerrymander in Texas. in time for the 2026 November midterms. Colorado is in the bullseye. Colorado is nearly 100% mail-in voting, though physical polling places are still available.   Colorado is also the one place where Trump's minion got caught listening to his "secure the voting machines", and giving a Trump loyalist the codes as she locked them away.. She, Tina Peters, is now sitting in federal prison for that one. A few other instances were reported, similar to taking orders from Trump instead of the state election officials, but the real danger is federal control of the voting process. This is one example of Trump's wish list. He seems determined to abuse voters and control the outcome of elections in his drive to act like a dictator, just like Putin does. There are reports that Trump is being coached by Putin himself.(New York Times report) , The fundamental difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that the voters//people control who governs them in a democracy, and in a dictatorship, the form of a ballot box may exist or not, but the dictator controls who votes and how they are counted. One person, one vote is the ideal, honestly and freely.  Since 2020, Trump and his loyal minions still claim the 2020 elections were stolen and after 5 years of trying, no evidence has ever been found. Charges of Dominion voting machines being messed with got FOX millions in punishment in liable verdicts. Now Newsmax also gets hit with a $67 million settlement for lies about Dominium. The only people in jail for tampering with voting machines are Trump loyalists, and Tina Peters is the poster lady for that one..

Trump wants paper ballots filled out at a polling place.. Guess what: Colorado's votes are all on paper ballots. and voters have a choice: fill out the paper ballot or drop the ballot at a polling place in person, return ballots filled out by mail, or put them in a secure drop box. Only 2-6% of voters choose to cast their votes in person at a polling place. Everyone gets a ballot mailed to them who is registered to vote. Thanks to computer technology, cheaters voting twice can be caught instantly. Election officials compare signatures on returned ballots as verification and counting to catch forgeries. The value of using paper ballots no matter if mailed, dropped off, or at a polling place, get to the county clerk; audits. Paper ballots filled out at home is so convenient; Colorado has one of the best voter turnout percentages in the nation. At home voting also gives voters a chance to give thought and do a bit of research if they have questions. It makes for a better-informed voter. If there is a close election, the paper ballots are there to verify they were tallied correctly and signatures match the signatures on record.. The attempt to claim the tabulation method,, running the paper ballots through a scanning machine, and in other states, voting on a machine, and claim the company Dominion system fixed the 2020 eleciton cost both Fox( $787 million) and Newsmax enormous settlements in defamation suitsfor lying The newest to feel the loss: Newsmax, $67 million. By having each state separately being in charge of elections,it is hard for a foreign hacker or a domestic dictator to make a difference in a federal election. Individual states are in charge of elections per the Constitution. In Colorado, county clerks count the ballots coming from their county, and tabulations are reported to the Secretary of State using their own separate secure system and not on the internet, another layer of protection from hackers.

Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over 2020 election claims | AP News

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08/18/us/trump-news?smid=nytcore-android-share

From a prior blog post: Update 5/6/2025: Trump demands that Peters be released from prison as his federal government tries to interfere with state and local court decisions. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Colorado is being singled out by Trump's DOJ trying to validate conspiracy theories

. https://coloradosun.com/2025/05/06/tina-peters-donald-trump-social-media-post/

Update on the Tina Peters trial: 9 years for criminal election interference. She was defiant to the end, no remorse. A true MAGA soldier, a true believer who was loyal to Trump but not to democracy and the Constitution. Her conviction should serve as a warning to other election officials who try to interfere with the count, as the Trump campaign appears to be planning to do in 2024 as they did in 2020.  The rule of law still prevails.  Prior post of the case of interest: MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Update on the Tina Peters trial: 9 years for criminal election interference

Felicia Muftic is a former Denver elections official.

Cheer up non- MAGAs : Iowa GOP still believing the big lie will hit a buzz saw

Snapshot January 2024:  Some day in the general election,  2020 election deniers will hit a buzz saw and will learn that they may rule their small roost, but they are only 30% of the total if current statistics hold true.  

