# Wouldn't vote by mail disenfranchise more voters than any other method? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 6, 2020, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147 "2020-06-06T09:40:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dark\_Sponge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dark_sponge/32/121_2.png) [@Dark\_Sponge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Sponge)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/81 "2020-06-08T22:25:17Z")
I don’t think most conservatives are opposed to mail ballots. At least, not the actual voters. My state converted to all mail voting and I love it. I vote in every election now (even the small boring ones) where as before it was more like 50%. I don’t see vote disenfranchisement by ID or mail as being a major problem today. ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/82 "2020-06-09T15:48:42Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > 800,000 absentee ballots were rejected. I’m not sure why this happened. Some states may not handle mail-in voting very well. Maybe they were properly rejected and this isn’t a problem either. [Turns out that according to one study 32.1% of all rejected domestic absentee ballots were rejected because they were not received on time or missed the deadline. That seems fair.] A possibility that occurs to me is that some people may use their ballot as a protest of sorts, returning it blank or with “Fuck You” written on it. Naturally, these would be rejected. But another reason, depending on why they are considered rejected, may be that some voters changed their minds and decided to vote in person after all. This is allowed in Illinois. The voter must bring in the absentee ballot, which is considered to be a kind of “spoiled ballot.” The voter will then be allowed to vote in person. Such absentee ballots are returned to the Election Commission where they may well (I’m not certain of the EC procedures) be considered as “rejected.” ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/83 "2020-06-09T15:54:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > My impression — tell me if I’m wrong — is that mail-in balloting, especially if it’s mandatory, _favors the Republicans_. (For starters, many students and underclass people lack a convenient and reliable fixed postal address.) > > Depending on implementation details, vote-by-mail could give a big boost to GOP’s chances. That’s certainly not the case here in Oregon, which tends to go liberal/Democrat, at least on the west side of the Cascades. AFAIK, mail-in is the only option here, has been for as long as I can remember (I’m a '91 transplant, vote by mail was instituted statewide in '98). In 1996, VBM results elected Ron Wyden over Bob Packwood in the US Senate (though Packwood had his own problems that aided that). VBM does not seem to favor the conservatives in Oregon, nor does it necessarily favor the liberals, either - I have a sneaking suspicion that votes would swing the same way here, no matter which system was used. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/84 "2020-06-09T18:34:30Z")
Oregon voting has traditionally gone light blue (I-5 corridor bluer, eastern reaches redder) since before VBM. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/85 "2020-06-09T22:13:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No one knows for sure and they don’t keep track. However, in the UK in 2001, someone did an experiment: > > [BBC News | UK | Where do missing letters go?](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1231012.stm) > > “POUNC came to the figure after it posted 15,000 correctly typed and addressed letters, 17 of which “disappeared”” > > So if the USPS’s performance is similar you’d expect to lose about 1 out of every 1000 ballots. My Pennsylvania mail-in ballot came in an [oversize envelope](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/wfmz.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/2/75/27558cec-6a27-11ea-9d56-1bf9e21cb50e/5e73e19a6c7cb.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C675) that was machine-stamped and clearly marked as a ballot. It was not just “a correctly typed and addressed letter,” and therefore any comparisons made to such a letter are not close to an apples to apples comparison. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/86 "2020-06-09T22:15:26Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > I vote by mail and can check the status of my ballot after I’ve returned it online. In Pennsylvania I received an email telling me my ballot had arrived. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/87 "2020-06-09T22:23:56Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No reported problems isn’t the same as no problems I think it is when you have entire states that have been voting by mail for over a decade. You think it’s reasonable to think that suddenly problems will come up that haven’t happened in all the previous elections that took place? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/88 "2020-06-09T22:41:36Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > It’s easy, however, to look for the postal votes signed by someone called Sanchez, and lose them all. You can’t do that if the ballots are going straight into the ballot box. Only if they open them to see that part. I do not believe there is any indication at all on the outside to see who they are from. So it would be mighty suspicious if they noticed a lot of the envelopes had been reopened and sealed back (i.e. the ones that weren’t Sanchez). The easier one would be to lose those from a certain part of town–if they can get to them before they thrown into the actual mail system. But that would basically require the mail carriers themselves to be in on it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/89 "2020-06-09T22:57:14Z")
I think the reason conservatives hate the post office so much is because it works so well: They’re always saying that the government can’t do anything right, so when a government-owned corporation manages to offer better service than its competitors for cheaper, even while operating under ridiculous constraints not required of any other company in the world, it conflicts with their ideology. And so you also get things like **adaher** claiming, counter to the evidence, that the Post Office loses large amounts of mail: They’re part of the government, so they _must_ be incompetent. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147/90 "2020-06-10T02:41:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think the reason conservatives hate the post office so much is because it works so well: They’re always saying that the government can’t do anything right, so when a government-owned corporation manages to offer better service than its competitors for cheaper, even while operating under ridiculous constraints not required of any other company in the world, it conflicts with their ideology. And so you also get things like **adaher** claiming, counter to the evidence, that the Post Office loses large amounts of mail: They’re part of the government, so they _must_ be incompetent. Well, those are reasons. But the main reason is that Fedex and UPS donate large amounts of $$ to the GOP, while the postal workers union donates to the Dems. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-vote-by-mail-disenfranchise-more-voters-than-any-other-method/855147.md?page=4)