The editors of the Wall Street Journal point out some of the risks inherent in mass mail-in voting:
The simple fact is that mass mail voting introduces slack into the election system. Unrealistic deadlines are one problem. For an election held on Nov. 3, voters in 10 states can request an absentee ballot on Nov. 2, according to a report last week by the U.S. Postal Service’s inspector general. During this year’s primary season, the audit says, more than a million ballots were sent to voters in the seven days before an election, placing them “at high risk†of tardiness.
The Postal Service audit describes how seven USPS processing centers performed from April through June. About 8% of identifiable election and political mail, or 1.6 million pieces, was delivered late. Don’t blame the new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy: He took over June 15.
Some states try to factor in delays by counting ballot stragglers, up to 10 days late in Ohio, as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Alas, the audit finds that “ballots are not always being postmarked as required.†Other hangups abound: A Michigan voting envelope was printed without an address for the correct elections office, which “caused the ballot to be returned to the voter.†Ballots can also be rejected by local workers, who eyeball a voter’s signature to see if it matches the version on file.
In this year’s primaries, according to a tally by NPR, 558,032 absentee votes were tossed out. Al Gore won the nationwide popular vote in 2000 by 543,895. The discarded ballots this spring included 23,196 in Wisconsin, a state Mr. Trump won last time by 22,748. Some states give voters a week, or 14 days in Illinois, to “cure†bad signatures. Yet a study of Florida in 2018 found that mail-vote rejection rates were twice as high for black as for white voters.
The finagling over late ballots and messy signatures might stall the reporting of credible results. About a dozen states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, don’t begin processing absentee votes until Election Day, per the National Conference of State Legislatures. In the absence of a partisan skew, this might not matter. But a recent Journal poll says that 66% of Trump supporters intend to vote in person, compared with 26% of Biden backers.
I’ve pointed out before that such “slack” as they call it was the norm for most of U. S. history but it definitely runs against the grain for moderns accustomed to immediate gratification. Certainly mail-in voting at a scale never seen before, the delays inherent in that process, the vagaries of state laws governing mail-in voting, the very divided nature of the electorate, and the perception that the stakes of this election are very high increase the likelihood that the 2020 election will be decided in the courts, the least democratic of our branches of government.
“… it was the norm for most of U. S. history but it definitely runs against the grain for moderns accustomed to immediate gratification.”
“Immediate gratification” trivializes a serious issue. Blood letting existed a long time as well. But it had problems. Pony Express turned to US mail turned to airmail turned to fax turned to FedEx turned to email. Each with issues, pro and con, but not motivated by instant gratification. The issue is potential for fraud, not instant gratification.
You can’t get on an airplane without ID. You can’t get a drivers license or register a car without ID. You can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes without ID. You can’t buy a gun without ID. You can’t cash a check or initiate a wire without ID. Close on a house? ID.
But vote? Nah, give me your mail ballot……………..all ten of them. Overload the system? Heh, its just voting, not like the sacred right of getting a drivers license! Its just like voting for the baseball All Star team. Stuff those boxes………
The advocates of this know exactly what they are perpetrating. And its not pure.
The biggest danger isn’t the mail-in ballots. It’s the ones that won’t be mailed but instead be mass-delivered to tip the election and then afterwards conveniently ‘destroyed’. Call me a vote-suppressing cynic if you want, but if one party not only refuses to do anything to ensure only legitimate voters can vote but actively tries to increase the chances of fraud, I’m going to call foul.
steve’s and my views on election fraud differ. I think that, in Chicago at least, barring hardware problems any precinct that hasn’t reported its results by 10:00pm of election night is probably manufacturing votes. Tabulating the vote is easy; it’s making the election come out the right way that takes time. And that doesn’t even touch the issue of absentee votes.
I hope that I’m not putting words in steve’s mouth but I believe he thinks that election fraud is rare. Note that over the last decade there have been more than 1,000 convictions for vote fraud in the U. S. That probably fits the definition of “rare” but also note that, as close as many election results have been, it probably means that a quite a few elections have been fraudulent.
I on the other hand think that vote fraud is extremely common and very hard to detect. Reported cases, prosecuted cases, or convicted prosecutions do not tell the whole story.
Let’s start with this. It’s a matter of public record how individual precincts voted in the last election and you can guess how they’ll vote in this one based on that. At the post office mail-in ballots will probably be presorted.
“I hope that I’m not putting words in steve’s mouth but I believe he thinks that election fraud is rare.”
What I believe is that the kind of election fraud that would be solved with voter ID is rare. Fraud via voting machines is pretty common. People voting in two states because they have 2 houses is not uncommon. ID cards wont change that. Dead people voting is not uncommon since surviving spouses vote for their dearly departed. ID cards wont stop that either.
