Mail voting, the game changer of American Elections
American elections are well underway and the whole world can perceive the political tensions. In particular, the issue about voting by mail has been debated for several months from different points of view.
Generally speaking, the american voting system is extremely complex and differs significantly from one state to another because every state has its own electoral laws and rules. According to The New York Times, there are several aspects to analyze if we want to thoroughly know how Americans have chosen their future president.
The main problem is time. There are different deadlines for voting by mail in each state: 16 states don’t allow enough time for last-minute voting, 19 might allow it, but only 6 states definitely permit it. Instead, 9 states and D.C. send ballots to most voters automatically.
In these terms, for lots of american people it was highly risky to procrastinate, because if their ballots were not sent to election officials on time, they would not have been counted. For example, in the 2018 midterm elections 114,000 votes weren’t counted. So, it was important that every state correctly chose a specific deadline for voting, which needed to be respected by all voters.
To explain the differences between states, The New York Times effectively uses data and graphs to display the different timeframe that each voter has for voting by mail. In the states with all-mail elections, there is a lower risk to procrastinate the vote: they don’t need to request the ballots because they are sent to every registered voter. However, 16 states permit voters to apply for mail ballots very close to Election Day, so their votes could be at risk of being too late if submitted through the Postal Service.
Politicizing this voting system it’s what Trump has done during his election campaign.
In fact, he believes that this system isn’t completely fair and he criticizes the Postal Service’s work, decreasing the public confidence in the safety of that service.
This fall, many changes in voting schedules and rules interested several states. The New York Times clearly points out that in 34 states people can cite the Coronavirus as a reason to vote absentee. Reasonably, this year mail voting has been more accessible than ever, in order to prevent the virus spreading. Again, to keep track of all the changes, the states are grouped and differentiated by colour regarding their current regulations about mail voting.
In fact, approximately ¾ of all American voters had the opportunity to vote by mail in this election (the highest rate reached in the American history, according to the newspaper).
Studies related to mail voting have constantly demonstrated that voting frauds are extremely rare in the USA, but some people are trying to undermine the election’s integrity.
Is there an actual connection between the system of voting and the political parties?
Although many researches about the security of mail voting are constantly updated, many Republicans (Trump, first of all) criticize this voting system especially because they think without any evidence that this favours Democrats. On one hand, several states identified by The Cook Political Report as solid or likely Democratic have implemented some of the mail voting programs, on the other hand, many of the states identified as solid or likely Republican have continued to restrict access to mail voting. The New York Times clearly points this correlation by reusing the same colours and grouping the states based on their (likely) political outcome.
The last problem that the newspaper focuses on is the lack of funding, in particular for the Postal Service. Moreover, some experts are worried about the possibility that scores of voters will be disenfranchised because of their unfamiliarity with the mail voting process: people could make mistakes in signing, marking or sending their ballots and this means that many ballots might be rejected.
