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CBS Affiliate: We Tried Mailing Ballots, And It Went About As Good As You’d Expect; Are Americans willing to suffer a 3% failure rate or higher in ballot submission?
Hotair ^
| 07/30/2020
| Ed Morrissey
Posted on 07/30/2020 11:07:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Forget vote fraud for the moment, while we try to forget delays too. Are Americans willing to suffer a 3% failure rate or higher in ballot submission in adopting mass vote-by-mail systems in a presidential election? Or even in local elections? Augusta CBS affiliate WRDW tried an experiment in mailing ballots, and had three out of a hundred go missing. And it took concerted efforts by the reporter just to get the other 97 back at all:
One thing is clear: You need to give it even more time than officials might recommend to get your ballot through the mail system.
How long might it take for that vote to actually arrive and be counted?
CBS News decided to test it, sending 100 mock ballots simulating a hundred voters in locations all across Philadelphia to a post office box. After some delays, 97 arrived. In a close election, 3% could be pivotal, especially in whats expected to be a record year for mail-in-voting.
This points up the added risks of voting by mail. It introduces several handling points between voters and the ballot counters that dont otherwise exist. All of those are potential points of failure. Furthermore, because the security protocols are more complicated, those introduce even more points of failure. And unlike voting in person, the voter never knows that they have failed and has no opportunity to rectify the errors and remain enfranchised for that election.
We didnt need this experiment to discuss failure rates in vote-by-mail systems. California trashed over a hundred thousand mailed-in ballots in its March primary for various issues. That represents a failure rate of just under 2% in an election where 5.7 million votes were cast, and thats not counting other disqualified ballots. In New Yorks primary last month, the New York Times estimated that tens of thousands of mailed-in ballots have already been disqualified and theyre still not done counting the vote there either. Florida also trashed tens of thousands of mail-in ballots.
That means, as the WRDW reporter noted in Pennsylvania, that a significant percentage of voters got disenfranchised. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Minnesota by 1.6% of the vote, while Donald Trump won Wisconsin by 0.8%, Pennsylvania by 0.7%, and Michigan by 0.2%. Any voting process that has a 2% or greater failure rate will risk producing results that the losing side wont accept unless a landslide occurs in each and every state. And thats only in terms of the presidential elections; this same problem exists all the way down the ballot. This isnt a risk for Trump alone its also a risk for Joe Biden, and every candidate on the ballot this year.
This isnt a reason to postpone an election. It is, however, a very good reason to stop vote-by-mail systems and use the most reliable voting systems available in order to build confidence in the results. Those systems use paper ballots, with scanning technology to validate ballots before voters leave and to count the votes accurately and quickly, while maintaining the paper records for potential recounts later. If we can go to Walmart and attend protests for hours on end over policy, we can cast ballots in person, too.
TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ballot; cbs; mail; mailinballots; usps; voting
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To: SeekAndFind
3% is frighteningly high. That would be more than enough to potentially throw swing states in a direction other than the will of the people.
I understand for absentee voting and other limited circumstances, but to put the entire election in the hands of the US Postal Service? No thanks!
Worst case, just set the polling stations up in outdoor tents. Risk of COVID-19 transmission would be next to nothing. Start planning for it now and you’ll be fine by election day.
To: SeekAndFind
#% ffailure rate. Hmm. What are the odds that ever failure will go the same way?
22
posted on
07/30/2020 12:03:59 PM PDT
by
chesley
(What is life but a long dialog with imbeciles? - Pierre Ryckmans)
To: KarlInOhio
My point is the dimrats tried to disqualify the overseas ballots then. If they collude with the USPS, there will be a whole lot of ballots “lost” that originate from republican leaning districts all across the country.
23
posted on
07/30/2020 12:23:26 PM PDT
by
Texas resident
(Remember in November)
To: discostu
Been voting by mail for almost 20 years, it works.Do you mean real voting by mail or voting by absentee ballot? Two completely different things.
24
posted on
07/30/2020 12:46:49 PM PDT
by
upchuck
(The only obstacle to a Trump Landslide is Democrat election/voter fraud. h/t devinemomentsoftruth)
To: upchuck
Real vote by mail. AZ went voluntary vote by mail in 2000. First only on the generals, then the primaries. My random occurrence 9/11 was the last time I voted in person.
25
posted on
07/30/2020 12:50:28 PM PDT
by
discostu
(Like a dog being shown a card trick)
To: SeekAndFind
A common observation about Voter Fraud is that states have control over election procedures and there is little reform that is possible at the federal level.
But it seems to me that if the US Post Office becomes an integral part of the voting process, then maybe Donald Trump gets some say in how things will (or won’t) be done.
