- (Breaking) SCOTUS blocks Trump’s USPS mail ballot scheme
- Postal Service delays resulted in thousands of tossed primary ballots
- Also: Callers ring in with 2026 election hopes, fears…
There are just 50 days before your last chance to vote in this year’s never-more-critical midterm elections. There is going to be a lot of bumps in the road along the way. But do not be deterred! Particularly from voting carefully, hopefully by hand, and definitely on time, as evidenced on today’s BradCast before we open the phones to listeners about their concerns and hopes 50 days out. [Audio to full show follows this post.]
The “on time” part I mention above as being so important — as discussed in detail on the show — is not quite as clear and easy to define as it once was, thanks to some radical restructuring in recent years by the U.S. Postal Service in hopes of saving money. (It hasn’t saved them money. But it has resulted in thousands of perfectly lawfully cast votes going uncounted in recent elections!)
So, today, we go postal before opening up the phones. Among our many mail-in ballot-related stories covered…
- We
arewere waiting for the activist, right-wing U.S. Supreme Court to issue their ruling at any moment regarding Donald Trump’s unlawful, anti-constitutional Executive Order from back in March when he ordered a new mail-ballot process from the U.S. Postal Service. The scheme, purportedly to protect against “fraud” would, in actuality, result in chaos and allow the Post Office to become arbiter of whether millions of lawful citizen voters get to vote at all. The matter was already waiting at SCOTUS after a federal district court in Boston blocked it (several times), and as the Trump Administration appealed to the High Court. Late on Sunday night, a second U.S. District Court judge in D.C. — an appointee of Donald Trump’s(!) — similarly blocked the USPS “Final Rule” from taking effect, finding “Plaintiffs have demonstrated that, absent an injunction, there is an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections.” - That followed both a whistleblower complaint from a USPS worker filed with Congress last week, with a warning that the Service’s portal for accepting information on voter lists from States is untested, buggy, would result in chaos in the Midterm elections and result in the disenfranchisement of millions. It also follows the Postal Workers Union filing an Amicus Brief with SCOTUS, essentially making a similar case that the USPS “Final Rule would likely cause catastrophic wholesale non-delivery of mail to hundreds of thousands of voters” and that “The hurried launch of this unprecedented system … will inevitably grind the operation of the postal system to a halt, delaying or preventing timely delivery of mail ballots.”
- BREAKING: SHORTLY AFTER AIRTIME, as we discussed was likely, even from this corrupt SCOTUS, it appears that the Court has finally struck down Trump’s Postal Service mail-in ballot scheme! More details on tomorrow’s show, but…
- As we explained during the show, however [BEFORE THE HIGH COURT’S RULING)] even if SCOTUS did the right thing for a change in blocking this latest attempt by Trump to undermine and steal the election, there are still many reasons to worry about the use of mail-in voting this year! Earlier in the year, a Los Angeles Times analysis found that thousands of mail ballots arrived too late after last year’s Special Election on redistricting in California to be counted, despite the state’s generous 7-day grace period for mail-in ballots to arrive and be tallied, presuming they are postmarked on or before Election Day. In fact, that number of mail ballots rejected as being too late quadrupled in that November 2025 Special Election as compared to the 2024 Presidential contest.
- But, it’s not only California, and it wasn’t only last year. A New York Times report late last month found a similarly disturbing uptick in tossed primary ballots arriving too late to be counted this year in California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington state.
- And, worse still, it wasn’t only late arriving ballots that got tossed by the thousands in Oregon and Washington state, where almost all voters vote by mail. In both states there was a disturbing spike in ballots that arrived one time during the state’s grace period, but which were not postmarked on or before Election Day. That appears to be tied to the new USPS reorganization that doesn’t postmark ballots when they are first collected by the Post Office, particularly in rural areas (which ironically and disproportionately may actually hurt Trump supporters!) It is not until the mail gets to one of the new regional hubs before they are stamped with a postmark. That could be day after the ballot itself had been dropped into a blue box, according to an AP analysis last week.
- IMPORTANT MORAL TO THESE STORIES FOR NOW…
- If you must vote by mail, get your ballot into a mailbox at least one week before Election Day! But even local post offices will manually postmark your ballot — for free — if you bring it in and ask them to do so!
- Better yet, if you can, deliver your ballot by hand either to a dropbox or at a polling place (check your local laws for which is allowable and plan ahead!)
- Either way, as much as this President and his party are going to do anything and everything they can to steal these elections if possible, I advise planning now to get your vote in early — hopefully on a hand-marked paper ballot, but early nonetheless. (And, mind you, I have never been a fan of Early Voting! This year, however, I’d suggest it is the best route to help ensure your vote gets into the system and counted as cast until we can see our way out of this ongoing and/or impending autocratic disaster.)
- Finally, spread the word about these concerns and let your friends, family and coworkers know about them!
THEN…in the second half of the show, we open up the phone lines to some great calls! I’ll leave the content of those as a surprise for you when you tune in and before we end today’s show with a coughing jag by yours truly. Enjoy the show! And don’t go postal unless you must!…
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