It appears that more than 70% of voters support vote by mail this year.  A recent Monmouth poll indicates more than 70% of Democrats may vote by mail as compared to only 20% of Republicans who may vote by mail.  Trump and his supporters are pushing very hard on all Republicans to vote "in person." You can be sure they will, as usual, try to provide more voting resources in Republican districts than in Democratic districts, especially in large urban areas that lean Democrat.  The inexperienced, new Trump appointed Postmaster General has already fired  twenty-three experienced USPS administrators and has removed more than 500 high speed mail processing systems to purposely slow US mail processing to a crawl, stifling USPS vote by mail handling. The House Oversight Committee can't even meet with this inexperienced, Trump appointed Postmaster until September 17.  And then what?  When will the House act?...December 25, 2020?  Or will we be in the courts until December 2021?

You can understand from the 70-20% blue-red numbers why the Trump-Republican strategy is to make war on the USPS and “vote by mail,” and is encouraging Republicans to use only “in person” vote at polling stations. Republicans stand to benefit greatly from the attacks on the USPS and its ability to process primarily Democratic votes.  Unfortunately what they are doing publicly is at least unethical, probably illegal and certainly disgraceful.  Legal alternatives to the US Postal Service and ballot drop boxes need to be developed and immediately put in place by the States that support fair and efficient ballot distribution and collection, while protecting citizens from unnecessary exposure to the Covid19 virus.

The States have a US Constitutional right to run their own elections to determine their own Presidential Electors. That must include the ballot distribution and collection processes.  At this point, every state should immediately develop alternative, legal and low cost means for ballot distribution and collection to insure their citizens vote in time and have their vote counted in this upcoming election. There is still time to design and implement low cost, supplemental State processes and identify volunteers in every one of the state's counties to help with careful, legal ballot distribution and collection.

As an example, Kamala Harris and others have suggested “drive through voting.”  Once a drive through voting station is deemed to be a legal polling station, the drive through polling location can also serve as a drive by ballot drop box for the state’s mail-in ballots, which can always be legally dropped off at official statewide polling stations and county election offices. Consideration should be given to the use of large sporting arenas, large K-12 school facilities, colleges and church facilities and their large parking areas for the creation of new polling locations authorized for official state ballot collection for in person voting, drive through voting and drive by ballot drop boxes.  These same official collection facilities can also serve as drive through ballot distribution points for mail ballot applications and  official state mail/absentee ballots.  These measures can relieve the USPS of enough processing to prevent overload and excessive delays.

The good news is that these new facilities and volunteers can be close to cost free, we don’t need voting machines for mail ballot drive by drop offs, and the automobile drive through is virus safe.  These facilities can greatly relieve the Trump-Postmaster General-Republican plan to overload the USPS for ballot distribution and collection by disrupting traditional mail services.  Hopefully, at least Democratic states and swing states with Democratic governors will move quickly to improve mail ballot distribution but they must get their state’s ballots out ASAP.  They must also implement supplemental. efficient ballot collection systems and approve 1-2 weeks of in-person and mail drop off early voting collection ASAP.  Here is some encouraging data:

• Twenty-four states have Democratic Governors in 2020.
• Swing States like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina all have Democratic Governors in 2020.
• The Democratic States have 273 Electoral Votes, a GSP of $11.5 trillion and a total population of 170 million people.

If these and other Covid19, Trump-safe, accurate voting procedures are not developed and implemented, Trump and the Republicans are likely to succeed in eliminating as many as 10-15 million mail ballots from being counted in 2020 due to voter suppression, processing delays and outright losses due to theft and USPS Republican imposed overload.  Let’s stop talking about this and act immediately to protect our democracy and the future of our Nation.  Call your Governor, your Senator, your Federal and State Representatives and demand  immediate action in support of our democracy.