Stock photos – Absentee ballot and envelope
Roughly 30 percent of U.S. voters cast their ballots by mail. In states where this is the standard, like Oregon, which uses entirely mail-in balloting, it is called “Mail-In Voting.” The more standard term used in a majority of the 50 states is Absentee Voting. Its most common and regular use was for Absentee Ballots for men and women serving in American military service branches, and for decades those Absentee Military Ballots were predominantly Republican, with the exception of the American South.
The federal government has traditionally had very little role in the elections process, which by the U.S. Constitution are powers conveyed to and held by the states.
And then, a funny thing happened on the way to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The early spring announcement of the pandemic in mid-March and the U.S. lockdown caused Georgia and several other states to postpone their 2020 Presidential Preference Primary and eventually combine the Georgia PPP Election with that year’s General Primary Elections. Nearly 70,000 volunteer and senior citizen poll workers resigned over fears of contracting COVID while working in a crowded polling place on Election Day.
At that same time, the State of Georgia was rolling out an entirely new electronic voting system, following an 18-month series of public hearings, demonstrations of several different voting platforms and seeking input from dozens of local election officials. As the prior system, put in place in 2004—when Georgia became the first state to move to fully electronic voting—ran on Microsoft Windows XP, which Microsoft stopped updating in April 2014.
A New System Amid New Challenges –
The new system and related training would cost well over $200-million to implement. Simultaneously, local election officials and the Secretary of State’s office would train nearly 100,000 new poll workers to replace those who retired or resigned.
As the fall elections approached, Georgia voter registration reached an all-time record and by Election Day, well over 5,000,000 ballots had been cast. There were some tabulation delays and late precinct openings, but overall it was a pretty smooth election day, in part because more than half of all ballots were either cast early in person (during 3-weeks of Advance Voting) or via Absentee Ballots cast by mail. In that election cycle, more than 25 percent of all ballots were cast by mail. In the election years since, that number has declined due to additional ballot security measures, such as Voter I.D. being required for Absentee Ballots and Voter Ballot Drop Boxes being moved inside and only accessible during business hours at Advance Voting Locations and local Elections Offices, and at least so far…no more pandemics.
Though both President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump repeatedly cast their Mail-In Ballots for Florida elections, the President maintains an inherent mistrust of Mail-In Ballots, and repeatedly rants about Democrats stealing elections via Mail In Ballots.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has made innumerable attempts to change the balloting process, in all 50 states, in ways more designed to guide outcomes, than to improve election security and ballot integrity. Recently by Executive Order, the President ordered the U.S. Postal Service to secure voter roll lists from all 50 states. These name/address lists are already public record in a majority of states
Unprecedented President Relentless in His Attempt to Rewrite Election Law –
The President’s Executive Order, without any Congressional Action, further directs the Postal Service to ONLY send or return Mail-In Ballots or Mail-In Ballot applications to the addresses and names on those current voter lists. I will point out that those lists are not static. Georgians receiving a Driver’s License are automatically registered to vote, unless they specifically Opt Out. The cut off for new voter registration is 30-days ahead of each election, and as a state, Georgia typically gains about 100,000 new residents each year.
Further the President’s E.O. requires the 50 states to use a common scannable exterior envelope for sending out Absentee Ballots, as well as their Ballot return envelopes. With the General Election less than 60 days away, there has not even been a common envelope design circulated, and North Carolina became among the first states last week to mail out Absentee Ballots.
Multiple court challenges to the new E.O. resulted in a Federal Judge halting implementation of these new USPS rules, largely based on the short time frame and the likely cluster to follow, as well as potential disenfranchisement of millions of American voters. The Trump Administration then appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had already recessed earlier this summer, not scheduled to resume hearing oral arguments until the first Monday in October, less than one month prior to Election Day.
The Cavalry Arrives…Just In Time –
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and a bi-partisan coalition of 38 current and former Elections Officials from 10 states also appealed to the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on implementation of these new USPS ballot handling rules.
In a decisive 7-2 vote by the Supremes on Monday, September 14th, the implementation ban was upheld, including the votes of all three Supreme Court Justices appointed by President Trump. Admittedly, the justices did NOT speak to the intent of the new rules or their legality, only on the poor timing and inability to implement these new rules so close to an Election Day. Trump of course again excoriated this Court and his appointees in another long rant on Truth Social later that same evening.
Score a big win for common sense, the Rule of Law and free and fair elections. Thank you again Mr. Secretary for standing up for all of us, and thanks to our U.S. Supreme Court, despite earlier decisions leaning much more in this President’s favor. I’m pretty sure unless the President’s preferred outcome arrives we can expect a whole new round of accusations of “Stop the Steal,” but it still good to know that the ranks of the unbeaten and unbowed are again growing.
And I would strongly recommend, as the President is likely to make at least one more run at restricting Absentees, in this critical election, that you Vote Early and in person or on Election Day if at all possible. And if a Mail-In Ballot is your only option, use the Drop Boxes, at least a week prior to Election Day.
