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Trump is against mail in ballots because the pool of eligible Democratic voters and Independents likely to vote against him is greater than the pool of eligible voters likely to vote for him. Under those circumstances, making it easier to vote may work to his disadvantage.But first, let’s correct an answer Alex Mann that is simply false:So first let’s start with what this fight is about. It is NOT about the ability to have a mail-in ballot system. Trump hasn’t really said anything about that and most states already do it. The fight is over:1Vote verification: Democrats want to remove signature verification on votes.2.Who ballots get sent to: Democrats want to send ballots to all eligible voters, including inactive ones. This is the entire issue—there is no more complexity behind it (that’s a joke, but this is the basic outline).Alex’s answer initially referenced California’s new vote by mail executive order, which is actually now an actual piece of legislation, and claimed that it wanted to remove signature verification on votes AND send ballots to inactive voters. He then changed it to Nevada’s alleged deficiencies, but has now removed any references to particular states since his claims about specific laws in specific states are either false or so grossly misleading that they are functionally false. But because he initially claimed that CA was removing signature verification and just randomly sent ballots to inactive voters, I will keep the substance of my response.First, it is absolutely false that California’s Vote by Mail legislation, or the predecessor executive order removed signature verification on votes. In fact, the verification process in CA is very strict:Here is the statute:Law sectionCHAPTER 1. Vote by Mail Application and Voting Procedures [3000 - 3026]( Heading of Chapter 1 amended by Stats. 2007, Ch. 508, Sec. 11. )3019.(a) (1) Upon receiving a vote by mail ballot, the elections official shall compare the signature on the identification envelope with either of the following to determine if the signatures compare:(A) The signature appearing on the voter’s affidavit of registration or any previous affidavit of registration of the voter.(B) The signature appearing on a form issued by an elections official that contains the voter’s signature and that is part of the voter’s registration record.(2) In comparing signatures pursuant to this section, the elections official may use facsimiles of voters’ signatures, provided that the method of preparing and displaying the facsimiles complies with the law.(3) In comparing signatures pursuant to this section, an elections official may use signature verification technology. If signature verification technology determines that the signatures do not compare, the elections official shall visually examine the signatures and verify that the signatures do not compare.(4) The variation of a signature caused by the substitution of initials for the first or middle name, or both, is not grounds for the elections official to determine that the signatures do not compare.(b) If upon conducting the comparison of signatures pursuant to subdivision (a) the elections official determines that the signatures compare, the elections official shall deposit the ballot, still in the identification envelope, in a ballot container in the elections official’s office.(c) If upon conducting the comparison of signatures pursuant to subdivision (a) the elections official determines that the signatures do not compare, the identification envelope shall not be opened and the ballot shall not be counted. The elections official shall write the cause of the rejection on the face of the identification envelope only after completing the procedures described in subdivision (d).(d) (1) A minimum of eight days prior to the certification of the election, the elections official shall provide notice to all voters identified pursuant to subdivision (c) of the opportunity to verify their signatures no later than 5 p.m. two days prior to the certification of the election.(2) The notice and instructions shall be in substantially the following form:Below, I will reference the new California Vote by Mail amendments. For those of you who don’t regularly review statutes, the new Bill does not alter or amend section 3019 above. It amends 3019.7: AB-860 Elections: vote by mail ballots.In other words, the chief premise for Trump’s opposition, which is that California’s new Vote by Mail provision changes voter signature verification is absolutely false. And there are procedures for challenging a voter’s signature.Second, it is completely false that California will send mail in ballots to all “eligible voters.” Under the new act, only registered active voters will get mail in ballots. Inactive voters, voters who have had materials returned back by mail or have not voted in two elections, represent a small number of registered voters but election materials such as mail in ballots do not have to be sent to them if they are inactive.Under California law, inactive voters are legally eligible to vote but do not receive election materials:"Inactive voter" means a voter for whom a county has received:a returned residency confirmation mailing pursuant to California Elections Code section 2220 without a forwarding address within the same county, orinformation obtained through the United States Postal Service National Change of Address (NCOA) database indicating that the voter has moved outside the county pursuant to California Elections Code sections 2222 and 2226. Per California Elections Code sections 2221 and 2226, such inactive registrants retain the legal right to vote, but need not be mailed election material. Further, inactive voters who do not vote in two consecutive Federal general elections are subject to cancellation of their voter registration pursuant to Section 303(a)(4)(A) of HAVA (42 U.S.C. § 15483(a)(4)(A)).Nothing in the new bill changes that provision of California’s Election code. if there is any ambiguity, the California Secretary of State has stated: “Only active registered voters will be mailed a ballot ahead of the November 3, 2020 General Election. The President’s tweet is completely false.”A registered