Absentee / Mail-in Voting

All states have some form of absentee or mail-in voting due to federal requirements. These voters normally include military and overseas citizens, voters with disabilities and students who reside in a different state. For example, absentee or mail-in ballots are sent to these military and overseas voters 45 days prior to federal elections. However, absentee or mail-in voting is often limited by states to a number of valid excuses based on age, absentee status or an inability to vote on Election Day.

Some states have a greater number of reasons and valid excuses to vote absentee ballots by mail or in-person in an election office. A number of states have no-excuse absentee or mail voting. Lastly, a number of states have implemented an entire method of mail-in balloting that includes return of ballots to secure boxes or by postal mail. Oregon instituted an all-mail-in balloting system in 1998 and other states like Washington and Colorado have instituted similar all mail ballot methods of voting.

Mail-in and absentee balloting provides certain vulnerabilities to the electoral system:

  • One stated general purpose for no-excuse absentee or mail ballot voting is to increase convenience and reduce long lines on Election Day. However, “Election Day” has become “Election Month,” which has increased the overall costs of election administration. County election offices that must process a large number of mailed ballots will experience significant delays in releasing official election results. A month or more of voting dramatically increases the overall costs to political campaigns for poll watching and get-out-the-vote efforts prior to Election Day.
  • Mail-in ballots are not cast in the secure polling place where precinct poll workers can confirm addresses and verify identification. A great deal of voter fraud and abuse of absentee and mail-in ballots has been documented across the country. Absentee or mail-in balloting may spur a short-term increase in turnout in local elections; however, there is no evidence that voting by mail increases overall turnout for the long term in general elections.
  • Absentee or mail-in balloting requires the use of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to transmit and return the ballot. This often causes delays to the election office. Citizens in states that use mail-in ballots often authorize the return of ballots to secure mail boxes that voters can use if they distrust the postal service.

A number of states authorize or require in-person absentee voting with verification by voter ID, and some states require a voter ID at the time of absentee or mail-in ballot request or return.

Alternatively, many states that allow absentee or mail-in voting use signature comparison to verify the identity of the voter. Many believe that signature verification is error-prone and not uniformly implemented by election officials across the country. While signature verification does catch a small percentage of invalid ballots or voter fraud, the system often fails to identify a great many irregularities associated with absentee or mail-in voting. Alternatively, many argue that signature verification routinely disenfranchises thousands of voters when it is used to ferret out an invalid signature.

ACRU Commentary

Vote Fraud as ‘Payback Time’

Melowese Richardson is the poster girl for vote fraud. The Ohio poll worker was sentenced last July to five years in prison after being convicted of voting twice in the 2012 election and voting three times -- in 2008, 2011 and 2012 -- in the name of her sister, in a coma since 2003, according to USA Today. This might be below Chicago graveyard standards, but it's still impressive. Ms. Richardson has become a heroine to the left, which is working with its legal arm -- the U.S. Justice Department -- to kill voter photo-ID laws in order to ensure that creative voting continues.

Adams Talks of Dead Voters, Alabama Voter Fraud

A lawyer who resigned in protest from his government job took his message of an out-of-control Justice Department to the Port City on May 21, 2013, focusing on several Alabama anecdotes. J. Christian Adams spoke to the Mobile chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, about an ends-justifies-the-means mentality that he contends has infected the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder. Adams, author of "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department," rose to prominence in 2010 after alleging that political considerations scuttled the prosecution of members of the New Black Panther Party accused of intimidating white voters in Philadelphia during the 2008 election. Adams said Holder and political appointees are undermining the rule of law. The framers drafted the Constitution to prevent that kind of corruption, he said. "They had these guys in mind," he said. Adams discussed three parts of his book dealing with Alabama - its history of voter fraud, its inflated voter registration rolls and its attempt to enact a voter identification law. Adams cited Perry and Hale counties, both of which have a history of voter fraud - particularly with respect to absentee voting. He said "wranglers" have filled out absentee ballots in local elections and coerced residents to sign them "by the hundreds."

The Left’s War on Vote Fraud Reform

Pretty soon, the right to cast a meaningful vote might be just a memory. The issue at hand is ensuring that American citizens can exercise the most fundamental civil right of being an American.

Voter ID Terrifies Democrats

The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 10 months away, but it's clear from the Obama administration's order halting South Carolina's new photo ID law that the Democrats already have brought a gun to a knife fight. How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb vote fraud?

Playing the Race Card before Election Day

Is it racist to require people to show a photo ID when they vote? You need a photo ID for nearly any meaningful transaction, such as cashing checks, including government checks. If this simple requirement "suppresses" the vote, maybe we need to ask why it's such a great idea to push for universal suffrage for every adult who is merely breathing. Of course, even this latter requirement would suppress the vote in Chicago and New Orleans, where dead people get to vote all the time - and do so cheerfully.

News

Soros Groups’ Vote-by-Mail Drive Aims to Expand Government Control

Liberals have made quick use of the coronavirus crisis to promote all manner of policy prescriptions that, under less dire circumstances, would be ignored or lamented by conservatives. The left’s latest gambit is the George Soros-backed vote-by-mail scheme, which promises an election cycle ripe for fraud.

SCOTUS says “no” to relaxing vote security laws

Alabama has long standing curbside voting rules and identification requirements for absentee ballots that safeguard the votes of its citizens. A group led by the Southern Poverty Law Center demanded these protections be overturned (Covid--the usual excuse) and an Obama appointed state judge agreed. Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not, and Alabama will be able to continue to ensure the integrity of its votes.

State Court says “no” to counting votes after election day

Democrats in Florida recently moved to allow ballots to be counted after election day and make ballot harvesting legal in the state. Florida Republicans sued to block these changes, and won. Democrats are also trying this anti-vote integrity maneuver in Minnesota, and we can expect to see it in other states as they try to change the ballot fraud mantra “vote early and often” to "vote early and often and afterward."

  • Some voters received their mail-in ballots so late that drop boxes were placed throughout Pennsylvania to ensure that completed ballots were received on time. Credit: Kylie Cooper

When voting by carrier pigeon no longer sounds outrageous

President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State and County Elections Boards, arguing that Pennsylvania’s use of mail-in ballot drop boxes in the June 2 primary election was unconstitutional and increased the threat of voter fraud.

The Garden State’s foursome of fraud

Next time a liberal tells you there’s no vote fraud (but it’s only Republicans committing it), show them these fellows: Messrs. Jackson, Khalique, Mendez and Kazyen. Not just activists, but two elected officials, all Democrats (not noted in the media, so we checked.) The fraud involved thousands of mailed ballots and one of the races in question was decided by one vote after a recount.

The media’s greatest power is the power to ignore

Sixty-two percent of Americans believe voting by mail increases fraud. So we reviewed mainstream media vote fraud stories and found nearly every story started with, “GOP to fight voter fraud that doesn’t exist.” The bias willingly ignores fraud despite reams of evidence. Author Gore Vidal once quipped, “Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?” Glad you read the EIB.