“You can’t get on an airplane without ID. You can’t get a drivers license or register a car without ID. You can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes without ID. You can’t buy a gun without ID. You can’t cash a check or initiate a wire without ID. Close on a house? ID.”
There are easy to find examples of people committing crimes or fraud that ID in these instance can stop. Just to use one example, underage kids really do try to buy alcohol. I did. Cashing checks is obvious. Etc. BUT, for voter fraud after spending millions fo dollars and putting a fraud tsar in place (Kobach) conservatives still cant find the kind of fraud that would be stopped with an ID card. They claim there are millions, but they cant find any.
“I on the other hand think that vote fraud is extremely common and very hard to detect.”
Remember that the claim is that there are millions of people voting illegally faking their identity, mostly illegal aliens. Since this votes are going to be concentrated just do the math. You really think that the poll workers, especially the conservatives, wont notice hundreds of unaccounted for Hispanic voters showing up? Besides, why would illegals risk that? You would risk getting deported to support any candidate we have had in the last 20 years?
Steve
Steve
So, ultimately CJ John Roberts decides the election: purest one man/one vote election.
I think Steve pointed out a major problem. Conservatives haven’t been active enough in volunteering to run polling places and by default, (by not being there) have allowed others to game the system.
Also, they don’t need gobs of illegals, just a list of names and the final vote count. 80 short? Hand me the list and a stack of ballots. Tell them we’ll be an hour late, they’ll understand.
That’s pretty much how it works.
Fun facts: under Chicago law each precinct must have one Republican and one Democratic judge. Illinois has a closed primary system. In Chicago the number of Republicans suddenly jumps at each primary. How can that be? Thousands of Democrats becoming Republicans for a day.
“That’s pretty much how it works.”
And they never catch anyone and everyone keeps quiet about it. Not how the world works. Ever.
Steve
‘“That’s pretty much how it works.â€
And they never catch anyone and everyone keeps quiet about it. Not how the world works. Ever.’
Sorry to disagree, but if gaming the system benefits those who abuse it, why would it be in their interest to report fraud much less look for it? Self-interested colluding is why there’s so little reporting of voting irregularities. And forget about the media reporting on it, they’re generally on the same team. Think about how quickly the Michigan 2016 Presidential vote recount got shut down once irregularities started showing up in Detroit, and who got prosecuted for them (answer, none). I think Dave would know how the system worked, considering he was a Chicago judge of elections for many years. Big city machines have been cooking the voting books for better than a century now.
steve is delusional as usual. But that’s not the point.
1. Vote fraud will be attempted, for obvious reasons.
2. If you don’t want voter fraud don’t make it easier; the standards are simple and weak as is.
3. The Democrats are trying to make it easier.
C’mon, man.
“Big city machines have been cooking the voting books for better than a century now.”
And for over a century no one has broken the silence. Again, that is not how the world works. Someone always talks. A relationship goes bad. Someone changes parties. Someone gets drunk and is sloppy. Remember that his is with conservatives actively looking. This would have to involve thousands of people.
Steve
Honestly I’m really surprised that Democrats are all-in for mail-in voting, especially in places that don’t have much experience with handling it. Leaving potential fraud aside for a minute, there is quite a lot of evidence that a non-trivial number of ballots get lost or are rejected for irregularities with mail ballots.
If there are a larger number of Democratic voters voting by mail (which seems to be the case), then some number of those votes will not happen or not be counted, which will hurt Democrats. I’ve read that for a variety of reasons, ~2-10% of ballots could be affected. There are inevitably going to be voters who don’t have updated addresses to send ballots to. The postal system isn’t perfect, some number will get lost and inevitably delayed. Despite having many months to prepare, states and localities don’t have adequate systems to deal with a large number of mailed votes. Plus there will likely be a lot of people who won’t know if their vote was received, and they’ll show up to the polls to vote in person, creating more confusion.
Yet Democrats are still promoting voting by mail. It just seems counterproductive.
It would just seem a lot smarter and more effective all around to open polling places early to allow for social distancing and give more time for an in-person vote.
And then, maybe states will get off their asses and do what Colorado and others have done, which is create a good, secure system for mail voting, and then educated their citizens on it.
That is a point made in the linked article. Add that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans and you have a really paradoxical situation for Democrats.
Nice paper on effects of lost votes from mail balloting. There has always been a significant number of votes lost with in person voting. If I am reading him correctly it looks like the number of votes lost by mail in ballots will roughly offset those lost by in person voting. (Once again, just to beat the horse, it is clear that their are tons of voting issues with voting machines and the people running them that we already know about. It is a real problem and we have found many examples. Yet we waste tons of time on voter ID cards for which we can find no examples.)
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=246119020070000004092124126022081064002078032078006078100074082091106069085010081117032056001043039056032018115030124088088124047037047078014090000101125118126024076008082077122024068099087002003076064000026081101120098004084101124096027117090105003096&EXT=pdf
Steve