but inactive voter could show up in person to vote provisionally, but that’s always been the law.The California bill was passed 68-5 by the Assembly, with six members not voting. The opponents were all Republicans. Republicans who backed the bill noted that ballots will not be mailed to so-called inactive voters, who have not participated in recent elections.California Enacts Law Requiring Mail-In Ballots Sent To All Voters For November Presidential Election So, again, the leading answer as of this time is simply false.California has a very strict voter registration verification program including verifying voter roles against felony convictions and deaths. It also cross references motor vehicle records. Statewide Voter Registration Database Further, the vote by mail does not change anything with respect to inactive voters. An inactive voter could always show up at the polls and cast their vote, or request a vote by mail ballot. But the county does not send them ballots automatically.Voting in federal elections is determined by state and local governments. There is nothing inherently fraudulent about voting by mail. It all depends upon the policies and procedures of the vote by mail provisions. Despite the claims of widespread voting fraud benefiting Democrats, there is always a way to verify the integrity of mail in ballots. Just like there is a procedure for maintaining the integrity of in person voting.Historically, due to population density, urban precincts usually have long poll lines while rural precincts basically have walk in voting with no wait. Theoretically, if rural voters have to travel an hour or more to vote, they're would be widespread outrage over the unfairness. There is no similar outcry over urban voters routinely having to wait several hours to vote. Programs to reduce these lines and waits, like early voting, have also been opposed by the GOP because the lines benefit their party and discourage urban folks from voting. My guess is that if there was some feature of in person voting that benefited Democrats and discouraged likely GOP voters to vote, like long travel distances, then the shoe would be on the other foot. The truth is that until Trump disbands the Post Office, vote by mail is the fairest way to ensure an equal opportunity to vote along equal terms. Indeed, the postal service is one of the only federal services guaranteed by our Constitution: Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads"Further, there is no guarantee which party that mail in voting will favor. If the Pandemic is still raging come November, it may be that older people may be more reluctant to vote in person while younger folks are more than willing to face the lines. Trump believes that repeatedly claiming the election will be rigged may power up his base; or give him an excuse if 2020 turns out as bad for the GOP as 2018. He is almost certainly likely to get crushed in the popular vote based upon California alone. This gives him further ammunition to claim it is rigged to deny the significance of the fact that the majority of the country does not think he is fit to be President.Finally, the truth is that swing states are swing states because they a fairly even split between the two parties. Again, there is state and local control over federal elections. The odds of any mail in voting procedure not being hotly debated and fairly constructed in a swing state is almost nil. In a swing state, both parties have reasons to see that the procedures are full and fair and will use the courts if necessary to enjoin unfair election rules designed to favor one party. The trend in most swing states has been that Democrats have worked hard to expand voting opportunities and Republicans have worked hard to suppress votes, usually by shortening early voting or requiring drivers license IDs or the equivalent for folks who often do not drive. This is due in no small part to the demographics of Democratic voters and simple numbers. In most swing states, if Democratic voters come out, then it is a big win for Democrats in state wide elections like the Presidential popular and EC race. If the Cities do not come out for the Democratic candidate in massive numbers than the rural areas of swing states are enough to carry the state. Once upon a time the GOP made serious efforts to court the suburbs but Trump has caused the party to bleed numbers.

It is probably best to look at the two major players.First, on the separatist side, we have Rene Levesque. In the 1950s, Levesque worked for the Societe Radio-Canada, the French language arm of the Canadian national broadcasting service. He was the most famous television personality in Quebec and did a weekly show on international politics. He could have cared less about Canadian politics or Quebec politics. That was to change, however. In 1960, the provincial Liberals saw their opportunity to replace the authoritarian Union Nationale after their leader passed away after being premier for over a decade. Levesque was a star and was seen by the Liberals as their best chance of winning the UN stronghold of Montreal-Laurier. In 1956, the UN had carried the riding by over 7,000 votes against another Liberal future star Pierre Laporte.In a tough fought campaign (and by that I mean election violence, ballot box stuffing and police forces fighting outside polling places) Levesque carried the riding by 129 votes. He was made Minister of Public Works and was put in charge of the ambitious project of nationalizing the electrical utilities (now Hydro-Quebec). He also successfully fought corruption (turning down a $20,000 bribe in the process).But as he pursued his agenda, he found that the obstacle wasn’t corruption or incompetence, it was what was going in Ottawa. Prime Minister Pearson had decided to nationalize funding for universal health care. However, health care affordability wasn’t that bad in Quebec, and the new law required Quebec to commit billions of its own money in order to get money from Ottawa.By 1967, Levesque and other Quebec nationalists had had enough and they formed their own party, which eventually became the Parti Quebecois. Although it started out slow, the PQ formed the government in Quebec in 1976, largely because of the