Sorry Donald…
Most state now have mail-in ballot voting access…
…..most states — and almost all those that actually made an effort to do so — were wildly successful at getting people to vote by mail (or at least vote before election day). In 24 out of 35 states for which we have this data, a majority of ballots were cast absentee.2 In addition, every state but one3made more use of absentee ballots than it did in the equivalent election in 2016.4 Considering what a massive logistical undertaking it is to switch to a predominantly mail election, this is an impressive achievement by election officials….
…
It’s plausible that these states’ embrace of mail voting helped expand the electorate; all of them either mailed ballots or sent absentee-ballot applications to voters. In addition, Kansas also saw turnout spike after the Kansas Democratic Party, spurred in part by the coronavirus, switched from a caucus in 2016 to an all-mail primary in 2020 (caucuses are notorious for their low turnout).
There’s an important caveat here, though: Just because the coronavirus did not lower turnout overall does not mean it didn’t disenfranchise individual voters. We know that at least some voters were unable to vote because of the pandemic. Indeed, the primaries conducted during the pandemic have been far from the smooth sailing suggested above. Instead, an unusual number of problems have occurred — some serious enough that they have made it harder for people to vote and even put them at a heightened risk for infection.
Two specific problems have come up again and again. At least 16 jurisdictions5 saw long lines at polling places, which had often been consolidated due to a shortage of poll workers. The unluckiest voters in Milwaukee waited two and a half hours to vote; in Washington, D.C., five; in Las Vegas, seven.
And some voters in at least 12 places6 reported never receiving the absentee ballots they had requested — sometimes weeks in advance. In some states not used to a heavy volume of mail voting, understaffed election offices were receiving ballot requests faster than they could respond to them. In six Ohio counties, about 4,500 people who requested an absentee ballot were not sent one because their request lacked essential information. In one Pennsylvania county, officials simply ran out of time to fulfill 400 ballot requests and sent out 6,000 ballots the day before the primary, when they had little chance of being received in time to be voted. In Maryland, 1 million ballots were delivered either late or not at all….
Politico
Voters will begin receiving ballots in key swing states as early as next month. In North Carolina, elections officials will start sending ballots to voters on Sept. 4. Four more battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Minnesota — will begin mailing ballots or start early voting by the end of September.
All of that will happen before the first presidential debate, on Sept. 29. Arizona, Ohio and Iowa will start early voting right after, in the first seven days of October.
“If I were running the Trump campaign, I would want to see a marked uptick by the beginning of October,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based Republican strategist.
Trump has now endorsed Mail in Voting for Florida. They basically have to disregard everything he has been saying about it. He Tweeted it is perfectly fine there.
Someone in Florida must have had a talk with him. The last thing they would want is not have their voters use Mail In Voting.
Eventually he’s going to say that voting by mail is fine unless you live in a city and/or are not white.
And considering Republicans want nothing more than to see those people not vote they will tacitly agree
It IS OBVIOUS that the big guy isn’t gonna stop talking no
matter how much it hurts his numbers…
Postal Service Hikes Rates to Mail Ballots
American Prospect: “The Postal Service has informed states that they’ll need to pay first-class 55-cent postage to mail ballots to voters, rather than the normal 20-cent bulk rate. That nearly triples the per-ballot cost at a time when tens of millions more will be delivered. The rate change would have to go through the Postal Regulatory Commission and, undoubtedly, litigation. But the time frame for that is incredibly short, as ballots go out very soon.”
Little by little Trump just loses it….
Chris Cillizza Retweeted
Reid Wilson
@PoliticsReid
North Carolina absentee ballot requests by party:
Dems: 337k
Repubs: 103k
Unaffiliated: 200k
…from the Hill piece….
More than a half-million absentee ballots have already left elections offices en route to voters who have requested them, a spokesman for the North Carolina Board of Elections said.
More than 643,000 North Carolinians have requested ballots so far this year, and hundreds of thousands more are likely to do so in the 60 days remaining before November’s elections.
That figure far exceeds the previous presidential contest: At this point in 2016, just 38,871 voters had asked for their absentee ballots.
State data shows Democratic voters are requesting ballots at more than three times the rate of Republican voters. Just over 337,000 registered Democrats have requested a ballot, compared with about 103,000 Republicans. Another 200,000 voters who are unaffiliated with either party have asked for mail-in ballots.