Poll: Majority of Iowa GOP caucus-goers don’t believe Biden legitimately won in 2020 - The Washington Post

Jan. 6 poll: Republicans more loyal to Trump, rioters who stormed Capitol - The Washington Post

Trump supporters are FOXated. New poll reveals the sheer extent to which Fox News viewers remain loyal to Trump | CNN Business

Updated 3 17 2024 No court of law examining the question in sworn testimony or "forensic audits" paid for and conducted by Trump partisans found enough evidence of fraud that would have overturned the last election. There is no proof to the contrary other than anecdotal stories that represent enough of such fraud to make a difference.  Voter integrity in Colorado rests on mail-in and paper ballots, which provide a paper trail to investigate charges of voter fraud. The State has also enacted tighter controls against voter fraud in recent legislative sessions.  A study was commissioned in 2022 by the Colorado Secretary of State to examine voter attitudes and experiences https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/elections/ElectionIntegrity/20220418NASEDDisinformationMDMPresentation.pdf

One of the puzzles is that voters have less confidence in results in federal elections than they do in their state and local elections.  States use the same methods for all candidates, federal and state, and do not have separate systems or totals in votes cast for federal and another for state/county. This means that the myth that the 2020 election was stolen has its believers, and fear tactics regarding that have been effective. It also means something unusual has happened or could happen in specific elections that rigged the outcome.  Nothing widespread was ever found, but there have been prosecutions in Colorado in specific counties, Mesa, where the local county clerk was accused of giving specific access to her partisans to tinker with the machine's hard drives and now is facing a federal trial for that.  https://coloradosun.com/2024/01/08/tina-peters-federal-suit-rejected/      The conspiracy theories regarding Dominium Voting systems have likewise been debunked, and it cost those who promoted those false theories a bundle of money: https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trial-trump-2020-0ac71f75acfacc52ea80b3e747fb0afe

What transactional meant to Trump is not what we first thought

After four years we now know what being a "transactional president" really means. It came into even sharper focus in the days between November 3 and the vote of the Electoral College. It was also an element in impeachment. Being transactional was not what many first thought. We now know from experience Trump meant being transactional was his modus operandi to get his way in everything, not just in trade deals, and doing it with corrupt intent or not.

Like many, I initially thought Trump meant that he, as a great businessman, knew how to drive a hard bargain with the Chinese or other trade deals because he had mastered the art of the deal. Horse trading, dealing, and self-interest are also the stuff of which politics and compromises are often made. There were no high minded values, national security, and general national welfare that were the primary concerns involved in many of the kinds of deals Donald Trump negotiated, implied, or in which he anticipated paybacks. It can also be a fundamental definition of corruption if there are abuses by public officials with intentions to pad their personal purse or add to political personal advantage, bribery, to induce others to break the law, or for the initiating dealer to break the law himself and ignoring the Constitutional constraints while doing it.

It was much more than just an '"I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine". For Trump, it was he expected "favors returned for favors given." It also became to mean " if my favors are not returned, I'll ruin you via tweet and try to get you prosecuted via the Department of Justice or primaried and have your political future destroyed". It meant he expects those to whom he gave a job or position or helped them achieve their goals to put loyalty to him over anything else, including violating the oath of office to which they swore to honor.

There are several "transactional deals" Trump put forth either implied or overtly that are the poster children examples of what "transactional" meant to him.. One was Trump's attempt to use federal dollars and weapons to force the Ukraine president to find dirt on the Bidens."I have a favor to ask though" as in the next sentence or two he implied there were those military weapons Ukraine wanted. He did not express the deal so crassly, but the context and the sequence were all he needed. That got him impeached, though partisan loyalty and fear of retribution got him acquitted in the Senate, even when some GOP senators admitted quietly the House impeachment managers made their case but still voted to acquit him.

