Politics
Judge voids 50,000 absentee ballot requests in Iowa county
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A judge ordered an Iowa county Thursday to invalidate 50,000 requests for absentee ballots, agreeing with President Donald Trump's campaign that its elections commissioner overstepped his authority by pre-filling them with voters' personal information.
Judge Ian Thornhill issued a temporary injunction ordering Linn County Auditor Joel Miller to notify voters in writing that the forms should not have been pre-filled with their information and cannot be processed. Instead, they'll have to either fill out new requests for absentee ballots or vote on Election Day.
The ruling marks an initial victory for Trump's challenges to absentee voting procedures in three counties in Iowa, which is expected to be competitive in his race against Democratic nominee Joe Biden. They're part of an unprecedented legal battle involving dozens of lawsuits nationwide that will shape the rules of the election.
Republicans said the ruling would hold a “rogue auditor” accountable and enhance voting security, while outraged Democrats called it an act of voter suppression. Miller said he would abide by the order, pledging to void the returned requests, and send out new blank forms to voters next month.
At issue was Miller’s decision to send absentee ballot request forms to 140,000 voters in July that were already filled with their personal information, including names, dates of birth, and, most significantly, voter identification numbers.
Miller, a Democrat, has said his goal was to make it as easy as possible to vote absentee during a pandemic, as the virus spreads uncontrolled across the state.
Voters had to review, sign and return the forms to request ballots that will be mailed beginning Oct. 5. About 50,000 requests have been returned in the Democratic-leaning county, which is Iowa's second-largest and is recovering from a derecho that devastated the region Aug. 10. The phone system for the county elections office remained out of service Thursday.
Thornhill ruled that Miller's mailing violated a “clear directive” from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who told county officials in July that absentee ballot request forms mailed to voters must be blank in order to ensure uniformity.
Absentee voting, in which voters send their ballots by mail or drop them off at county offices, has become popular during the coronavirus pandemic as a way to avoid the risk of crowded polling places. It led to record turnout during Iowa's primary in June.
But weeks later, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a new law to make such voting harder. It blocked auditors from using their databases to fill in voters' four-digit voting identification numbers, which few know and are routinely left blank on the forms.
Instead, the law requires auditors to contact voters by email or mail to have them correct mistakes themselves. Supporters argued that requiring voters to fill out their forms was a step to make absentee ballots more secure.
Miller and elections commissioners in Johnson and Woodbury counties said contacting voters who leave the information blank would have been too burdensome and potentially disenfranchised people, so they mailed forms with that information already filled in. They contended that the law did not block them from doing so.
Trump's campaign and state and national Republican Party groups filed lawsuits against the three counties, seeking to invalidate all forms returned in response to the mailings. They warned that any ballots cast in response to the mailings could be challenged later.
Thornhill's ruling, issued after he heard arguments Thursday, is the first so far. Another hearing is set for Friday in Woodbury County, where 14,000 of the absentee ballot requests have been returned. A hearing in the Democratic stronghold of Johnson County, where thousands more have been returned, is planned for next week.
Thornhill, appointed by Democratic Gov. Chet Culver in 2009, ruled that the Trump campaign and Republican groups had legal standing to bring the case. He found that they demonstrated a likelihood of being harmed, noting that not all Iowa counties have the money to send out pre-filled absentee ballot requests.
He found that Trump and the GOP would likely prevail on the merits, saying Miller's decision to populate the forms sent to voters went against Pate's directive and the intent of the new law.
Thornhill acknowledged that extraordinary remedial measures will have to be taken under his order but that Miller's “words and actions show he was aware of the risk he was taking.” He said voters will not lose their right to vote and still have time to acquire absentee ballots in another manner.
The secretary of state has alleged that the mailing violated a law intended to protect the personal information stored in government and corporate databases, and asked prosecutors to investigate.
It argues that Miller had no legitimate purpose to access voters’ identification numbers and share them with a vendor that processed the mailing. Attorney general’s office spokesman Lynn Hicks said the office hasn’t decided whether to open an investigation.
Assistant Linn County attorney Elena Wolford argued that the state's directive was invalid and not binding on Miller, who has broad authority to administer county elections.
She called the mailing an attempt to expand voting access during the pandemic and said Republicans had not shown any injury, saying their argument that it could encourage voter fraud was hypothetical.
She warned that an injunction would hurt voters who are expecting to receive absentee ballots and taxpayers who would be forced to pay for additional notifications to be sent.
Politics
U.S. state election officials say little evidence of absentee ballot fraud
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top election officials from two states told Congress on Friday they have seen little evidence of absentee ballot fraud in U.S. primary elections this year and do not expect it to be a big issue in the November general election.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that a rise in mail-in voting will lead to a rise in fraud, though he has expressed more openness to absentee voting, which is the way he has cast ballots.
Authorities in Michigan, a swing state that Trump won in 2016 but polls suggest he could lose in 2020, so far this year have found "zero evidence of fraud or irregularities," the state's top election official, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, told the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Michael Adams, secretary of state in solidly Republican Kentucky, said voting in his state's June primary election likewise was clean of fraud.
Asked whether he had seen evidence of outside forces, such as foreign governments, seeking to interfere in this year's elections, Adams said Kentucky authorities sensed some "rattling on our doorknobs," but offered no details.
Benson said likewise her state had encountered some evidence of foreign attempts at election interference, but also did not offer details.
To make absentee voting more secure and accessible, Benson said Michigan will deploy 1,000 "drop boxes" across the state where voters can directly deposit their absentee ballots for subsequent counting by election officials.
