During the 2020 presidential election, because President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted on voting by mail as envious of fraud (it is not), he also took pains to distinguish between “vote by post” and “vote in absentia.”
Given that Trump himself will be absent in 2020, this hair-splitting on his part is not exactly shocking. But Trump’s specific claims – that absentee ballots and “vote by mail” are somehow different, and that absentee voters “have to go through a whole process” other than that for post voters – are worth addressing.
The short version is that there is no firm distinction between voting rights in the absence and voting by post. There is a common distinction between the two, but not legal. And there is no reason to think “vote by post”, insofar as it informally refers to anything other than “vote in absentia,” is envious of fraud or other problems.
The difference between votes by post and absent votes
“Voting by mail” is typically used to refer to voting in the five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah – where all elections are held by mail in full, and in the states of California, Nebraska, and North Dakota, where counties can choose to run elections by mail in full.
This year, California is going a step further because of Covid-19 and sending votes to every eligible voter, although some polling stations will remain open. In Nebraska, where state law only allows counties with less than 10,000 people to require universal suffrage by mail, 11 counties will do so; this year, Douglas, Sarpy and Lancaster counties, the three most popular in the state, are sending out voting forms (but not real votes) to every voter.
A few states that do not traditionally vote by post state will send out all registered and / or eligible voters this year due to the unique circumstances of the pandemic. These states include New Jersey, Vermont, and Nevada, plus the District of Columbia.
However, “unanimous voting” is used to refer to postal voting in states or counties where the practice is not universal. In most states where voting by post is not universal, the right to vote is absent for one reason or another – that is, voters do not have to apologize for not voting in person – at least in the elections in 2020, due to the pandemic.
This voiceless voice is available in major swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In nine states – Iowa, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maryland, Delaware, Illinois, Connecticut and New Mexico – every registered voter receives a missing ballot paper by mail, making them similar to the states that actually vote for each other. send, though with an extra step in the process.
But some states require excuses to vote absent. The New York Times’ Juliette Love, Matt Stevens, and Lazaro Gamio reviewed state laws and found that Texas, New York, Indiana, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi all need certain excuses for voters to receive absentee ballots. The excuses that states will accept vary widely, per the National Council of State Legislators. For example, having a work shift during voting hours is a valid reason to request an absentee ballot in South Carolina and Louisiana, but not in Texas or New York. Some states – South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Indiana – allow seniors above a certain age (normally 65) to request absentee ballots without the need for another excuse.
Trump’s allegations of absenteeism and vote – by mail are wrong
In both absent votes and “vote by post”, insofar as they are completely different, voter fraud is rare. One reason for this is the steps that states are taking to make fraud all but impossible. For example, back in 2019, Spenser Mestel of the Pacific Standard explained Oregon’s process for checking moods in its all-mail system:
In Oregon, both the absent envelope and the mood have a bar code unique to each voter, and in larger counties, such as Marion, a machine searches for any discrepancies between the two, as are dual barcodes. Next, a team of election workers who train in forensic handwriting analyze the signatures of the voter to verify the identification of the voter, who has two weeks to prove their identity if the signature were to be contested.
During this process, “everything that happens is on camera at all times,” said Tayleranne Gillespie, the Oregon Secretary of State’s communications director. ‘Nobody ever even counts votes. It is always done in bilingual teams. ”
It is also important to note that, contrary to popular belief, absenteeism “does not count” when an election is imminent. They are often the last ballots to count, so that often erupting elections are called by so-called services before any absentee ballot is cast. But all votes are eventually counted. Voting rights that may have problems (if, say, poll workers can not confirm that a voter is registered to vote) are sometimes classified as “preliminary polls”, which are counted after research. But that is a distinctive problem of absent voices.
In short: Absenteeism and voting by mail are basically the same thing, both have low rates of fraud, and one of the two will be available to the vast majority of American voters on November 3, 2020.
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