Dear Governor Murphy,
I write you as a citizen and constituent out of concern for the rights of myself, my family, and my community. In recent days President Donald Trump and his appointed cabinet official, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, have openly and wantonly attacked the integrity of the upcoming election and have engaged in a conspiracy to deprive millions of Americans of their constitutional right to vote. This profanity must not be allowed to stand.
The Covid-19 pandemic has produced unique conditions that must be accommodated in order to have a free and fair election. Since Election Day is not a work holiday, polls naturally rely on a cadre of retired volunteers for ordinary operation. That work force is highly susceptible to the virus and cannot be expected to incur the risk of their usual work. This will mean fewer polling stations, which will delay voting and create even greater public health risks as crowds gather to cast their ballots.
It is thus imperative that the United States Postal Service be enlisted to aid in the fulfillment of balloting. Millions more votes will necessarily be cast by mail this year, placing a strain on the resources of the Postal Service. Additional funds and new personnel and equipment will be required to accommodate this urgent need.
Instead of doing what is vitally necessary, the President is working to obstruct the needs of the election, openly refusing essential funds to the Postal Service for the admitted reason of sabotaging the process of mail-in balloting. His ostensible reasons for this attack are completely fallacious. Even if it were true that universal mail-in balloting posed greater risks than "absentee balloting" (and empirical evidence shows this is not true), the resource needs for using the absentee ballot system to redress the problems of the crisis would be even greater than those posed by universal mail-in balloting. Even more new personnel and equipment would be needed to process millions of absentee ballot requests, so any move to starve the Postal Service of resources is an attack on the integrity of the election, full stop. There is no legitimate defense for the course of action that Donald Trump has openly admitted he has undertaken.
At the same time that Donald Trump is attacking the funding of the USPS, Louis DeJoy is working from within to sabotage its existing capacity. Hundreds of sorting machines have been decommissioned and even dismantled, indefinitely crippling the Service's delivery capacity in many districts. This is utterly execrable, as it not only affects the election, but is causing delays to the delivery of food, medicine, and other essentials to those most vulnerable during the ongoing pandemic.
This sabotaging of the USPS is a crime being committed in broad daylight. It is a violation of the President's oath of office and a betrayal of the foundational principles of our Republic. The Constitution gives the states the power to set voting requirements, the federal government has no authority to effectively mandate a set of voting parameters from its seat in Washington D.C.
I implore you to direct our Secretary of State, in coalition with as many other state governments across the Union as may be persuaded to join in a class action, to undertake a law suit against President Trump and the federal government on behalf of the people of our state. The goal of this lawsuit should be to halt the illegal and immoral sabotaging of the USPS. Donald Trump has confessed to his malicious intent on camera and in social media, he can no longer be trusted to safeguard the integrity of the Postal Services. For the sake of the citizens of our state and the larger United States, the USPS must be put into the receivership of an independent authority convened by a bipartisan commission.
Time is short. The election is less than three months away, and postal delays are costing many their health and lives in the meantime. Please take action swiftly. I thank you for your attention to this matter, and hope that this message finds you well.
Sincerely,
Andrew Meyer
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