The other was his expecting loyalty from his appointees to the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court. It was overtly expressed by Trump that was the reason he wanted Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court rushed before the election .Per the election, fearing a tie vote, he said, “I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. We need nine justices.” He must have expected judges and justices in the court system, lower and higher, to put aside the law, and instead vote to support his expressed goal to throw out votes against him in a close election.

It meant that GOP public officials in charge of managing the presidential vote were expected to "overturn" the popular vote because mail-in ballots and African American votes were defacto fraudulent, even though there was no evidence. .That is the way it works in autocracies so why should it not work for him? He had the power and immunity from criminal prosecution. He made telephone calls, tweets, and held meetings to pressure his beneficiaries. December 8 that transaction bore no fruit as the Supreme Court without dissent of any justice, including his three appointees, rejected an appeal to overturn the Pennsylvania vote. Before that, his attempt to upend the public vote in lower courts went down in flames as 35 plus lawsuits were decided against his attempt to get the will of the people reversed on any pretext of cases brought before the courts. Judges who were appointed by Democrats and Republicans, including those who were put in place by Trump and the GOP in the past four years by Senate action, ruled against Trump's expressed desire to overturn the vote. The single case his lawyers won did not affect the vote outcome.

Trump forgot one basic fact In any transaction. It takes two parties to agree to a transaction. So far, the justices and judges were loyal to the letter of the law, not to the deal of Trump.

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The cat is out of the bag: why the GOP really does not want mail in votes

Updated 4/13 -27, 2020 and revised 5/11-21 2020:  Reposted: 5/21/20 Why Trump does not want mail-in votes.
When polls show mail in votings has two-thirds of voter support,  why does Donald Trump go on a rampage to deny federal COVID aid to Michigan if they approve mail-in balloting?   The answer: he is looking at other polls and fear in a close election mail-in voting will hurt him.  It certainly is not because of fear of fraud.  It is fear of a large voter turnout and a diminished ability to suppress votes of those who would not vote for him. Military and five states (red, blue, and purple) have already been doing with no significant fraud for years.  Colorado voters in particular must be particularly puzzled because they have been doing mail-in voters for years with no problem.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-overwhelmingly-support-vote-mail-152926163.html
Want to ensure integrity in our elections?  The answer is to demand at least that all voting has a preserved paper trail to get a judicially supervised recount base on something that cannot be hacked. Colorado has had mail-in ballots..all paper..for 6 years. We can be sure that if there is any hanky panky...we can prove it. The answer is do not fall with the GOP's bull about fraud in paper ballots. They have bs'd that one to death without any substantial proof. Election and voting fraud protection relies on good systems.

In this time of COVID-19, mail-in voting is one way for voters to avoid social contact. There is also a good reason for mail-in voting. It is a way to avoid last-minute voter suppression efforts. It also takes a different strategy to get out the vote. Pictures of voters in one of the most backward states Wisconsin had to risk lives and stand in chilling rain to vote. Voters should not have to risk lives to vote in person. Purple Colorado has had mail-in ballots for years and its ruby red neighbor Utah also uses mail-in ballots. Some studies show that there is no partisan advantage but turnout does increase.

Fear of catching the virus could be a political weapon, too. It is not beyond imagination that after it is too late to get a ballot mailed to voters, some politicians could hype news of a spike in the virus infections in their area in order to scare away in-person voters. You can pretty well assume the GOP voters are more determined and reliable voters than Democrats. That could make the difference in a close vote. This does not take much imagination since it was tried in the recent Wisconsin vote (9% of votes are mail-in; the rest are in-person election day. ) At stake was the state supreme court chief justice, a Republican. Because of COVID and lack of poll staff, the vote places were very few. COVID fear was high. Voters had to risk COVID-19 to line up for hours to vote. The GOP strategy failed thanks to the efforts of Democrats anticipating it and doubling down on getting out the vote. The GOP judge lost the election. It is possible to beat the dirty trick with extra GOTV efforts. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/20/21263596/republican-voter-suppresion-failed-wisconsin-supreme-court
There are some defensive techniques those running GOTV (get out the vote) efforts could use to ward off more glitches, problems, and subversion of the system. Advocacy and strategizing should begin now at the state level to pressure and counter secretaries of state and governors who see mail-in ballots their party's or candidates' enemies. The earlier absentee ballots get mailed to voters and the easier and closer to closing polls they can be returned are key to scotch last-minute vote suppressing scare tactics.

