Due to the COVID-19 situation, this year’s election will take place via mail in the USA. The election will take place in November. However, Trump is not so positive about the system. So, here’s what to know about mail-in voting for November.
Mail-in Voting: What’s going on?
With concerns about the safety of people during elections, democrats have been finding alternative options to replace in-person voting. President Trump (Republican Party) claims that mail voting can lead to corruption and fraud results.
On Tuesday, Trump remarked, “Mail Ballots, they cheat.” “Mail Ballots are very dangerous in this country because of cheaters” he added.
Here are some facts about the voting process of the USA:
Rare Frauds in USA elections
Voting fraud is rare in the United States: This has been shown by many studies that there are negligible fraud activities occurring in US elections. This is irrespective of the medium of voting. Nonetheless, in 2016, a National Study found a few credible allegations of fraudulent voting. However, no real evidence was found and trump dissolved it in 2018.
Although, it has been said by experts that Mail-in Voting is more vulnerable to cheating than the in-person election. Charles Stewart III of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed out that voter fraud in the US is rare but in-mail Voting is less rare. This means that there might be chances of dishonest voting via the in-mail system.
To prove his point, he gave the reference of several documented fraud activities that occurred during in-mail Voting in the past. Most recent case being the race in North Carolina’s ninth congressional district, where an operative rounded off the absentee ballots. He did so for a Republican candidate, Mark Harris. This practice of fraud is commonly known as ballot harvesting.
Fewer Fraud Noticed in states already conducting mail voting.
Five states, including the Republican bastions of Utah, have already conducted elections via mail. According to their experience, they disclosed that there was very little fraud. Furthermore, Colorado with 3.5 million registered voters has been conducting in-mail Voting since 2014. The voting process has been quite successful with not more than a handful of cheating cases as per the director of elections in Colorado Department of States.
Democrats may enjoy an advantage by in-mail Voting say the Republicans.
The president, Trump, tweeted on Wednesday ” for whatever reason, doesn’t work out for republicans” concerning in-mail Voting. The opposition party, the democrats have been researching in-mail Voting even before the corona outbreak. However, the two parties don’t seem to agree at all.
Security Concerns by democrats.
Even though democrats are majorly in favor of in-mail elections, some members of the party have doubts regarding the security. Absentee ballots and vote harvesting are the highly expected issues that might arise.
President, Vice President, and Cabinet give a try to in-mail Voting.
President Trump recently acknowledged that in March, he gave in-mail votes in Florida. Additionally, Vice President Mike Pence already tried in-mail voting in the general and primary election in 2018.
