# Voting by Mail in 2020: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 30, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897 "2020-04-30T14:35:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/141 "2020-08-22T04:51:33Z")
Article republished at Raw Story, pointing out that mail-in voting may not entail much fraud, but a lot of judges are upholding Republican lawsuits anyway. Article summarizes several suits and other legal actions in the primaries around the country, in which Republicans sued to disrupt mail-in voting in one way or another, and judges sided with them. > **[Mail-in voting does not cause fraud -- but judges are buying the GOP’s...](https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/mail-in-voting-does-not-cause-fraud-but-judges-are-buying-the-gops-argument-that-it-does/)** > > The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee filed lawsuits recently against New Jersey and Nevada to prevent expansive vote-by-mail efforts in those states. These high-profile lawsuits make the same argument that Republicans have made in... ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/142 "2020-08-22T05:35:53Z")
Many people, including Elizabeth Warren, think DeJoy was flat-out lying in his testimony before the Senate committee. Raw Story article (consisting of the common Raw Story style of just being a compendium of selected tweets): > **[‘Flat-out lied’: Elizabeth Warren and a lot of other people sure think Louis...](https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/flat-out-lied-elizabeth-warren-and-a-lot-of-other-people-sure-think-louis-dejoy-committed-perjury/)** > > Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the Senate for several hours Friday, and a lot of people are saying he committed perjury. Among them, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who says he "flat-out lied."One of apparently several issues:... One of those tweets, in particular, includes an image of the memo showing the operation restrictions: > ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/143 "2020-08-22T06:55:45Z")
I still think it’s unlikely there’s any real conspiracy there. But Trump is a dope and kind of hopes there is, openly stirring that pot to his own detriment. He really is not a good politician, except insofar as he knows how to gin up a GOP primary electorate loaded up with rubes and “deplorables”. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/144 "2020-08-22T09:20:25Z")
Oh wow another thing people who have no idea what they’re talking about since they don’t work there. That literally isn’t “Overtime” or has anything to do with limiting overtime, since those late trips aren’t USPS employees. The dirty secret in the USPS is mostly using commercial truck drivers to deliver mail back and forth, not actual USPS drivers. The whole late trip thing is basically telling us to not let the non-USPS truck drivers to leave “late” because according to whatever commercial agreement we have with them means that if a truck driver departs late from a facility we (the USPS) have to pay the commercial trucking company “fees/penalties” for disrupting the schedule. The reasons for trucks arriving late are mainly due to people not paying attention, such as a truck driver going off and using the bathroom for an extended period of time as it sits idle, but mostly because whoever is Expediting (the term we use for people who supervise truck loads/unloads) screwed up and just has a truck just sitting by that should be in the process of offloading/onloading. Also this has been something that’s been repeated over and over again since Obama was in office, to never let commercial trucks leave late since again it costs us money. The solution to this is to just not let trucks leave late regardless, trucks not leaving on time is a failure on the employees part since it’s not hard, and trucks leaving late just disrupts the mail schedule more than telling us to not let trucks leave late in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/145 "2020-08-22T11:49:47Z")
Question: wouldn’t the Senate have to pass this, too? But Mitch doesn’t even allow votes on bills that Dems come up with in the house, right? I know that House Pubs have supported this, but I don’t see that influencing MM. Someone set me straight. [https://a.msn.com/r/2/BB18g1r0?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare](https://a.msn.com/r/2/BB18g1r0?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare) ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/146 "2020-08-22T12:22:43Z")
> **[More Than 550,000 Primary Absentee Ballots Rejected In 2020, Far Outpacing 2016](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/22/904693468/more-than-550-000-primary-absentee-ballots-rejected-in-2020-far-outpacing-2016?