We Have All The Evidence We Need That Universal Mail-In Voting Would Be a Disaster By Matt Margolis
Last week, House Democrats passed a $25 billion bailout of the U.S. Postal Service that they say is necessary to help get them ready for the massive influx of mail-in ballots expected in the November election. They also aim to block various efforts they believe are being done to undermine the postal service, but are actually longstanding cost-saving measures to make the postal service more efficient.
President Trump and Republicans have repeatedly warned that universal mail-in voting would be a disaster. This year, we’ve seen several elections done via mail that resulted in significant problems either due to voter error, counting issues, missing ballots, or outright fraud.
Universal mail-in voting proponents on the left point to states that have been doing vote-by-mail for years as proof it can be done nationwide, but this simply isn’t the case.
“New proponents of mail balloting don’t often understand how it actually works,” says Public Interest Legal Foundation President and PJ Media contributor J. Christian Adams. “States like Oregon and Washington spent many years building their mail voting systems and are notably aggressive with voter list maintenance efforts. Pride in their own systems does not somehow transfer across state lines. Nevada, New York, and others are not and will not be ready for November.”
With just over two months before the presidential election, no amount of money could get the USPS ready for a universal mail-in election.
A secure and reliable national mail-in voting system would take years to develop. There has been enough evidence this year alone that should have ended this debate for the 2020 election and it’s about time for the left to open their eyes and see that problems with mail-in voting are happening in different states nationwide. Here are some examples of those mail-in voting failures.
California
Last month, the Associated Press reported that “more than 100,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by California election officials during the March presidential primary,” noting that the mistakes resulting in the rejection could have been resolved by in-person voting. “While polling places include workers who can assist people who have questions about filling out ballots, a voter doesn’t have support at home and so problems can arise,” they wrote.
New Jersey
Last week, a Paterson, N.J., City Council election was invalidated by a judge due to rampant mail-in voter fraud. State Superior Court Judge Ernest Caposela ruled that the election for a Paterson City Council seat had been irreversibly tainted. A new election has been ordered to take place in November. Four people were charged with criminal conduct in connection to the voter fraud, including a sitting councilman and a councilman-elect.
Michigan
Michigan supposedly has very current voter registration lists, but, as was reported last week at PJM, “state election authorities rejected 846 ballots from people who were dead and another 1,100 ballots from people who had moved” for the August 4, primary. In Detroit alone, “72 percent of absentee ballot precincts recorded totals that didn’t match the actual number of votes,” resulting in Wayne County, the largest county in the state, calling for an investigation.
New York
On June 23, New York State had a primary election by mail and it was a complete disaster. While mail-in voting was supposed to make voting easier, 400,000 mail-in ballots cast were too many for election officials to count, which resulted in several races, including two congressional races, remaining undecided many weeks later.
According to ABC News, just 56 percent of the expected vote had been tallied as of August 13. “What happens in a presidential election using vote-by-mail systems that have similar logistics problems?” asked Ed Morrissey at HotAir. “That puts the final first count into mid-December, just a couple of weeks before the deadline for the Electoral College, usually around January 6.”
“Suddenly, we’re looking at not just one Florida 2000 situation but potentially several, and this time with much less time to process those challenges,” he added.
Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, three tubs of ballots were discovered in a mail-processing center after polls closed during their primary earlier this year.
Nevada
In Clark County, Nevada, 1.3 million ballots were mailed out for the June primary election. While all registered voters were supposed to receive a ballot, 223,000 were never delivered. Hundred of thousands of ballots that were received and mailed back were also incorrectly filled out.
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