The DNC has sued several swing states seeking uniform signature matching standards. But, honestly, even if they win those suits, it's just like everything else that's new and unfamiliar to those using them. It will take time to learn and to be uniformly applied. If it's close in the fall, winners won't be known in big states for weeks. There will be almost no audits or independent verification or double-checking.
JB: What can we learn from states that have relied heavily on mail-in voting in the past, like Oregon and Washington? Is their experience at all applicable now?
SR: Their experience is applicable in some ways and in others not. Those states know how to do voting from home. But they've taken years, not months, to get it right. The states that seem to benefit the most from the lessons and models of Oregon and Washington are states already doing growing amounts of voting from home: such as California, Arizona, Montana, Idaho. In Florida, which has a higher percentage of mail-in voters than most states east of the Mississippi River--roughly 25 percent in 2018--the supervisors of elections issued a statement saying that they could not fully transition to absentee voting for the fall. This is a state where election officials know what is involved, as opposed to learning on the fly, which is what many of them have been doing in the pandemic.
JB: That's unnerving. We haven't even touched on all the problems inherent in voting by mail yet. I'm thinking chain of custody, for one. Would you care to talk about that a bit?
SR: Well, what you are talking about is the sequence of steps that occur when mail-in ballots arrive at county election offices. Typically, these ballots are segregated and processed separately. To start, the identifying info on the envelopes is vetted. Once that hurdle is cleared, the envelope is opened and the ballot taken out (in a ballot secrecy sleeve). All of this can be pretty old school. Another cadre of poll workers sitting at desks with multiple sets of eyes on the paper. But, in growing numbers of locations, the process is being automated by computers.
Beyond the ballot envelope vetting, then, typically, the ballots are counted by a high-speed scanner. This is not what you see in the precincts. Here, there are variations such as whether ballots are scanned in batches by precinct or batches mixing the entire jurisdiction. In Los Angeles, everything is done by large batches--not by the precinct. That approach concerns activists who want to verify local results, but cannot trace local counting problems. If millions of ballots are tossed into a giant blender, so to speak, it masks more local mistakes. That gets into what are called chain of custody issues: where tabulating the results is not as precise of an accounting process as one might like. But most voters never see this part of the process.
JB: It also makes calling for and bringing about any kind of meaningful recount or audit practically impossible. Well, COVID has certainly made our elections even more challenging. Can you offer some constructive suggestions to voters to assure that their ballots are counted? That would be most welcome.
SR: The only thing I can suggest is voters must make a plan to vote this fall--or do the same in the remaining primaries and runoff as trial runs. This is controlling the part of the process that is in their hands. What does that mean? Be registered. Check your registration info online with your county election office. Don't rely on middlemen or advocacy groups to do it for you--you don't want to have a problem and then be told by an election official, 'I didn't hear from you.' When checking your registration information, look at how you signed your name. All of this info is what's used to send you an absentee ballot and verify it. Once you're registered, and your information is correct, apply for an absentee ballot. We have no idea if COVID will emerge come fall.
Then, have a plan to get your ballot returned on time. In some states and regions, that means dropping it off at a county office building and not relying on the U.S. Postal Service. We have heard all kinds of things about how fast mail delivery should be. Take direct action. If you can, or are well enough, make sure the people counting your ballot will get it on time. Everything else really is beyond the ability of ordinary people to affect. Yes, you could start attending your county board of election meetings to let those folks know that you, as a citizen, are now watching them. You could even talk to them, hear their worries, and ask how to help out.
But, mostly, have the intention and a plan to vote this fall.
JB: Thanks so much for talking with me again, Steve. I hope we can follow up on this ever-evolving saga soon.
SR: Thank you. Me too. Thanks for the opportunity.
***
Rosenfeld's latest pieces:
https://independentmediainstitute.org/articles-archive/?project=project-voting-booth
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