CO Secretary of State Slams Trump Over Opposition To USPS Funding

ACROSS COLORADO—Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold had strong words Thursday for President Donald Trump for opposing efforts by Democrats to increase funding for the U.S. Postal Service to facilitate mail-in voting for November’s elections.

“The President stated that he’s withholding U.S. Postal Service funding to prevent vote by mail. This is voter suppression. It’s voter suppression to undermine the safest method to vote during a pandemic, and force Americans to risk their lives to vote. Colorado’s election model is the nation’s gold standard, and we use both mail ballots and ballot drop boxes. Our use of drop boxes is even more crucial as the U.S. Postal Service is under attack," she said in a statement.

The Republican president said on Fox Business Network that among the big sticking points for a new congressional virus relief package were the Democrats’ demands for billions of dollars to assist states in protecting the election and to help postal workers process mail-in ballots.

“They want three and a half billion dollars for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money basically. They want three and a half billion dollars for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”

For Democrats, Trump's new remarks were a clear admission that he is attempting to restrict voting rights.

“The President of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies and for delivery of medicines, because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in over 100 years," Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

Negotiations over a new virus relief package have all but ended, with the White House and congressional leaders far apart on the size, scope and approach for shoring up households, reopening schools and launching a national strategy to contain the coronavirus.

"If we don't make a deal, that means they don't get the money. That means they can't have universal mail-in voting," Trump said.

While there is some common ground over $100 billion for schools and new funds for virus testing, Trump rejects the Democrats funding for the U.S. postal service because he believes it will increase the likelihood of a fraudulent election.

"There's nothing wrong with getting out and voting. They voted during WWI and WWII, and they should have voter ID," Trump said during the interview. "This [the election] will be almost as fraudulent as Obama spying on my campaign. This will be the greatest fraud in history."

Some critics opposed to mail-in voting argue that New York's recent primary serves as a warning for the November election.

According to NBC News, more than 1 in 5 mail-in ballots were rejected in New York City during the state primary June 23, the city’s certified election results revealed this week. City election officials rejected 84,000 ballots — 21 percent of all those received by election officials. More than 403,000 ballots were returned to election officials, according to city data, but only about 319,000 absentee ballots were counted. As a result, two congressional races were left undecided for weeks.

Earlier this month, more than 500,000 Virginians received mail-in ballot letters containing pre-paid return envelopes addressed to the incorrect registrar’s office. The Center for Voter Information, the non-profit responsible for the mailers, blamed the mix-up on a printing error.

Meanwhile, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was tapped to head the Postal Service by a Trump-appointed board of governors and started in June, has said that the agency is in a financially untenable position, but he maintains that it can handle this year's election mail.

“Although there will likely be an unprecedented increase in election mail volume due to the pandemic, the Postal Service has ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on-time in accordance with our delivery standards, and we will do so," he told the Postal Service's governing board last week.

AP News contributed to this story.