If you ordered both Republican and Democrat absentee ballots and one arrived postage paid while the other didn’t, what would you think? Well, this is precisely the experience one couple had in Leon County, Florida. As American Thinker’s Steve Holland reports on what transpired when he prepared to mail his and his wife’s ballots:
I tossed both envelopes into the car seat and noticed something unusual. My wife is a registered Democrat, and her envelope was postage-paid with “par avion,” which is French for air mail. I’m a registered Republican, and my envelope had clear bold-type letters stating that postage needed to be applied. [Holland’s article includes photos of the ballots]
… Hmmmm. Why the difference? Is it a mistake? Is it a random error where some received a free postage-paid envelope, while others didn’t? Was it intentional? Did only Democrats receive the postage-paid envelopes, and Republicans didn’t? Did the Florida DNC or the National DNC pay for this service? Are there other services these organizations paid for? If so, what are they? My wife’s envelope is signed, while mine is not. Things that make you go hmmmm.
Perhaps someone in Leon County thinks that Democrats are like goofy Honeymooners character Ed Norton, who admitted that he once mailed an envelope without a stamp because “nobody was lookin’.” But while I don’t know if the above postage phenomenon is a mistake or not or, if intentional, legal or not, it opens the door to a different kind of vote-suppression shenanigans.
Note that if all Leon County Democrat ballots come postage paid and all the GOP ones don’t, it’s easy for an informed postal employee to know which are which. And then, as a commenter under Holland’s article wrote, “This is like marked cards! It’s easy for even a postal worker to get rid of the votes they don’t like without even opening the envelope.”
Another put it this way, “It is code for which ballots get counted and which go in the trash.”
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If this seems like paranoia, know that I have already experienced a similar thing.
Every time I’m published in The New American magazine, I receive 15 copies of the issue in question. They’d normally be sent via the U.S. Postal Service and would bear a John Birch Society (JBS) label.
Well, on approximately three different occasions in a short space of time, I didn’t receive the magazines. Note that I have never, ever had a problem with lost mail before, and haven’t had one since. Not even once. But three packages of JBS-labeled magazines just disappeared — almost in succession.
I told the editor in chief, and he subsequently shipped the magazines via UPS with no label — and since then I’ve had no more problems. It’s quite possible that some leftist (presumably) postal worker saw the JBS label and simply chucked the packages. (Either that, or he was a crazy JBS fan who maniacally covets such precious material. /sarc)
I did complain to the USPS twice, if memory serves, but never received a response stating that the issue was investigated. (The post office’s actions could be construed as a First Amendment violation, mind you, since a government worker was suppressing written speech he didn’t like. But that’s a subject for a different day.)
The point is, it isn’t far-fetched to suspect that the same thing could happen with externally identifiable Republican mail-in ballots. Remember that government workers, which postal employees are, are inordinately Democrat. Also consider that relative to the Left’s recent unhinged behavior — attacking Trump supporters, harassing public officials in restaurants, rioting, doxxing politicians, etc. — chucking GOP mail-in ballots is, from an emotional standpoint, small potatoes.
Holland asks in his title, “How crooked is Leon County?” Maybe very, maybe not much. But in the least, stupidity is indicated. There’s no excuse for having external signs on mail-in ballots indicating their party affiliation. It’s an invitation to mischief.
As for voters, you’re better off waiting for Election Day and voting in person if possible. Why imperil your ballot by running it through the post office?
Image: AndreyPopov via iStock / Getty Images Plus