26
posted on
07/30/2020 12:51:02 PM PDT
by
ClearCase_guy
(If White Privilege is real, why did Elizabeth Warren lie about being an Indian?)
To: 2aProtectsTheRest
Good thinking. "Worst case, just set the polling stations up in outdoor tents. Risk of COVID-19 transmission would be next to nothing. Start planning for it now and youll be fine by election day."
To: SeekAndFind
Are Americans willing to suffer a 3% failure rate or higher in ballot submission 1 in about 33. Imagine your car's brakes failing that often. Or, passenger jets crashing. Or, bridges collapsing. ...
28
posted on
07/30/2020 1:53:10 PM PDT
by
raisetheroof
("To become Red is to become dead --- gradually." Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
To: discostu
AZ went voluntary vote by mail in 2000.So you have to make a request. That's like an absentee ballot.
"Real vote by mail" is where the state blindly mails ballots to every registered voter. Big difference.
29
posted on
07/30/2020 2:02:53 PM PDT
by
upchuck
(The only obstacle to a Trump Landslide is Democrat election/voter fraud. h/t devinemomentsoftruth)
To: upchuck
Not anymore. Part of the change over after 2001 was a permanent request. They send you a thing every few years to send back if you want to unrequest.
It is vote by mail for everybody that wants to. It’s not 100% vote by mail, but it is vote by mail.
30
posted on
07/30/2020 2:04:43 PM PDT
by
discostu
(Like a dog being shown a card trick)
To: discostu
I’m in Arizona. I was sent a card to mail back only if I wanted to vote by mail. I didn’t mail it back, as I always go to the polls personally.
31
posted on
07/30/2020 2:16:18 PM PDT
by
Greenpees
(Coulda Shoulda Woulda)
To: Greenpees
Yeah. When we went to that system I said yes. So probably around the same times you get the opt in postcard, I get an opt out postcard, which I toss, cause I like getting it over with early in my living room. Especially when it’s time to vote against all the judges or there’s a lot of propositions. Also nice for those May bond elections which they hardly ever promote, I missed a few of those back in the day, now the ballot shows up in my mailbox allowing me to vote no on all the bonds.
32
posted on
07/30/2020 2:19:24 PM PDT
by
discostu
(Like a dog being shown a card trick)
To: SeekAndFind
3% represents 5 million votes.
33
posted on
07/30/2020 2:42:31 PM PDT
by
oldbill
To: SeekAndFind
Liberals can’t be reasoned with on this - it would keep them from a rich opportunity for cheating.
To: SeekAndFind
To repeat a Mad Magazine gag about the post office in the 1960s——
Also received was a previously lost letter:
To President Abraham Lincoln
“Abe, Forget going to see Our American Cousin at the theater. It’s a real turkey. Skip it.”
35
posted on
07/30/2020 4:14:36 PM PDT
by
frank ballenger
(End vote fraud,harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
To: ZOOKER
Yours is the best post on this topic ever , in my opinion.
Please repeat this when this subject comes up. Many do not know these tricks.
News on TV will push hard for “so paranoid and silly of the Far Right to make up vote conspiracies” “Yes, Wolf, you’re right.”
36
posted on
07/30/2020 4:20:18 PM PDT
by
frank ballenger
(End vote fraud,harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
To: Sarah Barracuda
her last name has a hyphen in it..her mail was delivered yesterday, she got THREE voter registration letters..THREE..so what does that mean, she can vote three times? A disturbing prospect.
I always thought hyphenated names starting with feminists in 1972 were to insult and debase men. Now I see they are a gold mine of extra votes.
37
posted on
07/30/2020 4:24:03 PM PDT
by
frank ballenger
(End vote fraud,harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
To: ZOOKER
They never intended to vote anyway, and never know that they did! A successful "cheat". Similar to your income tax refund "already sent to you" (went to the criminal hacker) and your house title used for title theft fraud loans taken out while draining the equity and making you pay for the monthly payments without a house. You don't know until much later that it happened.
38
posted on
07/30/2020 4:28:30 PM PDT
by
frank ballenger
(End vote fraud,harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
To: frank ballenger
She has two last names so basically yeah they sent her three voter registration letters..heck we still get info about former tenants, if USPS sends me voter registrations for them is it cool to fill them out as Trump votes :-)
To: Sarah Barracuda
Illegal but when did that slow down the Dems?
Our side follows the laws. Usually has hurt us but someday it may help.
Children fighting for freedom in the Dark Age of America beginning January 21, 2021 will say “Those people suffering in the prison camps followed the law. We have someone to look up to.”
40
posted on
07/30/2020 7:07:21 PM PDT
by
frank ballenger
(End vote fraud,harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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