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news)** > > Tens of thousands of ballots have been rejected in key battleground states, where the outcome in November for the presidency and other races could be determined by a small number of votes. > An extraordinarily high number of ballots — more than 550,000 — have been rejected in this year’s presidential primaries, according to a new analysis by NPR. > > That’s far more than [the 318,728 ballots rejected](https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/6/2016_EAVS_Comprehensive_Report.pdf) in the 2016 general election and has raised alarms about what might happen in November when tens of millions of more voters are expected to cast their ballots by mail, many for the first time. > … > > Most absentee or mail-in ballots are rejected because required signatures are missing or don’t match the one on record, or [because the ballot arrives too late](https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/889751095/signed-sealed-undelivered-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness). > … > > The numbers compiled by NPR are almost certainly an underestimate since not all states have made the information on rejected mail-in ballots available. > > **Battleground states** > > Even with limited data, the implications are considerable. NPR found that tens of thousands of ballots have been rejected in key battleground states, where the outcome in November — for the presidency, Congress and other elected positions — could be determined by a relatively small number of votes. > > For example, President Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by almost 23,000 votes. More than 23,000 absentee ballots were rejected in the state’s presidential primary in April. More than 37,000 primary ballots were also rejected in June in Pennsylvania, a state Trump won by just over 44,000 votes. > … > > [Daniel] Smith [political scientist at the University of Florida] found that in Florida’s March primary – where 18,000 ballots were rejected — black and Hispanic voters were more likely to be voting by mail for the first time and, if so, were twice as likely to have their ballots rejected than white voters who were voting by mail for the first time. These differences will likely be exacerbated in the general election when turnout is much greater. > > “If you have 1% of maybe up to 6 million votes, you’re talking tens of thousands of votes that potentially are going to be rejected, and they are not rejected evenly across the electorate,” Smith said. > … The message from Democrats needs to be more than just “vote.” It needs to be _read and follow all the directions or your vote may not be counted._ Even something as seemingly unimportant as circling the candidate’s name instead of filling in the little bubble can get your ballot thrown out–yikes! I don’t know about you all, but when I worked, MOST of my colleagues hated to read directions, and they just wouldn’t do it. Especially if multiple steps were involved. They “didn’t have the time or the attention span.” 😉 Then they couldn’t figure out why something didn’t work. 🙄 As a grant writer I HAD to read page after page of arcane, tiny-print, nit-picky instructions, which, if not followed _exactly_, could get my proposal thrown out. Anyway, I like to read directions. Whenever I buy a new gadget or appliance, I always read the manual. I know that makes me odd along with other things. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/147 "2020-08-22T17:44:39Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Even something as seemingly unimportant as circling the candidate’s name instead of filling in the little bubble can get your ballot thrown out–yikes! The strange thing about this is that virtually every voter has taken many standardized tests in school where they filled in ovals. You’d think it’d be automatic by the time they get to be old enough to vote. But it’s misleading to say the ballots are thrown out. Rather the vote counting machines/software just won’t count those votes. The difference between this and thrown-out ballots (such as those rejected because they didn’t sign it) is that they can’t be corrected by contacting the voter. At that stage, the ballots have been removed from the envelopes and can’t be traced back to the voter. I worked at the local Election Office in recent years as a temp worker during elections. My job was to removed ballots from envelopes after the signature had been validated. We’ve been voting by mail for 20 years now in Oregon. so I guess everyone knows the procedures pretty well. I can’t recall any ballots where the voter circled the names instead of filling in the oval. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/148 "2020-08-22T18:40:04Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I can’t recall any ballots where the voter circled the names instead of filling in the oval. That’s good to know. I was just going by this from the article (didn’t quote this paragraph): > Smith added that the rejection numbers are only part of the picture. He said they don’t always take into account mail-in ballots that are initially accepted but then not counted because of other mistakes, such as a voter incorrectly choosing too many candidates or **incorrectly circling a candidate’s name instead of filling in the bubble next to it.** My bold. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/149 "2020-08-22T19:57:16Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I can’t recall any ballots where the voter circled the names instead of filling in the oval. Here in San Diego, a candidate would have been mayor in a write-in campaign, except too many people wrote in her name – and failed to mark the “oval” next to the name! A judge ruled that the voters’ intent was not clear. I personally think this is a total load of bullshit, but, hey, go tell it to the judge. