Millions of ballots not counted!
See how easy that was? Please stop spreading misinformation about the election
Millions of ballots cast around the country are never counted, and votes during presidential elections are discarded at nearly double the rate of mid-term elections, research has shown. This ballot-rejection issue hits large and small states alike: In 2016, 4,481 votes were left uncounted in South Carolina; in 2018, some 180,000 ballots were uncounted in California. In all, nearly 3 million ballots were never counted between 2006 and 2016, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission says.
And if you’ve never complained about that, stop using ALL CAPS to tell friends you’ve heard about 100 mail-in ballot applications being spotted in a dumpster or there’s a few extra blank ballots sitting in your apartment complex mailroom. At least read the entire story before you blast it out to all your friends.
Here’s a few examples of the rubbish that sudden election experts have sent me in recent weeks.
“Pennslyvania has rejected almost 400,000 mail-in ballots.” NOPE. These were ballot REQUESTS, not ballots. The vast majority were the result of duplicate requests that had been (smartly!) culled, and voters are getting their ballots. This is a headache for election officials, but no problem for voters.
And for the record, rejecting a completed BALLOT is a far bigger deal than rejecting a ballot request. Voters can make another request, or try voting in person on election day, or request a provisional ballot (we’ll get to those).
“200 pounds of ballots throw in the trash!” NOPE. It was 200 pounds of MAIL, but only a couple hundred blank ballots.
“(Carrier) arrested for throwing out 1,800 ballots.” NOPE. It was 1,800 pieces of mail, but only 99 blank ballots.
“Postal worker fired after dumping 100 absentee ballots.” This one is accurate (though again, these were blank ballots, not actual votes). And the carrier might face federal prosecution. Good!
It goes on like this. There were the discarded Trump ballots in California (the viral image in the post was actually from 2018). There were those nine….er seven…discarded Trump votes in Pennslyvania.
I was called a lot of names recently on Twitter when I pointed out that spare blank ballots aren’t much of a problem — fraudulently filed-out, verified, and counted ballots is the problem. I hadn’t seen such language since I was named the Daring Fireball Jackass of the Week for daring to criticize Apple over the premature death of iPhone batteries. (I feel pretty good about that one.)
I hope you get the picture. Even Fox News will tell you that all the attention on mail-in vote problems is misplaced.
Mind you, there are problems with mail-in ballots. I explained them in detail here. But all these headlines designed to wildly exaggerate the issues and discredit the election need to be seen for what they are: at best, misinformation unwittingly propagated by people who aren’t taking the time to read the stories they are sharing.
To show you how easy this is, I began this piece with a bigger problem: Rejected provisional ballots. If a voter shows up at a polling place on election day and there’s a problem — perhaps their registration record is wrong, or they go to the wrong location, or there is a signature mismatch — the Help American Vote Act requires that this potential voter be allowed to fill out a provisional ballot. That gives election authorities time to figure out what’s wrong. This happens a lot. Nearly 2 percent — TWO PERCENT! — of the ballots cast for president in recent elections were provisional. And about one-third of those were rejected or otherwise not counted. Since 2006 we’re talking about 2.7 million votes! Actual votes, not blank ballots! Forget 300 pounds of mail, this is the real scandal!
Or, maybe it’s not. After all, two-thirds of those provisional ballots WERE counted. There was a process for deciding which to count and which to discard. Was it political? Perhaps. Was it a scandal? No. I’m guessing most of you have never heard of provisional ballots. But if you are worried about a dozen empty ballots in your mailroom, you should really worry about millions of uncounted votes that were actually cast.
My point is: Counting votes is hard. America is very bad at it. We need to do better. That begins with you. Don’t repeat every salacious claim you here. Take a moment to read the stories you are sharing, even if you badly want them to be true. And consider this: While it is terrible that empty ballots are being stolen from mailboxes or thrown in rivers (left on the side of a road, actually), there is a bright side to this: Two weeks before election day, voters who are missing ballots or have trouble with their mismatched signatures have plenty of time “cure” the problem. In years past, many of these issues would have only been discovered on election day, when voters showed up at the polls. They would have ended up filling out a provisional ballot, and odds would be lower that their vote would actually be counted.
So, things are far from perfect. There will be problems. Make sure your vote counts (most mail-in states make it easy to track your ballot). Help the process by not spreading misinformation. And if you really, genuinely care about the legitimacy of our democracy, pay attention to every story you see about long election lines — and who you see in those lines. During a pandemic. This is the real scandal.