By Kristine Christlieb, MFE Senior Correspondent | October 21, 2024
Election workers and officials in the city of St. Louis have learned the hard way that the United States Postal Service (USPS) mail delivery is unreliable.
After the August 6 Missouri primary, Sue DiRaimondo, St. Louis City Board of Elections Judge Coordinator, hand-delivered a stack of envelopes to the post office.
“I asked the mail clerk to take good care of the envelopes because they contained checks for the primary election workers,” DiRaimondo told this writer.
Primary election workers were given the option of picking up their checks at the downtown office or having them mailed. If checks weren’t picked up within a certain timeframe, they were automatically mailed.
But days passed after DiRaimondo posted the letters containing the paychecks of more than 300 election workers. The Labor Day holiday neared, and workers called to inquire about their checks, which had yet to arrive. Ultimately the city was forced to cancel the lost checks and issue new ones. Because of the delays, some workers waited nearly a month to be paid.
Further complicating the situation, some of the originally issued checks were delivered and deposited — but not before they had been cancelled, sometimes triggering overdraft fees on workers’ bank accounts.
For weeks, DiRaimondo dealt with the fallout.
If any of those 300 election workers requested absentee ballots, it’s a safe bet they will avoid putting them in the mail.
Just because a ballot was delivered to you by mail does not mean you are required to return your ballot by mail. Not only do you not have to mail in an absentee ballot, given the unreliability of the USPS, you probably shouldn’t.
Mail-in Ballots … For Them or Against Them?
In 2005, the Commission on Federal Election Reform in its Building Confidence in U.S. Elections found that voting-by-mail “increases the risk of fraud.” But despite evidence to the contrary, mail-in ballots took hold in the United States after states hastily adopted emergency measures during the 2020 COVID disruption.
Even today, confusion exists in GOP ranks and no clear policy decision has emerged as to whether mail-in ballots should be embraced or shunned.
President Trump and the Charlie Kirk-influenced Republican National Committee are still at odds over the matter. An April ABC News reported: “Republican Party pushing mail-in voting despite Trump’s opposition.” More recently ABC News reported the RNC is “often cleaning up Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting.”
Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), who was once a mail-in ballot skeptic has recently become an advocate. According to AP's October 9 reporting, he warned GOP leaders the party was at “a strategic disadvantage by discouraging a convenient way to cast a ballot.”
Kirk and his political action arm, Turning Point Action (TPAction), are promoting a “ballot chasing” plan in swing states like Michigan. Using a newly-developed software application called Superfeed, grassroots volunteers are canvassing targeted districts and encouraging low-propensity Republican voters to cast their ballots early and by mail.
AP reporting somewhat dampened the credibility of Kirk’s plan when it revealed Superfeed’s ties to TPAction’s leaders. The organization’s COO Tyler Bowyer, also an RNC National Committeeman from Arizona, and Kirk’s mother-in-law both serve on Superfeed’s board.
No Need to Worry?
On August 29, while St. Louis election workers’ checks were lost in the mail, Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy briefed lawmakers and reporters on his plans for the upcoming General Election, saying his organization would draw on its successes during the 2020 and 2022 elections to “ensure the smooth handling of Election Mail, including ballots.”
Meanwhile, countries like France, Mexico and Belgium have banned mail-in voting, citing risks of fraud.
Less than two weeks after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s reassurances about mail-in ballots, contrarian voices emerged.
On September 10, KWCH reported, Kansas Secretary of State sends letter to USPS over mail-in ballot problems, and NPR followed 10 days later with, Voters are advised to return their ballots early because of mail delay concerns.
USA Today published ‘Sounding the alarm’: Election officials warn postal delays could invalidate mailed ballots, October 6.
An October 15 editorial in the Wall Street Journal commended Mr. DeJoy’s optimism but said it “isn’t realistic. The question is the wisdom of continuing pandemic voting habits in the absence of a pandemic.”
Most recently, on October 17, the Christian Science Monitor reported, Mail-in voting is a new norm. Is the US Postal Service up to the job?.
Your vote is valuable. Don’t risk it in the mail
With absentee (mail-in ballots) now in the hands of millions of voters, Michigan Fair Elections Institute (MFEI) is urging voters to maintain custody of their mail-in ballots until they can personally feed them into a vote tabulator, preferably on the first day of early voting.
When you mail your ballot, it can be sidelined two ways. First, is the problem of unreliable delivery within the state’s lawful date of acceptance. If you wouldn’t put an important check in the USPS general delivery, why would you trust your ballot to that system?
Second, the signature on your ballot will be checked against a signature on file with the state. That doesn’t happen with in-person voting. There’s always a chance that your ballot signature will be deemed not to match your signature on file.
In a telephone interview, Patrice Johnson, MFE founder, said the 501(c)3 nonprofit is strongly encouraging voters with mail-in ballots to hand-deliver their ballots to polling sites where they can witness their ballots going into the tabulator.
“If you value your vote, don’t hand your ballot off to someone else to deliver. Don’t put it in an absentee-ballot drop box. Don’t drop it in a mailbox. Don’t even hand it to the county clerk,” Johnson said. She emphasized, “The safest course of action is to take your mail-in ballot to an early voting location and feed your ballot into the machine yourself. Take time to shepherd your ballot through the entire process.” The next best option is to hand deliver it to your local clerk, she said.
My best advice to voters with absentee ballots: Vote early and vote in person.
Kristine Christlieb serves as senior correspondent on MFE's communications team. She publishes Trust but Verify on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/trustbutverifyreport/p/voter-registration-blitzkrieg?r=2haa2x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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