Trump has been claiming that absentee voting is fine, while mail-in voting is not. Can someone explain how they are different, and why the latter is more susceptible to fraud?
No, nobody can explain that.
No (no one can), because they’re not (different), and neither is more susceptible to fraud.
Just to be clear, I assumed it was BS, but he must have some rationale, no matter how convoluted it is. Has he, or anyone, ever posited any theory on why it may be true?
Why do you think that? He makes statements unconnected to reality all the time.
I suspect that he is making the specious argument that if you must request an absentee ballot, that is somehow more secure than the state sending every voter a mail-in ballot.
“Absentee” and “mail-in” are spelled (and pronounced) differently. In the mind of a 45 supporter, that provides sufficient rationale for accepting the America-hating fuckstick’s declaration that they are different things, and that one is BAD.
This may well be true in the context of US elections but there is a distinction between both the process and susceptibility to fraud.
In Australia the term “absentee ballot” refers a voter who attends a voting place outside the electorate they are registered in. After marking their ballot paper, instead of putting it in the ballot box themselves, the voter’s ballot paper is placed in an envelope and then it is sent by the voting official to the voter’s electorate to be counted there.
Australian Electoral Commission FAQs
So an absentee vote is cast on election day, the voter goes through the standard pre-poll verifications, is marked off the roll at the polling booth and their vote forwarded to the appropriate electorate. I guess there is the potential for the electoral official to not send on absentee votes to the correct electorate or for it to be not processed on receipt. But you do know, (as well as is known for anybody else) that the voter is eligible, who they claim to be and it was cast on election day. They will be counted post election night with the postal votes.
Pre-poll votes work in a similar manner regarding the scrutiny of the voter though they more likely to be lodged in the at a polling booth within the correct electorate. Depending on the number involved, pre-poll votes are counted on election night.
Postal votes could be filled out by anyone who has the voters ballot paper. In cases where the voter is incapacitated this may be 100% legit. As well as any vagaries introduced by the using the postal service to lodge your ballot rather than placing it the ballot box yourself.
As Trump and the Republicans are differentiating the terms, basically this*. In the US an absentee ballot must be requested in advance by the voter. Several mail-in voting systems have the elections office send a ballot to the last known address of each registered voter.
There are some issues with ensuring a last known address is valid. The voter may have moved (14% of Americans move each year) and might should vote in a different precinct if he/she gets the ballot at all. Or the voter may have died (approximately 2.8 million Americans die each non-COVID year) and should be taken off the voter rolls.
So the risk, such as it is, is that in a mail-in system ballots may be mailed which are never received by the intended recipient. No big deal so long as 1)the post office returns undeliverable ballots, or 2)whoever does receive the ballot does not vote it, and 3) so long as the intended recipient is still able to vote if he/she so chooses.
The right-leaning Public Interest Legal Foundation reports the USPS said 223,469 ballots were undeliverable (out of 1.3 million mailed) in just Clark County, Nevada for the primary elections in June 2020. Of those 93,585 (42%) were listed as Active voters on their rolls. Prior to this year the entire state of Nevada had 5,863 ballot returned as undeliverable over the prior four general elections (2012, 2014, 2016, & 2018) combined.
Further the PILF report notes that Nevada intends to run the general election as a mail-in vote. There will still be polling places open, but only 140 statewide (down from 572 normally). Hopefully voters who do not receive a ballot will find the polling places adequate in number and location. In a normal year such a reduction in polling places would be cause for tremendous concern and probably bring allegations of intended voter suppression.
Perhaps states that have had a robust mail-in voting system in place for several years have managed to update their voter rolls to better keep up with changes? I’m really not sure. It seems we do better updating driver’s licenses when people move than voter rolls.
*Which is not to say that these definitional distinctions are always adhered to. I’ll use that distinction for the purpose of this post.
The reason Trump makes the distinction is because other Republicans told him that his campaign against mail voting was likely to suppress Republican voting. Their thoughts were that R voters would not vote by mail because of Trump’s campaign, but those same voters were reluctant to go to the polls because of COVID19. Many would just stay home and not vote at all. At the same time, D voters had no problem voting by mail.
