The DOJ's Claims of Discarded Ballots Are Yet Another Storm Cloud Forming Over the 2020 Election

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

26 September 20

I suspect this isn't anywhere near as strange as it's going to get.

nd let the weird shit begin.

It seems that surreality is beginning to gather like storm clouds around the 2020 election. On Thursday, the Department of Justice, acting through the U.S. Attorney for middle Pennsylvania, dropped a press release about nine "discarded" military ballots. All nine ballots, the DOJ release said, were cast for the president*. Later, the DOJ put out an amended release that said seven of the ballots were cast for the president*. But, as we learn from Politico, the very fact that the DOJ announced that it was looking into how the ballots were dropped has set off alarm bells in the minds of election-law experts.

Election experts were bewildered at the few details included within the press releases and the unorthodox manner in which they were announced, and were troubled by the fact that the Justice Department said the ballots had been cast for the president. “It is hard to express how illegitimate the press release is. That’s the problem,” Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said in an interview, noting that it wasn’t necessarily bad that the department was investigating.“It is really improper for DOJ to be putting out a press release with partial facts,” Levitt continued. “And it is career-endingly improper to designate the candidate for whom the votes are cast. There is no federal statute on which the identity of the preferred candidate depends.”

Suspicions ran even higher when it became apparent that the White House had known in advance about the discarded ballots. Administration prevaricator Kayleigh McEnany talked about them at her Thursday briefing, which took place before the first DOJ release appeared. And the president* himself seemed to refer to them on his regular spot on Fox News's Three Dolts On A Divan Thursday morning.

“This is both bizarre and disturbing — U.S. Attorney’s Offices don’t issue reports on pending investigations— and certainly not reports so blatantly contrived to provide political ballast for a sitting President’s campaign narrative,” David Laufman, a DOJ veteran, tweeted about the press release.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, three trays of undelivered mail, which included several absentee ballots, were found in a ditch in Outagamie County, north of Appleton. The U.S. Postal Inspectors are on the case. From the Appleton Post-Crescent:

Postal Service spokesman Francis Pilon would not comment specifically on when or where the mail was found, or how many absentee ballots were recovered, but confirmed Thursday an investigation is underway. “We are aware of some mail including absentee ballots recovered in Greenville, Outagamie County earlier this week,” he said. “The U.S. Postal Service is investigating this matter, and we are unable to comment further at this time.He would not elaborate on whether the ballots were completed and being returned to election officials or were being mailed to voters for completion.

Given how hinky things have become with the USPS, I don't know if I'm buying any innocent explanations any more. The president*'s campaign is now clearly based partly on a narrative in which mail-in voting is unreliable, if not fundamentally corrupt. Weird press releases about discarded ballots and trays of undelivered mail in a ditch are both episodes that serve that narrative. And, I suspect, this isn't anywhere near as strange as it's going to get.