More than 500,000 mail ballots were rejected in the primaries. That could make the difference in bat

[RandySF]

More than 534,000 mail ballots were rejected during primaries across 23 states this year — nearly a quarter in key battlegrounds for the fall — illustrating how missed delivery deadlines, inadvertent mistakes and uneven enforcement of the rules could disenfranchise voters and affect the outcome of the presidential election.

The rates of rejection, which in some states exceeded those of other recent elections, could make a difference in the fall if the White House contest is decided by a close margin, as it was in 2016, when Donald Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by roughly 80,000 votes.

This year, according to a tally by The Washington Post, election officials in those three states tossed out more than 60,480 ballots just during primaries, which saw significantly lower voter turnout than what is expected in the general election. The rejection figures include ballots that arrived too late to be counted or were invalidated for another reason, including voter error.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rejected-mail-ballots/2020/08/23/397fbe92-db3d-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html

[Gothmog]

1. Historically the rejection rate for mailed in ballots used to be 1%

We are litigating the issue of signature mismatched in Texas with the case scheduled to go trial in September. In Florida and Georgia, Marc Elias as sued and has obtained judgements where the state has to notify the voter of a rejected ballot and give the voter the opportunity to cure. We had 200+ ballots rejected in my county in 2018 due to signature mismatch was very high.

Historically there is a one percent rejection rate https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/21/heres-problem-with-mail-in-ballots-they-might-not-be-counted/

According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, of the more than 140 million votes cast in the 2016 general election, 23.7 percent were via mail. Of the roughly 33.2 million mail ballots that election administrators received and tabulated, approximately 1 percent weren’t counted. Reasons for rejection include “the signature on the ballot not matching the signature on the state’s records,” “the ballot not having a signature,” a “problem with return envelope,” or “missing the deadline.” By contrast, a third fewer ballots cast in person were rejected in 2016.

Even in states where voters have had several years’ experience in voting by mail, such as in Washington, Oregon and Colorado, mail ballots get rejected. In the 2016 election, 0.81 percent of Colorado’s mail ballots were rejected; in Oregon, 0.86 percent; and in Washington, 0.90 percent. And that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of ballots mailed to voters that were returned as undeliverable.

I may vote curbside

[KentuckyWoman]

2. There needs to be an absolute blitz in each state regarding how to vote and

how to be sure it arrives in time to be counted.

Not only that but how to find out where your polling place is, early voting - dates etc. What to do if you need help. I'm thinking of infomercials like the old Schoolhouse Rock spots.

If I had the money, that's where I'd spend it.

[ecstatic]

3. This worries me. Nt

[dameatball]

4. Signature matching is an iffy proposition. Many people have sigs that are not consistent.