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/150 "2020-08-22T20:21:45Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Oh wow another thing people who have no idea what they’re talking about since they don’t work there. You’ve made several posts explaining and defending cuts at the USPS, mostly on the grounds that cutbacks (e.g., removing sorting machines) are justified based on reduced mail volume requirements. But if we can believe all them thar Fake News stories we’ve been seeing, including alleged direct witness stories from other postal employees, the disruptions have been real and drastic. How do you reconcile that? From the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 20: > **[‘Like Armageddon’: Rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-20/usps-cutbacks-post-office-chaos)** > > Accounts from employees at California postal facilities provide a glimpse of the chaos amid both the pandemic and widespread cuts imposed by the USPS. > [@](#): > > At a mail processing facility in Santa Clarita in July, workers discovered that their automated sorting machines had been disabled and padlocked. > > And inside a massive mail-sorting facility in South Los Angeles, workers fell so far behind processing packages that by early August, gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes. Are we all just imagining that? Is this the Fake News we’ve been hearing so much about? What is the point of padlocking those sorting machines just so the workers can’t use them? According to another similar news story I saw, workers have been explicitly forbidden to fire up those machines. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/151 "2020-08-22T20:32:15Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > But it’s misleading to say the ballots are thrown out. Rather the vote counting machines/software just won’t count those votes. The difference between this and thrown-out ballots (such as those rejected because they didn’t sign it) is that they can’t be corrected by contacting the voter. At that stage, the ballots have been removed from the envelopes and can’t be traced back to the voter. Part of the canvassing/certification process in the SoW is a review of ballots that can’t be counted automatically (frequently because despite the instructions, the voter used a felt tip pen that bled through to the other side). The review is conducted by a panel made up of election officials, representatives of both parties, and others. If the panel agrees on the voter’s intent, the ballot is counted. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/152 "2020-08-22T22:56:31Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > except too many people wrote in her name – and failed to mark the “oval” next to the name! Now that I did see. Fairly common, in fact. But no one ran a write-in campaign while I was working there, so it was just a relative handful of votes compared to the numbers for the non-write-in candidates. In fact, the most write-in votes I saw for any one person was for Bernie in the 2016 election. He easily beat out McMullen who was the second most I saw. I wasn’t involved in the later parts of the election. A ballot where they just circled the names would probably look the same as a blank ballot to the vote-counting software. It’s looking for filled in ovals, not other marks on the page. It may be kicked out to be evaluated by humans. I never asked about that, but that’s because I never saw any. Don’t recall very many blank ballots either. Except maybe the one where the voter tore his ballot into 20 little square pieces and then stacked them neatly in the secrecy envelope. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/153 "2020-08-22T23:20:46Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Except maybe the one where the voter tore his ballot into 20 little square pieces and then stacked them neatly in the secrecy envelope. Grin! I had a similar temp job in '16, for the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, opening mail-in ballots and eyeballing them for errors. (Donald Duck beat Micky Mouse by a narrow margin.) My favorite part was erasing people’s votes. Yes, really! Sometimes, a guy from Lemon Grove might go and vote in Oceanside, and get a provisional ballot. But it was an Oceanside ballot. So he might vote for a candidate for Oceanside’s mayor. He isn’t permitted; he’s a Lemon Grove resident. The computer kept track of this kind of crossover, and we actually used white-out tape to delete disallowed votes! I was VERY reassured by the checks and safeguards in the system. At least at the level I saw, the process is clean and safe and secure. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/154 "2020-08-23T04:49:15Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Question: wouldn’t the Senate have to pass this, too? But Mitch doesn’t even allow votes on bills that Dems come up with in the house, right? Not always true: look at the bills passed this spring to boost the economy for instance. He will face a lot of pressure on this one. > [@dtilque](#): > > Don’t recall very many blank ballots either. Except maybe the one where the voter tore his ballot into 20 little square pieces and then stacked them neatly in the secrecy envelope. LOL, that’s an interesting…statement? Protest? ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/155 "2020-08-23T05:19:28Z")