All states permit absentee voting even if they do not use mail-in ballots as the primary method. However, some states require written excuses and reasons for even requesting an absentee ballot. Other states put barriers that require ID/s, witnesses, or other methods to discourage voting. In Colorado mail-in ballots can be dropped off at convenient spots.. Another problem is younger, less experienced, and English as a second language, voters who may make errors that cause their ballots to be rejected by their County clerk.

I served as an election commissioner in Denver for over 7 years as part of my duty as Clerk and Recorder..1983-91. We used the old New York lever machines that left a paper trail and in every step of the process, both a Democrat and a Republican double-checked each other. Computers were a new thing then, but we rejected them because they could have been easily hacked.,.thinking that maybe someday they would be more secure. They are not in 2020, at least in tallying the vote. I am satisfied that having signatures checked by both D and R officials, running election registration against Social Security data files to discover who is still alive, is as reassuring as you can get. They do that in Colorado. That Russians were able to hack into election systems in all 50 states in 2016 is troubling...but having actual mail-in ballots in hand for scrutiny after the elections is as foolproof as you can get. There will always be crooked fools who try, but if the system set up as it has been for years in Colorado leaves an evidence trail in actual ballots, then that is the best evidence there is if an election result is challenged. That is the best deterrent to election fraud there is. https://www.5280.com/2020/05/no-fraud-isnt-rampant-in-colorados-mail-in-voting-system/  Why? Systems are in place, per this article. 
  
One Facebook skeptic said his vote was not connected to the internet, so how could it be hacked? It sounds as if the person had no clue of how the systems work, particularly in Colorado. My answer:
Your vote was indeed hooked up to the internet after being tallied by the county clerk. The voting results are tallied first at the county level using scanners (or manual if really small counties) and transmitted electronically (that means an internet that is a specially secured system) to in the state Secretary of State OFfice as also are registration records. The Russians may not be able to mess around with the local machines per county within the county, but what they can do is mess up registration lists and create havoc at the state level on election day.as the Secretary of State receives the transmissions from the county clerks and tallied statewide. throwing a close election into chaos. Every single secretary of state systems was hacked in 2016, though that may have been a practice run. The only way to prosecute or right the wrong is to have paper trails and mail-in ballots are the ultimate ones. "

https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/files/2019/201908238CCR15011ElectionRules.pdf?fbclid=IwAR17o8Y8pSZN9Gsie8XetDy6WpQEvLzKPUrC9VL7zaK93qtvZX8jgnSiiss

How secure are our elections nationwide? Fraud everywhere... claims the Trump folks. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pushes-false-claims-about-mail-vote-fraud-here-are-n1180566?fbclid=IwAR1MNqT2F6ouGPA2BeM5VX2SrYaJtWh0gj3NMKnUqGpkmIz0kwR0aOatCqg
It is not because they found any proof of widespread voter fraud already.  Trump set up a partisan dominated commission to find it.  They couldn't so it was disbanded: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html
Now there is a sense of urgency because state elections officials need to make changes soon to be ready for November.  There are two reasons for urgency:  predictions that by November a second wave of COVID-19 in the fall will mean all voters required to appear in person to vote will be risking their lives and the Russians are ready to create chaos to damage any trust in our kind of democracy.

