Here is why our democracy could be ended by Trump's attack on the Post Office. This is a serious threat and there may be no Constitutional way to stop it. [1]

In all recent elections, the outcome has determined by which candidate wins enough electors from several swing states. A small margin of victory is the same as a large one because the swing states allocate their electors in a winner-takes-all fashion. [2]

Most swing states consist of predominantly rural areas that vote strongly Republican and a much more compact, densely population set of urban areas that vote strongly Democrat. For example, here is how Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin voted in 2012. [3]

In 2012, Obama won all three of those states, by margins of about 200 thousand or fewer. That was enough to win all the electoral votes from those states. [4]

In each of those states, however, the margin by which the Democrat carried the state came from a small number of countries. In each case, the one or two countries that voted most strongly Democratic had a larger margin than the state overall. [5]

In Pennsylvania, it Philadelphia County alone provided Obama a bigger edge than he had in the state overall. In Florida, the same was true of Miami-Dade County. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County and Dane County together provided Obama's edge. [6]

Therefore, Obama would have lost all three of those states if the votes of just four counties had been suppressed to zero. Shutting down those four counties, and a few in other states, would have cost Obama the 2012 election. [7]

The same is true of all recent wins by Democratic candidates, all four of which (1992, 1996, 2008, 2012), all of which were substantial wins in the Electoral College. Swinging a handful of targeted counties in each state would have undone any of those wins nationally. [8]

That brings us to 2020, where we have reports of a sudden, intense attack on the Post Office by Donald Trump, who replaced the head with his own campaign donor. Promptly, 23 top executives in the USPS were fired and replaced with Trump people. [9]

In 2020, voting by mail will be particularly important, due to COVID-19 concerns. Regardless of any local measures, many voters will choose to remain home and vote by mail, something which is legal in all swing states. [10]

Recent reports are that Trump's Post Office coup has slowed down the mail, and in some places, mail-sorting machines have been removed. These reports are scattered and not compiled systematically, but they suggest that Trump is trying to rig the election. [11]

Two recent articles with comments from local USPS workers have quoted workers in Philadelphia – exactly the one place to strike if you wanted to rig the election – and Waterloo County, Iowa: One of the counties in Iowa that votes most strongly Democratic. [12]

Current election law in most states has a deadline by which mailed ballots must be received. In almost all swing states, that deadline is Election Day. (North Carolina is the main exception.) [13]

Therefore, Trump has a legal path to rig the election simply by halting mail delivery in a few counties. Even delaying the mail by one day in one county – Philadelphia would be the main place to strike – could swing the election. [14]

While I have mentioned counties, the analysis – and the attack – could be far more targeted by attacking specific Post Office locations, specific voting districts, specific neighborhoods, which are much smaller than urban counties and are often even more segregated. [15]

The actions taken so far suggestion that this attack is underway. The USPS is being slowed in Philadelphia and other Democratic-heavy areas in swing states. This will not necessarily affect anyone anywhere else. 95% of us may notice nothing. [16]

According to law, an attack like this will succeed if it stops enough votes from being delivered by Election Day. Those votes will fail to arrive on time and by law, will not be counted later. According to the law, Trump can be certified the winner without having won. [17]

There is no power that Democrats in Congress have to stop this. Individual voters can hand-deliver vote-by-mail ballots, and voters can work extra hard to turn out the vote. But if this election were going to come down to small margins, Trump's attack can work. [18]

We can record what is happening, expose it, and make it known to the world. Voters may choose ways of voting that are harder to suppress. But legally, we cannot stop it. This attack – focused on Philadelphia – could end the democracy that began in 1776 – in Philadelphia. [19/END]