The Case for Voting Early, In Person
But NOT by mail. Voting early in person reduces the likelyhood of errors with your ballot. Voting my mail increases the likelyhood of mistakes and worse. Remember "Kelly's Rule."
This year's election day in the US is November 8th - always the first Tuesday after the first Monday, by federal law. Other than setting dates for federal elections, the Constitution gives states and localities the responsibility for how elections are conducted.
The most significant election trend over the past 3 decades has been the advent and dramatic expansion of early voting, either by absentee ballots distributed and/or returned through the US Postal Service or in person. Did I say 3 decades? How about 3 years, prompted by the Covid pandemic? Forty-six states provide some form of early voting; only four do not (Alabama, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Mississippi). Eight states conduct all voting by mail, including California.
My job usually found me on travel on most election days, so I’ve voted absentee by mail for most elections since the 1980s until retiring in 2018. Only once did I have a ballot arrive too late to be counted. That was when Pennsylvania required mail ballots to arrive at election offices by the Friday before Tuesday, no matter when postmarked. That was when all ballots - in person or absentee - were counted at the precincts where voters resided. Every ballot was counted on election day; with rare exceptions, we knew the winners by midnight.
That’s all changed, and not necessarily in a good way. In some states, such as Ohio and Alaska, mail ballots can be received as many as 10 days after an election (they have to be postmarked by election day).
My first experience with early voting was in 1990 when Virginia instituted the ability to travel to Arlington County’s courthouse a few days before the election. I took my then-11-month-old son into the booth with me. After I shuttered the curtain, he immediately reached and flipped the top lever on the old-fashioned machine for incumbent GOP US Senator John Warner, who won. Start them early, I say.
Virginia and three other states began early in-person voting on September 23rd, some 45 days before an election. Two others began early in-person voting on September 29th. That’s an excessive amount of early voting time. That not only stretches local resources (the need to hire more election workers for a longer period) but precludes new information (e.g., “October surprises” and debates) from being factored in.
I get the traditionalist argument that we should all vote together on election day. That’s the custom across Europe, where absentee voting is extremely rare if allowed. I was in France for their presidential elections last April - no absentee voting is allowed. In-person voting is allowed for French citizens who live abroad, near one of their embassies. Voting on the same day gives us all access to the same information to make an informed choice.
But if you’re certain of your vote in advance of election day (historically, about one-third of all voters have made up their minds by Labor Day, if not more), I highly recommend taking advantage of in-person voting. Sure, it can be inconvenient. In my case, I must traverse the parking and construction detours in and out of our county courthouse to find the voting location. It would be easier to walk 3 blocks to the local elementary school that serves as my polling place on election day.
But there are two clear advantages. As a former campaign operative, it allowed me to concentrate my voter identification and “get out the vote” (GOTV) efforts on those who haven’t voted (conversely, it also kept those pesky GOTV calls at bay). Second, it minimizes the potential for errors and problems.
Before moving to Virginia after the 2020 elections, my wife and I served as GOP poll watchers in our Delaware County, Pennsylvania precinct. Things went swimmingly well, although I did notice that many people were forced to cast “provisional” ballots because they’d been recorded as having already voted or not registered. I remember the frowns and disgruntled comments by some of those voters, all of whom were surprised and chagrined.
I also remember that one characteristic that has long plagued a few Philadelphia precincts is the practice of corrupt election officials casting ballots for people they believe would not show up. With enough information ( such as the last four digits of a Social Security number or driver’s license number where that’s required), fraudsters can apply for absentee ballots in other people's names. While rare, it happens. Even under the auspices of a former Member of Congress, Michael “Ozzie” Myers, who was happy to stuff ballot boxes.
It wasn’t the south Philadelphia politician’s first brush with the law. The US House expelled him for bribes from FBI officials pretending to be Arab sheiks - the “Abscam scandal” and the subject of a terrific movie, “American Hustle.”
My Edgmont neighbors weren’t alone. Poll watchers and elections officials across the Keystone State and elsewhere made thousands of similar reports. This seemed especially prevalent in states that did poorly in keeping voter rolls updated. Pennsylvania notoriously is one such state. And they are hardly alone.
Voting early in person can minimize the possibility of that happening. Likewise, if there are any issues with your voter registration, those can be caught and corrected, too. And there’s another advantage - if something comes up at the last minute that keeps you away from the polls on election day, such as a health or family emergency, you’ve already cast your vote.