     Mail-in ballots have advantages over electronic voting methods because they cannot be hacked by Russians and the paper trail they leave makes prosecution of irregularities easier. In  2016 Russians were able to hack into state election systems, including an attempt to penetrate Colorado's registration system and in 2018 fear arose they could corrupt the voter lists and even change election results. Colorado's mail-in ballot system was cited as immune to bad actors changing results because they could not hack paper ballots and the paper trail of fraud could be more easily traced to perpetrators. There is a defeatest attitude that any elections in November using any system will have no integrity:
if you are so sure November elections will have no integrity..so long as Trump invites the Russians in, you are correct. So long as paper trials of voting are not preserved, you are correct. So long as we need democracy instead of military bloody coups, we need to be ready to call a fraud a fraud...and only paper ballots will be able to do it. The Russian's purpose: to destroy a democracy, and if we want one that reflects the will of the voters, we had better be able to stop them. In Russia's mindset, our weakness is their strength. So we need to make sure November elections have integrity if we care about having a democracy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/putin-american-democracy/610570/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share&fbclid=IwAR0ezEcwQ6SfphtiiYSeE9H4unjBEvrKN0l2GN1CzZ6h1Q3iZcfJWjUKA1k

Campaigns to attack mail-in voting are not new GOP tactics.
Well, now we know if you did not guess it before. Republicans have blatantly admitted they do not want to make it easier for you to vote because making it easier would hurt Republican election chances.   There is a line of thought permeating the GOP: The fewer certain kinds of people vote, the better it is for Republicans.  They may be fooling themselves.  538 did a very thorough analysis and found it really did not make any difference. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-evidence-that-voting-by-mail-gives-one-party-an-advantage/?fbclid=IwAR3Z4FF5zXz-Nrm7IcmKWLQ0DTf3iymw58Th_v7e47NVy-LJkbp-QsKD6JM

Voter suppression tactics in their toolbox are aimed at making it more difficult for minorities, young voters, rural,  and the working poor to vote.  The issue was dramatized recently with pictures of voters in Wisconsin risking their lives in the middle of the pandemic to vote. This was thanks to a Republican  US Supreme Court majority, a GOP dominated state supreme court, and the GOP dominated state legislature which required the in-person vote to go on in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and which sabotaged mail-in balloting as an alternative. Now the president refuses to sign legislation to provide funding to help the deficit of the US postal service caused by  COVID-19 and less business. For years the GOP has been trying to privatize the US Mail. While the US postal service has been moved to a stand-alone enterprise operation, the administration of the USPS is not in the control of a president and his cronies. That independence is important and if the purpose of Trump is to starve the postal service into being run by some contracted private company, imagine what opportunity that would present for some ballot return tinkering or delaying it by some corrupt president in the future.
     The reason the GOP is fighting the funding of mail-in voting being included in the bills providing pandemic relief is quite clear and public. Said Donald Trump in supporting  a Democratic proposal to fund  mail-in voting nationwide as part of the virus bailout, if Democrats had their way "republicans would never be elected.' " The Georgia House speaker, Republican David Ralston, opined that an expansion of absentee voting would be "extremely devastating to Republican conservatives in Georgia."  Those who could not get to polling places due to work demand or lack of mobility could vote more easily and they believe that would be bad for their candidates. Now, in mostly red states, the attempt is to make it harder to register, opposing motor-voter laws allowing you to register when getting a drivers license, purging registration lists of those who failed to vote in more recent prior elections, reducing time and place of polling locations to make voting more inconvenient,  requiring an official picture ID even for those who do not drive a car, and any other number of voter suppression acts.  Most of these laws just make it less convenient to vote, especially poorer, less mobile and more rural African American voters and have very little to do with fraud. The goal of most of these measures is to suppress the turnout of those they suppose will oppose them.  Per 538, mail-in ballots are only one part of the process and do not make much difference in the partisan divide.  However, poor, younger voters may make more errors and have their ballots rejected.  Republicans do a better job of educating their voters about the mechanics of mail-in votes,  an observation which Democrats might want to address.
     The GOP's rationale is if you make it easier to vote by mail, there would be more fraud.  Ironically, the two most recent cases of fraud were perpetrated by GOP operatives or in ruby-red states, in North Carolina and  2008 in Utah. In Utah recently parents were signing for youth away on missions and in 2008, registration of voters was an instance that ended in prosecution. Vote in person or by mail is very rare with less than 500 cases in billions of votes. The conservative Heritage Foundation has documented all cases in all 50 states of proven election fraud dated at least back to 2004 and reported 1088 of them. 1088 in 16 years! In fact, a commission appointed by Trump to find the fraudulent votes he claimed were in the thousands in 2016 was disbanded because they could not find widespread fraud. Most center around forgeries of names of elderly, but there are a wide variety of kinds of fraud, including voter registration fraud. They did not identify the perpetrators by party affiliation or ethnicity/race. https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/voterfraud_download/VoterFraudCases_5.pdf Five states have easy absentee balloting and primarily use mail-in ballots and all states use some form of absentee voting.  Colorado is one of the states that use mail-in balloting in all of the elections phased in since 2013.  https://www.9news.com/article/news/politics/colorado-is-a-leader-in-mail-in-ballot-voting/73-d1e49cef-8558-4b49-9a00-956ebd20fa53 Fraud has not been an issue. Per the Heritage Foundation, I counted 3 instances of voter fraud convictions since 2013, one of which had to do with registration, not voting. By the way, our troops vote by mail, too.
Non-profit, nonpartisan Fact Check.org called Trump's claim, that mail-in ballots are fraudulent, false and exaggerated.
"President Donald Trump continues to add false and exaggerated statements to his already lengthy list of bogus voter fraud claims.

