President Trump continues to undermine the validity and security of mail-in ballots on television and social media. This week, Twitter labeled his tweet about mail-in ballots as possibly “misleading.”
Many states have pushed voting by mail to decrease the spread of COVID-19 and make voting more convenient for low-income and working-class voters. There are two common ways to vote by mail: mail-in ballots and absentee ballots.
With mail-in ballots, also known as “all-mail voting,” registered voters do not have to request or give an excuse to receive a ballot by mail because it is automatically sent to their home address before Election Day. Once voters fill out their ballots, they can either mail it back or deposit it at a voting location or secure dropbox by a specific time on Election Day.
In states that do not automatically mail ballots, voters who cannot vote at a polling place can request an absentee ballot. Registered voters must request an absentee ballot through their state government, give a reason as to why they can’t vote in-person and wait for the rejection or acceptance.
Officials can reject absentee ballots if they marked improperly, and voters face legal penalties for falsifying information. Depending on the state, voters may have the option to request a no-excuse absentee ballot, where voters do not have to give a reason for why they are not voting in person.
The history of mail-in ballots transcends back to the Civil War era, where soldiers could vote while away from home. Currently, 44 states allow voters to track their mail-in ballots, five states conduct all-mail voting, and 29 states, including the District of Columbia, allow no-excuse absentee ballots. Without mail-in voting, President Trump would have been unable to vote in at least two elections.
Trump cast an absentee ballot during New York’s midterm election in 2018, according to The Hill. This year, Trump voted by mail in Florida. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that a representative for the president picked up absentee ballots from the Palm Beach County Elections Office and returned them the day before the primary.
Mail-in ballots are scrutinized rigorously for inaccuracies like inconsistent signatures, wrong addresses and misspelled names. If any of these inaccuracies are detected, then the request for an absentee ballot is denied.
Washington is one of the five states that allows all-mail voting, and according to Washington’s Director of Elections Lori Augino, “[o]f the nearly 3.2 million ballots cast [in Washington in 2018], only 0.004% of the total ballots cast may have been fraudulent.”
Mail-in voting has an extensive list of safety precautions and has been around for over a century. Presidents, both past and current, have used the system. Trump’s fear-mongering tactics fall flat because voter fraud is highly unlikely, especially with absentee ballots.
