Mail In Ballots

What is mail in ballot?

Mail in ballots have been a resource for states to increase the flexibility to vote in elections. Some states allow for mail in ballots to be issued to all voters while all states allow mail in ballots at least from those with an excuse or in case of absentee voting. The idea of expanding the eligible electorate through mail in ballots has been a point of political contention between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats mostly favor it to facilitate vulnerable populations voting such as the elderly in nursing homes. Meanwhile, Republicans believe that the mail in ballot could bring an increase in corruption in elections because of who is collecting the ballots. "Amber McReynolds, a former Colorado election official and now the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, and Charles Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab over the past 20 years, they write, more than 250 million ballots have been cast by mail nationwide, while there have been just 143 criminal convictions for election fraud related to mail ballots. That averages out to about one case per state every six or seven years, or a fraud rate of 0.00006%" (NPR). Data like this exemplifies that there is no statistical significant difference between the corruption with in person voting and mail in voting.

Coronavirus pandemic and mail in ballots

Recently this year, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act (NDEBA) of 2020 that would greatly expand who is eligible to vote by mail in all states and provide necessary funding for local election officials to execute this. Most Democrats back this plan while Republicans who are generally favor local autonomy in electoral affairs, oppose the federal centralization of the bill and find it unrealistic for it to be executed successfully by November. Many states need much more time to be able to change their operations to mail in voting instead of in person voting.

Failure in wisconsin

The pandemic has heightened the need to expand the vote to more people who are wary of contracting and spreading the coronavirus. Long lines with in person voting has seen large failures in Wisconsin and Georgia. The social distancing rules of 6 feet apart make it even harder to stay safe while still letting the line move along quicker. Many people who refuse to wear masks make the matters worse. Even with the absentee voting, many ballots were left uncollected and many did not even receive their ballots so had to add to the crowds. The disenfranchisement of many vulnerable citizens has been a major downfall of the current systems in place for elections at the local level and their archaic systems only heighten the impact of the pandemic.