Elections 2024: Postal voting has become common and measures are in place to ensure it

Mail-in voting is slowly becoming a more popular voting option among Americans, but it has come under attack with unfounded accusations of fraud and mistrust.

And in their last days come under real fire from suspected criminals.

But despite these threats, election officials and law enforcement worked diligently to ensure that these ballots were not only delivered and counted on time, but were also free from any type of fraud.

As of Tuesday, according to University of Florida Election Laboratory.

More than 65 million votes were cast by mail in the 2020 election, but experts say more voters have chosen this method due to the pandemic.

In the last two elections, former President Donald Trump question on voting by mail, arguing that mail-in ballots are not secure enough.

There was no evidence to support his claims, which were refuted by several courts, election commissions, audits and other security reviews in several elections.

Several studies have shown that fraud in mail-in voting is rare, and in those few cases, the culprit was punished and the votes were never counted.

One such case occurred in North Carolina during the 2018 midterm elections, when Leslie McCray Dowless, a political operative working for Republican House candidate Mark Harris, “defrauded voters by collecting blank ballots and then filling out the remaining ones in favor of the candidate.” campaign,” according to a report from MIT Elections Lab.

As a result of the incident, new elections were held and Dowless was found guilty of fraud in 2020.

“Even many scientists who argue that fraud is generally rare agree that fraud with (vote by mail) voting appears to be occurring more frequently than in-person voting,” according to a report by researchers at the MIT Elections Laboratory.

This year is no different when it comes to timely and accurate vote counting.

The first line of security occurs at the election office.

Forty-two states require mail-in voters to apply for an absentee ballot, and those approval processes are thorough, according to Brennan Center for Justicenon-profit public policy institute.

“Election workers compare the request with the voter registration record to ensure that each ballot is sent to the correct voter and that only one ballot is sent to each voter,” the nonprofit said in the report.

The remaining eight states and the District of Columbia mail ballots to all registered voters and give them the option of casting a ballot or voting in person.

“Frequent mailings help keep voter registration records up to date so that ballots are sent to eligible voters at their current address,” the Brennan Center said.

As voters cast their ballots and mail them in, there are more checks.

Ballots are mailed in envelopes with unique tracking codes and barcodes that allow officials to track them. Some states also allow voters to track their ballots.

The United States Postal Service is required by law to give priority to the delivery of election-related mail and has undertaken “emergency measures” for supply. This includes additional delivery and collection, special pickups, special sorting plans at processing facilities to speed up delivery to election officials, and on-site ballot processing and transportation, according to the agency.

The USPS reported that in 2020, 99.9% of ballots were delivered within a week and 98.3% were delivered within three days.

The USPS Law Enforcement Division investigates mail fraud, including mail or package tampering, and investigates any suspicious incidents.

In addition, many states offer voters the opportunity to return their absentee ballot in person at an election office, approved ballot drop box, or early voting site.

All mail-in ballots require at least one signature, and in some cases, such as Pennsylvania, an additional signature is required on the envelope. Most state election offices (31) use a signature verification system in which election officials verify a signature using multiple records.

“Some officials undergo training that law enforcement agencies use to detect fraud. If election officials are unsure whether signatures match, several states require ballots to be sent to a bipartisan group for re-verification,” the Brennan Center said.

The Brennan Center emphasized that the teams consist of an equal number of Republican and Democratic workers.

If an error is discovered, election officials in 24 states are required to notify the voter of the error and allow the voter to correct the error by Election Day.

Pennsylvania does not have a statewide requirement to correct erroneous mail-in ballots, but a 2022 court decision allowed county election departments to correct those errors.