MAIL-IN BALLOTS – A BASIC PROBLEM
Perhaps you are a Republican living in a purple Congressional District. Your vote could mean the difference between sending a Republican to Congress or a Democrat. Unfortunately, you will need to be out of town on Election Day. Under the current proposals advocated by Mr. Trump, you are entitled to file for a mail-in ballot. You do so with the state, and you receive your mail-in ballot. You fill it out and mail it in two weeks before the election to ensure that the polling place receives it in time to have it counted.
You have done everything according to the laws existent and proposed
Now, a little personal note:
In the 1970’s in Philadelphia, a former cop named Frank Rizzo ran for Mayor as a Democrat.
After winning his first term, he was challenged in a primary for his second term. At the time, Amie and I were living at 10th and Spruce Streets in downtown Philly. We had both voted in every election and primary since the day we first registered to vote, and at the same polling place for the past several elections.
Nevertheless, when we went to the polls to vote in the primary that year, neither of our names were on the voter roll, and we were denied the right to vote. Why? We will never know whether it was because the poll workers were overworked and made an honest error, or whether there was incompetence among the minimum wage, understaffed employees who made errors in their work, or because there were some political shenanigans involved.
It is true that a few weeks before the election, Amie took a phone call from a Rizzo election operative who asked her if Mr. Rizzo could count on her vote in the primary. Amie responded with “I would vote for Mickey Mouse, before I would ever vote for Mr. Rizzo.” We will never know if this was in any way involved with the removal of our names from the voter roll.
Fortunately, there were voter advocacy groups present at the polling place, and we learned how to go to a local judge who was able to provide us with legal documentation that we presented at the polling place to allow us to vote in that election.
The error that could have prevented our votes from being counted was reversed because we had legal recourse.
Back to your mail-in ballot.
Perhaps a postal service employee was overworked and made an honest error in placing your mail-in ballot in the discard pile. Perhaps the postal employee was simply incompetent and made an error and rejected your ballot. Or, perhaps, the postal employee was a Democratic Party supporter who, seeing your vote came from a zip code in that purple district that was heavily Republican, rejected your vote to assist the Democratic party.
Would you ever know?
No
The rules proposed would prevent any mail-in ballot received after Election Day from being counted. Your ballot would never get to the polling place and never counted.
And you would not know that your ballot was discarded and not counted.
You would have no knowledge of the error, and no recourse to correct it.
Lawsuits after the election would inundate the system as groups on both sides of the political divide would claim inaccuracies in the USPS process to segregate or discard legitimate votes. If the USPS destroys or discards the rejected votes (either accidentally, or on purpose), those lawsuits would be difficult to press. The suits filed would take months or years to conclude, and any discrepancies uncovered. Would it be possible to replace a sitting House member because a recount of rejected mail-in ballots, tried and appealed for 14 months, found that that member was incorrectly seated?
It is the mechanics of allowing the USPS to administer the receipt, delivery, and counting of mail-in ballots that adds a whole new level of uncertainty to the voting process.
It seems to me that if you are concerned with the issue of “voter integrity”, the use of the USPS to monitor and enforce mail-in ballot voting reduces voter integrity by adding additional insecurities.
