"In Kentucky, it's a pure [issue of] number[s]," Herron said. "We have had nearly 900,000 absentee ballots be requested [in 2020]. I think we had 600,000 or so [total statewide] votes in the 2016 primary election. The county clerks were not prepared for that many voters asking for those absentee ballots."
Kentucky's Herron, like Virginia's Shin, noted that higher turnout was positive. But Herron said that mail-in voters were also beset by other administrative snafus, including outreach efforts by state officials that didn't work.
"Another thing that happened in Kentucky is that the county clerkswe have 120 countieseach county clerk had their own process," she said. "The [Democratic] governor and [Republican] secretary of state created a single process, a website, that folks could go toanybody across the state [could] access [it]. The problem was they didn't get that website up until 30 days before the election" It's been too slow, and the system was clogged up."
"It sounds simple. 'Oh, we'll all just vote by mail,'" said New York's Lerner. "But actually, you have to have a well-thought-out infrastructure and, frankly, a lot of practice to really move this mountain."
Election officials often compare preparing for an election to a military operation, saying there are innumerable logistical details to plan, train for and execute.
"None of that took place," Lerner said, referring to New York's June 23 primary. "There wasn't time in the approximately six weeks that our boards of elections had to prepare for over 1.7 million absentee ballot requests. Remember, in 2016, in the primary, there were approximately 115,000 absentee ballots cast. So we've had a huge expansion without an infrastructure to make it as smooth as possible."
"The boards have been working really hard to get the ballots out the door," Lerner said, citing another reason why New York City's ballots were slow to be delivered.
"We had a very high number of lawsuits to determine who was going to be on the ballot, so the ballot wasn't even finalized until the middle of May," she said. "The printing couldn't even start, even though people had requested ballots by that time. It is a multifaceted, complicated system."
These issues have been seen in cities and states holding pandemic primaries.
"The discussion underscores the need for Congress to allocate proper federal funding for states to institute vote by mail effectively, and adequate federal funding for the United States Postal Service to help ensure that they will be able to carry the load that they will bear this election season," said Kristen Clarke, Lawyers' Committee executive director.
A Key Decision Point
But one issue that has not received wide attention is how voters are processed at polling places after they applied to vote from home, but, for various reasons, did not receive an absentee ballot or received it late, and decide to head to the polls. (States have uneven drop-off box protocols for absentee ballots; some counties have many sites, others have only a few, including on Election Day.)
The key decision point, which can be handled expeditiously or not, concerns how poll workers and county officials update their records so a voter is given a ballot. In some states, poll workers can quickly cancel the voter's mail-in ballot request using electronic pollbooks, allowing them to cast a regular ballot. But in other states, those voters must fill out paperwork or are given provisional ballots.
While there is no truth to Trump's repeated false claims about hordes voting many times over for Democrats, the pandemic primaries have shown there is confusion about handling voters who expected to vote by mail but ended up at Election Day polls. Often, this trend has compounded long lines and waits.
In Georgia's June 9 primary, for example, poll workers were required to ask these voters to wait while they called the county election board to receive permission to allow that person to cast a regular ballot. That voter also had to sign an affidavit declaring that they had not voted more than once. In Los Angeles County, in contrast, poll workers use the same electronic poll books as Georgia, but enter a few keystrokes to cancel the voters' absentee ballot request, log that person as an in-person voter, and then direct them to the nearest voting machine.
New York, as Lerner explained, has a different process, where, no matter what a voter previously didincluding mailing their filled-in ballot on Monday before Election Daythe voter is accommodated at the polls. County election officials later intercept and void their mailed-in ballot after it arrives.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
