Missing Mail-In Ballots Raise Concerns About Election Integrity | Eastern NC Now

Mark Hemingway explains at Real Clear Politics why we should be wary of pleas for more mail-in election ballots.

ENCNow
Publisher's note: The author of this post is Mitch Kokai for the John Locke Foundation.

    Mark Hemingway explains at Real Clear Politics why we should be wary of pleas for more mail-in election ballots.

  • Between 2012 and 2018, 28.3 million mail-in ballots remain unaccounted for, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The missing ballots amount to nearly one in five of all absentee ballots and ballots mailed to voters residing in states that do elections exclusively by mail.
  • States and local authorities simply have no idea what happened to these ballots since they were mailed - and the figure of 28 million missing ballots is likely even higher because some areas in the country, notably Chicago, did not respond to the federal agency's survey questions. This figure does not include ballots that were spoiled, undeliverable, or came back for any reason.
  • Although there is no evidence that the millions of missing ballots were used fraudulently, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which compiled the public data provided from the Election Assistance Commission, says that the sheer volume of them raises serious doubts about election security.
  • These questions are particularly relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing states across the country to rapidly expand vote-by-mail operations in an election year. Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden have proposed the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020, a bill that would allow every eligible voter the opportunity to vote by mail, regardless of state laws governing mail-in ballots.
  • A significant increase in mail-in voting this fall could greatly incentivize "ballot harvesting," where third parties collect mail-in ballots on behalf of voters and deliver them to election officials. There's long been a consensus that such a practice incentivizes fraud, and ballot harvesting is illegal in most of the country. Public debate over the issue has intensified in recent years after a GOP operative in North Carolina was indicted for crimes related to ballot harvesting in 2018.

    Follow Carolina Journal Online's continuing coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic HERE.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published )
Enter Your Comment ( text only please )




Irresponsible Pandemic Budgeting John Locke Foundation Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics The COVID-19 Recovery: Gilder Urges End of ‘Economic Suicide’


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

Democrat-run states have said they won’t send official delegations to the country’s 250th birthday bash
The North Carolina House unanimously passed the “Dominique Moody Safety Act,” advancing a child-welfare reform package named for the six-year-old girl whose death exposed repeated failures by Mecklenburg County social services officials to act on reports of abuse and neglect.
Maybe a holiday for Texas, but NOT the nation

HbAD1

government agencies refused to help on fear of being called "racist"
targets data centers and intermittent electricity sources

HbAD2

5 year sentence for failing to cooperate with surveillance of cit citizens
"He is fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State."
illegal alien "asylum seeker" migrants are a crime wave on both sides of the Atlantic

HbAD3

 
 
Back to Top