Vote-By-Mail In 2020: 5 Things To Know

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted more states to embrace mail-in voting as a way to keep large crowds from gathering at polling places.

President Donald Trump and other Republicans, though, have repeatedly spoken against the practice, suggesting the process has a high risk of fraud, despite studies suggesting otherwise.

Trump said in an interview Friday with Politico that the growing use of mail-in ballots is the "biggest risk" to his re-election, and his chances may hinge on whether he can successfully block efforts to make voting by mail easier during the pandemic.

On Monday, he warned of massive fraud from foreign countries.

Here are five things to know about the mail-in voting process, and a few of the challenges it presents.

1. Defining Mail-In Voting

The terms "mail-in voting," "mail voting," "voting by mail," and "absentee voting" are all names for a wide range of policies aimed at offering more flexibility to voters who either prefer or need to cast a vote in a location other than a polling place.

In 2020, all states allow at least a portion of voters to vote by mail, but policies on who may do so vary widely depending on where you are in the country.

Voting by mail is by no means a new process in the United States.

The practice first took place during the Civil War, when both Union and Confederate soldiers were allowed to complete ballots from the battlefield, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Election Data Science Lab.

It was not until 1980, however, that California became the first state to allow eligible voters to request absentee ballots for "any reason at all," according to the MIT lab.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, 16 states still required an "excuse" to cast an absentee ballot, but the majority of them have eased those restrictions in past months, according to the nonprofit Open Source Election Technology Institute.

2. States Already Made Changes To Mail-In Voting In 2020

Many states, including those with Republican leaders, have already made changes to make it easier for voters to gain access to mail-in ballots.

Wisconsin, a state that swung Trump's way in 2016, decided last week to send absentee ballot requests to nearly all voters before November's elections, a step already taken by Michigan, another swing state.

More than half of the U.S. states — 27 — already provided "no excuse" absentee by-mail voting before the pandemic, according to Open Source Election Technology Institute. Many more states have eased restrictions in 2020 on access to mail-in voting due to anxieties related to the coronavirus.

Additionally, five states already conducted their elections entirely by mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Primary elections have also seen a surge in mail-in voting during the most recent contests, including in Maryland and Georgia.

3. What Americans Think About Mail-In Voting

Voting by mail was already on the increase before the coronavirus created an added emphasis to consider it.

About 25 percent of all voters cast their vote by mail in the 2018 midterms, which is more than double the rate of mail voting from 20 years ago, according to the National Conference Of State Legislatures.

An April poll by the Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of Americans think all voters who want to vote by mail should be able to do so.

Democrats overwhelmingly favor allowing all voters to vote by mail if they want to, 87 percent, including 63 percent who strongly favor the measure, according to the Pew Center poll. On the other hand, 49 percent of Republicans support allowing universal voting by mail, whereas 50 percent oppose it.

4. The Facts On Fraud

Trump has made his opinion on mail-in ballots very clear in the buildup to the 2020 general election.

"Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history — unless this stupidity is ended," Trump tweeted Monday morning.

What does the data say about the frequency of voters sending in fraudulent ballots?

A recent analysis from the Washington Post, conducted with the nonprofit Electronic Registration Center, found that officials identified 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of a dead person out of around 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections.

Additionally, in the more than 250 million ballots that have been cast nationwide over the past 20 years, just 143 criminal convictions for election fraud have taken place, according to Amber McReynolds, the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, and Charles Stewart, the director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

That figure averages out to one case per state every six or seven years.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has studied voter fraud for years, recently published an article called: "Database Swells To 1,285 Proven Cases Of Voter Fraud In America." In the article, the think tank argues that there is serious voter fraud in the United States.

However, the Brookings Institute, a liberal-leaning research group, examined the data used by the Heritage Foundation and came to a much different conclusion:

Colorado

Total cases of voter fraud in Heritage sample: 14

Total cases of duplicate voting or absentee ballot fraud in Heritage sample: 8

Number of fraudulent votes attempted by mail: 8

Time period for collection of fraud cases: 2005-2018

Year vote-by-mail enacted: 2013

Number of general election votes cast over the same period: 15,955,704

Hawaii

Total cases of voter fraud in Heritage sample: 2

Total cases of duplicate voting or absentee ballot fraud in Heritage sample: 0

Number of fraudulent votes attempted by mail: 0

Time period for collection of fraud cases: 1982-2016

Year vote-by-mail enacted: 2019

Number of general election votes cast over the same period: 6,908,429

Oregon

Total cases of voter fraud in Heritage sample: 15

Total cases of duplicate voting or absentee ballot fraud in Heritage sample: 9

Number of fraudulent votes attempted by mail: 14

Time period for collection of fraud cases: 2000-2019

Year vote-by-mail enacted: 1998

Number of general election votes cast over the same period: 15,476,519

Utah

Total cases of voter fraud in Heritage sample: 1

Total cases of duplicate voting or absentee ballot fraud in Heritage sample: 0

Number of fraudulent votes attempted by mail: 0

Time period for collection of fraud cases: 2008

Year vote-by-mail enacted: 2013

Number of general election votes cast over the same period: 971,185

Washington

Total cases of voter fraud in Heritage sample: 12

Total cases of duplicate voting or absentee ballot fraud in Heritage sample: 7

Number of fraudulent votes attempted by mail: 7

Time period for collection of fraud cases: 2004-2010

Year vote-by-mail enacted: 2005

Number of general election votes cast over the same period: 10,605,749

"Our conclusion, from Heritage's data: There is surprisingly little voter fraud and not nearly enough to justify blocking vote-by-mail systems in a pandemic," writes the Brookings Institution.

5. How States Handled Increased Mail-In Ballots

The increase in requested mail-in ballots hasn't come without its problems.

According to officials in Maryland, where all registered voters were automatically supposed to get ballots in the mail for the state's June 2 primary, about 160,000 ballots — approximately 5 percent of the total sent out — were not delivered.

To give perspective on 160,000 people within a state missing out on the chance to vote, Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes.

In Georgia's recent chaotic primary, Fulton County Commissioner Liz Hausmann told CNN that election officials processed ballot applications submitted by email last, claiming that 8,000 of those applications were "lost."

Stacey Abrams, a former candidate for Georgia governor, said she also experienced an issue with her mail-in ballot.

"Although I applied for it fairly early in the process, when it finally arrived, the return envelope was sealed," Abrams told CBS News. "I tried to steam it open because I watched a lot of 'Perry Mason.' It didn't work. And so I had to go vote in person."

It is not the fraud that Trump continues to associate with the mail-in voting process, but rather the speed at which states are being forced to increase their absentee voting capacity, that is painting a picture of potential problems in November.