Statement · October 14, 2020
Five Keys to a Smooth Election Night
How to minimize rejected mail-in ballots and stop premature declarations of victory: five recommendations for voters, election officials, the media, and candidates.
How to minimize rejected mail-in ballots and stop premature declarations of victory
The experience in states that have broadly implemented mail-in voting, including Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Utah, has shown that it works and is significantly free of fraud.
Despite repeated false attacks by President Trump and his allies, independent analyses from the Brennan Center for Justice and the Bipartisan Policy Center have confirmed that voting fraud – already extremely rare in the United States – is even rarer with mail-in voting.
Since the pandemic began, legislators and election officials across the country have scrambled to increase mail-in voting options to help residents vote safely during the pandemic.
It can be challenging to implement a massive change to election systems in a short period of time with resource constraints. But there are clear lessons learned that can make Election Night a lot smoother - no matter the winner.
To help with the first nationwide effort to implement vote-by-mail, the Voter Protection Corps has developed several recommendations to help voters, election officials and the media ensure that voting can be free and fair.
Voters should vote as soon as possible when they receive their mail-in ballots. Congress allocated only $400 million of the estimated $4 billion states need to ensure free and fair elections in a global pandemic. As a result, state and local officials have been forced to quickly implement voting system changes with insufficient resources, while the President and Postmaster execute cynical attempts to slow down the mail system to suppress votes. The good news is that the USPS is fully capable of handling the additional demands. In fact, the volume of mail-in voting in a national election is much less than the volume of December holiday mail. To be safe and to reduce the strain on local officials, voters should leave ample time for their votes to be received and vote as early as possible in their state.
Election officials should make every effort to honor the intent of the voter. Too many states are rejecting too many ballots, running the real risk of disenfranchising votes. Typically, less than 1 percent of ballots are rejected due to errors by the voter or other mistakes. But in New York’s primary this summer, almost 20% of ballots were rejected for failing to meet minor procedural requirements. And in Pennsylvania this fall, election officials are rejecting “naked” ballots that are placed in a single envelope rather than first into a security envelope then into a second envelope. Election officials should follow a common sense standard and use their discretion to honor the will of the voter, not let minor procedural defects get in the way of voting. And they shouldn’t act as amateur signature experts.
When absentee or mail-in ballots are rejected for procedural defects, “chase” the voters to help them fix it. Throughout the country, there are excellent programs that seek to inform voters when their ballots have been rejected for procedural flaws and explain how they can fix them so that their votes can count. Election officials, states, and both partisan and nonpartisan actors should redouble efforts to contact voters who need to fix procedural errors via phone, email, and physical mail. This is a great strategy for helping eligible voters vote.
Counting mail-in ballots will obviously take more time than usual. The media should not declare a winner of the election until all the ballots are counted and remind the public to be patient. President Trump seems to be laying the groundwork to dispute the election if it does not go his way, preparing to attack the legitimacy of mail-in ballots received after Election Day if in-person voting favors him in key states. Because so many mail-in ballots will be counted after Nov. 3 and because Vice President Biden’s voters are much more likely to vote by mail , it is possible the known results by the end of the night may skew toward Trump. Since many states will allow ballots postmarked by Election Day to count (meaning they won’t be tabulated for hours or days after Election Day), the results could shift in Biden’s direction slowly over the course of several days. The media and public shouldn’t be fooled if this “red mirage” develops and should not declare a winner if millions of ballots need to be processed and counted. Broadcasters and the Associated Press have enormous power to shape the election narrative. They must do so responsibly. This is especially important for Fox News , which will likely receive intense pressure to declare a premature victory for Trump.
We should be skeptical if Trump tries to declare victory before all the votes are counted. To reduce the likelihood of an authoritarian power grab, we must change how we think about election night. Gone are the early state calls and clear sense of knowing the winner when we go to bed. Students of history know this happened in 2000 and 1960 and could well happen in 2020. There is growing fear Trump and his allies may declare victory on Election Day and attack the legitimacy of validly-cast votes received and counted afterwards. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has even filed a blatantly unconstitutional bill requiring states to count and report all ballots within 24 hours after polls close on Election Day. With Attorney General William Barr acting more like an agent of the Trump campaign than the nation’s top legal official, and federal courts stacked with Trump appointees, the president may hope the legal system will look favorably on his dubious legal arguments about mail-in ballots received after Election Day. We must insist that neither candidate declares victory before all validly-cast ballots – including mail-in ballots – have been counted.