Again this is all out-of-context stuff. According to the article the USPS is removing 10% of its DBCS machines for sorting letters, Now according to this official [USPS Press Release](https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/0807-usps-reports-third-quarter-fiscal-2020-results.htm) marketing mail (junk mail) is down 36% this quarter and first class mail (actual letters/bills) is down 8%. That’s almost a 50% decrease in mail volume compared to last year, and the non-profit mail (again, junk mail) which probably pushes it over 50%. Removing 10% of the machines makes complete sense when you’re down that much, and what they don’t tell you in that article is by removing machines they’re actually taking parts of those machines and bolting them onto existing machines to help increase the amount of mail they can process. As for the “pad-locked” machines, the people who reported that should know better. Machines are “pad-locked” as a maintenance measure to prevent some random idiot from turning on a machine that is out of order and potentially causing a danger. If they’re going to remove machines then it makes sense to pad-lock them, take parts out to bolt onto existing machines, and then use the rest for spare parts. I’m not addressing the rest since it has nothing to do with the current arguments, of how removing DBCS is a “dire threat to democracy”. I’ve always said that lack of staffing is the issue everyone should focus on, not the removal of machines or mail boxes. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/156 "2020-08-23T05:36:09Z")
It’s pretty hilarious if I’ve got this right, that they weren’t actually trying to sabotage the election but stumbled into making it look like they were, and then Trump amplified it. Meaning he gets all the political pain (including blame for every late package, even if it would have happened anyway) of opposing the most popular public institution in our society, without any actual benefit. What a maroon. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/157 "2020-08-23T05:40:30Z")
For this month’s local primary, Hawaii had its first all-mail voting, and it was a resounding success. This is how it will be from this point forward including this November. A month or two ago, voters were notified to send in their signatures to keep on file. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/158 "2020-08-23T07:13:27Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > > [@dtilque](#): > > > > Don’t recall very many blank ballots either. Except maybe the one where the voter tore his ballot into 20 little square pieces and then stacked them neatly in the secrecy envelope. > > LOL, that’s an interesting…statement? Protest? Probably a reaction to having to vote for either Trump or Clinton. There were other such. For example another voter wrote in something like “God help us all” (I forget the exact words) for president ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/159 "2020-08-23T12:13:28Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > > Question: wouldn’t the Senate have to pass this, too? But Mitch doesn’t even allow votes on bills that Dems come up with in the house, right? > > Not always true: look at the bills passed this spring to boost the economy for instance. > > He will face a lot of pressure on this one. We’ll see. In this morning’s New York Times, Unca Mitch declares the bill D.O.A.: > But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said plainly on Saturday that he did not plan to bring up a stand-alone bill in the Senate when lawmakers are at a stalemate over broader coronavirus relief legislation. Here’s the article: > **[House Votes to Block Postal Changes and Allocate Funds for Mail (Published 2020)](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/politics/usps-bill-congress-vote.html)** > > The Democratic bill would send $25 billion to the Postal Service and reverse changes that have slowed service until after November’s election. It’s going to be Nancy and Mitch toe to toe. Again. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897/160 "2020-08-23T15:24:58Z")
> **[Perspective | I mailed my ballot in on time. Florida tossed it. 2020 will be...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/florida-discard-mail-ballot/2020/08/21/bbedee18-e2ee-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html?hpid=hp_save-opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-c-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=hp_save-opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-c-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans)** > > Our state had a problem, even before the pandemic and Post Office chaos. > Long before the pandemic and the pandemonium at the Postal Service, Florida had a ballot delivery crisis — one bad enough to raise suspicions about the integrity of a close election. In 2018, I mailed my ballot on Oct. 29, eight days before Election Day. Yet every time I checked the website of the Miami-Dade County Elections Department in the following week, I got bad news: “Ballot not tabulated.” Maybe the system was backed up, I thought. I called the office on Nov. 7, the day after the vote, but the woman on the other end of the line said my ballot still hadn’t arrived. No way would it be counted. > > Ten days later, I received scanned copies of each side of my ballot envelope. On one side, there was a Nov. 9 postmark. On the other, the Nov. 14 arrival date. My ballot had spent half a month traveling 10 miles across town. And I was in good company: 3,429 other people in Miami-Dade had sent ballots that were deemed late and thus not tallied, according to the late-ballot log I obtained from the Elections Department. Of those, 2,105 had postmarks on or before Election Day. One was postmarked Oct. 17. Statewide, county supervisors discarded more than 15,000 ballots for lateness, as required by Florida law. > … I’m guessing Donnie’s ballot will be counted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-by-mail-in-2020-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/852897.md?page=9)