There is no evidence to back up Trump’s blanket claim that “mailed ballots are corrupt.” Voting experts say the president is exaggerating when he says mail ballots are “fraudulent in many cases.” While the instances of voter fraud via mail-in or absentee ballots are more common than in-person voting fraud, the number of known cases is relatively rare. Trump also falsely claimed that California reached a settlement with Judicial Watch in which the state “agree[d] that a million people should not have voted.” California and Los Angeles County agreed to remove inactive voters from their voter rolls per federal law. But there’s no evidence any of them voted, fraudulently or otherwise. And as he has in the past, Trump claimed there’s “a lot of fraudulent voting going on in this country.” Experts say voter fraud is rare."

https://www.5280.com/2020/05/no-fraud-isnt-rampant-in-colorados-mail-in-voting-system/  Why? Systems are in place, per this article.
    

      Wisconsin, not a southern state, is a sad case when it comes to damaging a representative democracy by political and partisan tricks. Trump now has a majority in the US Supreme Court with his recent appointees and he just won a victory regarding an election in Wisconsin.  The governor wanted to delay the vote on Tuesday, April 8, for the presidential and state Supreme Court, and local government races because  Coronavirus would make voting in person as required dangerous to the health of voters. Absentee votes could suffice. The Republican-dominated legislature and their state Supreme Court wanted the election to go on in-person even though absentee ballots would not arrive on time for voters to return them to be counted.  In short, thousands of voters who feared to vote in person in the few polling places left open were denied their ability to vote. At stake was the re-election of the Republican State Supreme court chief justice and the greater the turnout, the more likely that that domination would be at risk, they feared. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned in dissent that the conservative majority's ruling "will result in massive disenfranchisement". Slate's Mark Joseph Stern wrote that the high court's ruling "will nullify the votes of citizens who mailed in their ballots late—not because they forgot, but because they did not receive ballots until after Election Day due to the coronavirus pandemic."  Stern just fingered the ultimate voter catch 22. Sure, you can vote by mail, but you won't get your ballots in time to mail them back.
In a twist of political justice,  brave souls turned out to vote in spite of the danger of coronavirus, and the majority.voted against the GOP Supreme Court candidate, who also had Trump's endorsement.  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/politics/wisconsin-primary-results.html

      Wisconsin is already a poster child for anti-democracy election practices and their legislative body is one of the worst examples of political gerrymandering in the US, giving the GOP an overwhelming advantage while they represent less than 50% of the voters. Trump's compliant  US Supreme Court majority last year had already ruled they could not intervene in Wisconsin's political gerrymandering which in effect permitted one of the most extreme cases of distortion of representative government in the US. In 2012 Republicans had gained 60.6% of the seats in the State Assembly, despite receiving only 48.6% of the statewide vote...all by drawing election districts in a way that benefited them. 
      https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_million_mail-in_ballots_went_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html   The thesis: millions of mail in ballots went missing.