incompetence of the Liberals to deal with the fallout of the October Crisis and the oil price shock which hit Quebec harder because it imported most of its oil. Although they wanted to move forward with separation, they made it clear that a PQ government wasn’t an automatic move towards separation and that a referendum was in the offering.Now, for the other major playerPierre Elliot Trudeau. Trust fund kid with a French-Canadian father and a Scottish-Canadian mother. After graduating Harvard and law school at the top of his class, he found his ambition to become a law professor was thwarted by biases against French-Canadians in academia. He kicked around doing different jobs before getting involved with the Quebec labour movement that was opposed to Union Nationale labour polices. However, when two of his close friends were invited to join the federal Liberal party, they wouldn’t come unless Trudeau came with them. After easily winning the seat of Mont-Royal by a convincing majority, he clearly became the most important member of the Liberals from the province of Quebec. When promoted to Minister of Justice in 1967, he quickly reformed the divorce laws and legalized homosexuality and adultery. The expected “opposition” to these moves never materialized. When the Liberal leadership opened up with Pearson’s resignation in 1968, he won a narrow majority on the fourth ballot. However, in the 1968 general election he swept into power and by the time of the referendum in 1980 he had been Prime Minister for all but a few months of the previous twelve years. However, he was in the twilight of his career and had only stayed in in 1980 because of a snap election.During his 11 years in continuous authority, Trudeau had pursued bold new initiatives with respect to immigration, ending the old system of preference for British Commonwealth immigrants and instead installing the current merit based system. He had also established the policy of official bilingualism in the federal government which, prior to Trudeau, had a bureaucracy run entirely in English.And in 1980, it came down to these two giants - both from Quebec, both fluently bilingual (Levesque had been an interpreter with the U.S. Army) and both with completely different ideas about the direction of the country.Trudeau still had plans to repatriate the constitution and pass a charter of rights and freedoms.So, for Levesque, he saw a world where Quebec and its culture would essentially be subsumed by the English speaking majority of the country. Due to its tax obligations to Ottawa, Levesque felt that Quebec would never be able to have control over it’s own economy and would always have to go cap in hand to Ottawa. The power of the purse would essentially prevent Quebec from ever pursuing unique policy solutions to its own problems.As for Trudeau, he feared a world where he and others like him would be treated as second class citizens both in Quebec and in Canada. He feared for English speaking Quebecers, the First Nations within Quebec, and the inevitable wedge driven through the heart of the country separating the Maritimes from the rest of Canada. In his most famous speech of the campaign, he noted that it was as impossible to split Quebec from Canada as it was for an individual to split their own being if they, like him, were half French and half Anglophone. He also feared the world he had grown up in with an authoritarian provincial government which consistently repressed labour and minority religions.And at the top of this list of grievances on both sides was immigration. Trudeau felt that Canada could only grow as a nation if it accepted the differences of others. Many in Quebec feared such an inflow of immigrants would eventually result in them becoming a minority in their own province and wanted some semblance of control.

*What was I doing on election night?*I watched the results until Stephen Colbert signed off around 11:20 pm CST. His guests were visibly shaken, one cried, and Colbert was near tears himself. My stomach started to hurt around 9pm before they called Florida. I ingested some TUMS antacid. By 10pm, I had a stress headache; I took my prescribed ibuprofen and klonopin; paced. At midnight told my daughter to go to bed; took another 1 mg klonopin and slept like a log.**I woke with a newfound clarity,*** Only Lincoln, the winner and emancipator, could unite a divided country instead of punish the loser* Only LBJ, a Southern, could bring forth Civil Rights and a the Great Society* Only Nixon, the rabid anti-communist could reach out to Communist ChineseImageSource: PhotoGrid from Google Gallery**What unique talent can Trump offer?*** Only Trump, a former Democrat, the victim of bullying and being looked down upon by the blue blood elite* could be strong enough to push back against the alt-right, tea-party, and conservative elite.* I am praying his deliberate antagonism was tactical to hijack the election and do good* He is is narcissistic enough to want to leave a positive legacy for the history books.* He has already said, he planned to surround himself with competent people from both parties* He can use his temperament for vengeance to punish and weaken his Republican obstructionist enemies moving Congress forward.* If Obama doesn't do it first, he should fire Comey as a “snake in the grass” violating the 60 day moratorium not to discuss politically sensitive investigation less officials violate the Hatch Act against political interference and have DOJ prosecute to the full extent of the law.* Merge Education back into Health and Human Services; offer the cabinet position to Hillary Clinton to begin the healing and allay people's fears about* Medicare* Social Security* Local Control of Education* Universal healthcare* Merge Commerce and Labor to focus on developing strategies and programs for improving domestic workplace skills competitive with offshore countries such as India.* He’s builder; leverage his life long experience for roads, bridges, and affordable housing; limiting the amount of offshore raw materials used; growing the economyWith a competent staff, a vision, and some of his known idiosyncrasies, he can be a better than expected leader similar to Lincoln, LBJ, and Nixon. He can be a change agent.