Kelly’s rule: the more times your ballot is handled, the higher probability that your ballot will be mishandled, mangled or lost, and your vote not counted.
This brings me to absentee voting by mail or via “dropbox.” Just don’t do it. It is the least safe way to cast a ballot and has long been discouraged by election experts for its potential for fraud and errors.
Just ask the Carter-Baker Election Commission in 2005. Assembled after the issues with Florida’s handling of the 2000 presidential election, former President Jimmy Carter (D-GA) and former Treasury Secretary James Baker (R-TX) led a commission that recommended 87 election process reforms. “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud,” encouraging in-person voting.
No kidding. In August 2020, New York Post reporter Jon Levine interviewed an anonymous New Jersey political operative who detailed how he committed voter fraud in several elections, primarily using absentee ballots.
The Carter-Baker report was ignored by a bevy of mostly Democratic election officials in several states, including Pennsylvania, during the pandemic year of 2020. State Rep. Seth Grove (R-PA) has expertly detailed the horrific handling of Pennsylvania’s elections that year by state officials, with a big assist from the Commonwealth’s highly partisan Democratic State Supreme Court. Pennsylvania was hardly alone.
While rare, some mail ballots never make it to their final destination. Warren Richey from the Christian Science Monitor in 2017 noted this:
Nationwide, roughly 24 percent of all votes in the 2016 presidential election were cast via absentee ballots. That’s 33 million votes, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission. But what many Americans don’t know is that nearly 400,000 of those ballots were never counted, having been disqualified for reasons ranging from invalid signatures to simply being late.
While 400,000 votes may not make a difference in a landslide, most elections don’t end in a landslide. For example, the 2000 presidential election was decided in Florida by 537 votes. In a close race every vote can make a difference. …
[A]bsentee ballots sent through the mail depend on the reliability of the US Postal Service. If absentee ballots are lost in the mail or delivered late, they won’t count.
But even if they are received on time, such ballots might be disqualified because the voter forgot to sign the mailing envelope or because officials determine that the voter’s signature wasn’t a close enough match to the signature on file in the voter registration database."
The National Vote at Home Institute asserts that “The Post Office actually is remarkably reliable. But that misses a key point. ... [I]n well-developed systems with ample secure 24 x 7 drop boxes and staffed vote centers, well over 50% of ballots are returned in person, not by mail. Well-developed VAH [vote-at-home] systems also use ballot tracking tools (think FedEx) so voters and elections officials can see in real-time where their ballot is: e.g., when it’s mailed out, received by the voter, on its way back, received, signature verified, and counted. Additionally, U.S. Postal Service now offers informed delivery, so voters have accountability regarding where their mail is in the process.”
It is also true that some states, including Utah, Colorado, and Oregon, have all instituted all-mail voting systems with varying degrees of success. But that requires careful management of the state’s voter rolls. That’s not always the case, including reports of dead people voting in Colorado. “Ballot harvesting” in California - illegal in 43 other states - exacerbates the potential for fraud and coercion.
How much mail, including ballots, does the US Postal Service (USPS) lose? There’s no way to know since if such mail could be tracked, it wouldn’t be lost. But the USPS does admit to an “undeliverable” rate of about 4.7 percent, and that was in 2010. Some Democrats, including retiring US Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chained himself to a USPS mailbox to protest “cuts” at the USPS and accuse Donald Trump of then trying to “steal the election.” How did that work out, exactly?
And then there are stories like this: “Postal Employee Admits Dumping Mail, Including Election Ballots Sent to West Orange Residents,” the headline of a new release from the US Department of Justice. “Discarded Mail-in Ballots Found Outside ATM in California,” reported Newsweek. “Mail carrier charged with tampering with vote-by-mail ballots” in West Virginia, reported the World Tribune. It didn’t seem to matter that there are still criminal penalties for mail tampering, unlike many ballot drop boxes.
While some states like Pennsylvania have instituted online ballot tracking, wouldn’t it be easier and safer to just vote in person, early or otherwise? Do you want to risk the mishandling or mangling of your ballot from your home on its potentially perilous journey? I’ve already had one ballot not counted because it arrived late, thanks to the USPS. I’ll not make that mistake again. Neither should you.
I’m not suggesting absentee balloting be abolished. If you believe in making it “easier to vote and harder to cheat,” a carefully regulated mail voting system is valuable to physically challenged voters unable to deliver their ballot in person. If you feel compelled to request an absentee ballot by mail, drop it off in person at your local election office.
But do your local political party and candidates a favor. Vote early, in person, if possible.