Missing does not mean there is fraud...the implications of this conservative web site.  It just means someone lost it, did not return it for many reasons, or preferred to vote in person. The harvesting of nursing home votes takes place everywhere since those are permitted in every state even when mail-in votes are the main method. I spent over 7 years as a Denver Election Commissioner with some experience with fraud. The most infamous harvesting of them in recent years was conducted by Republicans.  https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/republican-operatives-were-behind-some-of-the-most-egregious-ballot-harvesting-frauds-of,   Most of it concerns forged signatures on registration and voting documents which could and should be detected by the elections officials paying attention to the comparison of signatures with those on file. What needs to be done is up to the county clerks to keep the information of registered voters on file and updated.  There are ways to accomplish this such as sending out mailings first-class to registered voters that do not contain ballots in advance..such as informational info of where and how to vote. It costs money but that is the cost of liberty

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN21P3G0?fbclid=IwAR2GYmy0wY-4LmGrQDq0yv73lQRmymndgGyhZY9lKsfdrWBmcAwDdD7Owa0

    
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-north-carolina-idUSKCN1QG2FS?fbclid=IwAR3uNWNAQ8_WcLbM24byVQetEANTfDQOZ

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/states-by-race/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/nov/07/which-us-states-hardest-vote-supression-election

https://www.cpr.org/2020/04/15/as-coronavirus-scrambles-election-plans-more-states-look-to-colorados-all-mail-voting/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=lookout&utm_campaign=lookout20200415

https://apnews.com/f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d/Report:-Trump-commission-did-not-find-widespread-voter-fraud

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?state=UT

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/04/635668304/member-of-disbanded-trump-voter-fraud-commission-speaks-out?fbclid=IwAR3fYi-iDVyr_xwsuyCjXe1z4WjFY3_JjIntfWfspKsZf59lnPsyXdjIdgk

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/07/one-most-brazen-acts-voter-suppression-modern-times-us-supreme-court-blocks-absentee

 https://www.wpr.org/us-supreme-court-ruling-effectively-ends-wisconsin-gerrymandering-challenge 2012 elections,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/politics/wisconsin-primary-election/index.html?fbclid=IwAR11g9ahsWJQkRvdonPSSrXGqRZuNln0RN

 https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/republican-operatives-were-behind-some-of-the-most-egregious-ballot-harvesting-frauds-of,  

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-latest-voter-fraud-misinformation/

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-purges-threaten-disenfranchise-voters-under-radar

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-voting-by-mail-bad-but-troops-vote-that-way-2020-4?fbclid=IwAR0coa538tYT6TQARbWsDfXIY0gg7dIRemGj6bc2pE_zQZNDrFwwuVQxlbY

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_million_mail-in_ballots_went_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html
Missing does not mean there is fraud...the implications of this conservative web site.  It just means someone lost it, did not return it for many reasons, or preferred to vote in person. The harvesting of nursing home votes takes place everywhere since those are permitted in every state even when mail in votes are the  main rule..I spent 7years as a Denver Election Commissioner with some experience with fraud. The most infamous harvesting of them in recent years was conducted by Republicans.  https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/republican-operatives-were-behind-some-of-the-most-egregious-ballot-harvesting-frauds-of,   Most of it concerns forged signatures on registration and voting documents which could and should be detected by the elections officials paying attention to comparison of signatures with those on file. What needs to be done is up to the county clerks to keep the information of registered voters on file and updated.  There are ways to accomplish this such as sending out mailings first class to registered voters that do not contain ballots in advance..such as informational info of where and how to vote. It costs money but that is the cost of liberty