Adams said in Kentucky, Republican voters expressed the most enthusiasm for drop boxes, and he said more drop boxes would be deployed for the November election but would be kept under "continuing surveillance" to ensure against fraud.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Tom Brown)
Politics
Over 500,000 Absentee Ballots Were Rejected For The 2020 Presidential Primaries
http://http://When we look to the consequences of voting in a pandemic, we only have one comparison: the 2020 presidential primaries. We know that because of COVID-19, NPR says that a full 47% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans plan to vote by mail in the general election this year. In the 2016 general election, 318,728 absentee ballots were rejected across the nation. In the 2020 presidential primaries, a whopping 558,032 mail-in votes were tossed.
That’s huge. That’s more than half a million votes.
So what’s going to happen in November, when millions of people vote by mail for the first time?
How Big Is The Problem With Mail-In Votes?
The problem with mail-in votes should terrify any sane American who believes in democracy. Remember the 2000 presidential election? George W. Bush and Al Gore duked it out for Florida’s 25 electoral votes (at the time) for 36 days before Al Gore conceded. And Bush won… or didn’t… according to whose post-election review you look at, but the margin of votes that decides the winner is always under 493. It gets closer still: Bush decided not to challenge Gore’s win in New Mexico… which he took by only 366 votes. And these are only presidential results. They don’t count any down-ballot races for governor, senator, representative, school board… any elected official.
So what’s that mean?
Let’s take Florida for example, the center of the 2000 election battle. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the state ditched over 18,000 mail-in votes in the March primary. That’s with 46% of people voting by mail. Maryland tossed 34,948 votes or 2.39% of mail-in votes, says WUSA9, which state election officials say is “low.” Um… maybe not when you’re talking about a general election with that many people’s rights at stake? NBC reports that in New York state’s 2020 primary held on June 23, the city of New York rejected a staggering 21% of mail-in votes. This held up the results of two Congressional races.
NPR reports that Trump won Wisconsin by less than 23,000 votes in 2016. The state tossed more than 23,000 mail-in votes this year.
The problem with mail-in votes is enormous. And in the 2020 general election, it’s only going to get bigger.
So Why Are They Tossing Votes?
Lots of reasons.
Mostly, according to The Washington Post, ballots arrive late (more on that later). Some states require mail-in votes to be postmarked on Election Day. Others require them to be in the hands of election officials on Election Day. University of Florida professor Daniel A Smith told the Orlando Sentinel that, people “might not realize that sending mail even a week before Election Day may not get back by 7 p.m. on Election Day to the supervisor.” Danielle Lang, co-director of voting rights at the Campaign Legal Fund, which is currently suing to fix the mail-in ballot system in New York, according to NBC, says she thinks “a really high percentage” of the mail-in votes were tossed because they arrived late.
Then there’s the signature issue.
WUSA9 says that a failure to sign the ballot envelope was a major reason mail-in votes were rejected in Maryland. NBC says New York also had bad enough issues with signatures that the state legislature passed a law immediately to remedy it. The Washington Post reports that about 20 states have a signature-match requirement… and it may look very different from the signature you usually use.
And people just plain don’t follow directions. They don’t have the right number of witnesses, says The Washington Post. They don’t have the right form of ID. They circle candidates instead of bubbling them in or accidentally vote for two candidates, says the Orlando Sentinel.
The Looming Postal Issue With Mail-In Votes
We all know the U.S. Postal Service hasn’t been working great lately.
Many states, says NPR, have extended deadlines and allowed ballots to be postmarked by Election Day rather than delivered by Election Day. But then there’s a pesky postmark issue. First of all, some people, Smith tells the Orlando Sentinel, “may not realize that their county requires them to have postage.” And if they have postage, there needs to be a postmark. But ballots arrive without a postmark, says NPR, or one that isn’t legible.
And guess who decides if those votes count? Election officials. In New York, reports NBC, judges ruled in favor of counting them. But who knows what’ll happen in November?
Even better, a USPS report found sometimes, that workers weren’t postmarking ballots, because they had no idea ballots were supposed to be treated differently than other kinds of mail. The postal service was actively disenfranchising voters.
According to NPR, “The Postal Service warned states that it cannot guarantee that it will be able to deliver ballots on time if deadlines are too tight.”
So Who Is This Affecting?
In Gwinett County, the second-biggest county in Georgia, 4% of white people had their mail-in votes rejected. 8% of Black voters faced the same result, according to NBC. Daniel A. Smith tells NBC that Hispanic and Black voters had their mail-in votes rejected at twice the rate of white voters in Florida’s 2016 general election. He adds that “You have some counties where the rejection rates for younger voters or Black voters are upwards of 4 percent… You have other jurisdictions where it’s one-tenth of 1 percent. Voters do not become more intelligent or less intelligent about how to vote a ballot moving across a county line.” According to Talking Points Memo, a whopping 44% of mail-in voters rejected in Savannah were cast by Blacks… who cast only 34% of mail-in votes, to begin with.
Moreover, NBC points out, mail can be less reliable in low-income communities, and many Native American reservations do not have home delivery addresses.
It’s also unfair to the young. Democracy Docket reports a study found that 5.4% of those 18-21 has their mail-in votes rejected, while only .6% of people over 65 did.
And if you’re voting by mail for the first time, you’re the person we’re worried about the most.
Read the directions.
Request your ballot now.
Mail your ballot early.
Make your vote count.
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