There was an article on 538 recently that said that D’s are very much more likely to vote by mail than R’s. So much so that the results reported on Election Night might show Trump way ahead in many states. (They suggested all of them, but that would not happen in states that do all VbM.) But then once the absentee ballots are counted in the following days, Biden will end up the winner in many of those states and likely for the entire election. And of course, that will give Trump ammunition to declare voter fraud.
I have voted by mail many, many times. Folks in the military have to vote that way because they are registered at their Home of Record and only rarely are they physically there at election time.
Every single time I have done so, there is a special envelope to return the ballot in, my name and residential address are on that envelope and there is a place for my signature. Presumably when the ballot is received, the signature is checked against the one on the registration form, the same as when I actually show up at a poll.
The down side is that somebody who was interested could connect my name with the votes on the ballot but I am willing to let that happen for the sake of voting. I’m reminded of the sig an admin had way back in the day of BBSs: Why, yes, as Admin I can read all of your messages, but I’m not that bored.
Here is the procedure in place in Arizona for verifying received ballots:
The vote processing facility has webcams so you can watch activity in the various rooms in real time online.
In the 2018 Senatorial race between Martha McSally and Krysten Sinema, at the end of election day McSally was ahead fairly significantly, but no news organization would call the race because in Arizona the majority of votes are cast by mail and there were a lot of votes to be counted. Trump raised holy hell about fraud and how the election was going to be “stolen” from McSally. Other Republicans were saying the same thing. Guess who didn’t raise a fuss? McSally and the Arizona Republican party. They knew that this is the norm for close elections in Arizona, and probably had a pretty good idea she was going to end up losing.
Of course, the fix was in anyway - McSally got appointed to McCain’s vacant seat after she lost the election for Jeff Flake’s vacant seat.
IMHO the more people that vote the better it is for Democrats. The Republicans know this as evidenced by their party platform to suppress votes via various instruments. They have trouble winning elections with more people voting. The pandemic has highlighted the need for people to say away from polls (good for Republicans), but the safety valve of mail voting means too many people voting (bad for Republicans), which needs to be mitigated. Trump and Co. have manufactured this whole kerfuffle to confuse people and cast doubt on the potential results - all part of the GOP chaos strategy of kicking the ant mound.
In sum: Absentee ballots are OK because a motivated red-blooded American went out of their way to request one. Sending a ballot to everyone means a lot of unmotivated and undesirable voters will have a chance to vote the wrong way. Providing return postage for such a scheme is crazy talk!
Bullshit. The more people that vote the better it is for democracy, not just either one of the parties. Why shouldn’t the government pay for postage, they do own the post office correct? Wouldn’t making people have to buy a stamp be akin to a poll tax?
These undesirables you speak of are American citizens. How about the republicans start treating them as such.
Si-Amigo, we are in agreement. I guess I need to add a bit more sarcasm next time.
Gotcha. Tensions are running high everywhere now. Peace.
I said “presumably” because I’ve not actually witnessed the procedure. I call it Technician’s Caution – expecting but not quite believing something will work until it’s plugged in and you see it work.
I have volunteered to be a Ballot Courier, moving the ballot boxes from the voting locations to to the recorder. It doesn’t have the different party observation rule but a chain of custody is established for each one, foiling my plan to drive it to the Democrat headquarters and swap it out for one of their boxes.
Well, she was the logical choice after Kyl resigned all of a sudden. Unfortunately, she went full Trump afterward anyway. You’d think after getting defeated in 2018, she’d figure Trump’s coattails were already getting bit tattered, but nope.
At least Governor Ducey declared Sinema as the senior Senator citing it was because she
- Was elected, not appointed
- In November, not December.
It doesn’t matter if you request an absentee voter application or receive one in a mass mailing. They’re both applications for requesting a ballot.
The registered voter fills out the application and sends it back to their local elections clerk. Who then verifies your application against registered voter records in their jurisdiction.
If they verify your application to vote they will then send you your ballot! Then you carefully read the instructions to cast your vote out correctly, and sign it and send it back or drop it off.
Then yes again the clerk will verify your signature and date the envelope. In Michigan the ballots are opened on Election Day. I hope they can change that and allow for postmarked ballots to count.