The President of the United States has been working hard recently to propagate the notion that mail-in ballots lead to “rigged elections”, this couldn’t be further from the truth and Colorado proves it.
A weak line of reasoning predicated on the assumption that “thousands of dead people” are going to be voting, or that the postal service will not be able to handle the volume of hundreds of millions of voters casting their ballots over the course of the next few weeks.
This, in fact, could not be further from the truth and my current home state of Colorado proves that notion to be nothing but a load of nonsense.
In the nearly ten years of living in Colorado, I have only had to cast my ballot in person once, in 2012 when mail-in ballots had yet to be officially adopted. Ever since then, it has been a simple matter of waiting for your ballot to show up in the mail, filing it out, and sending it back in a timely manner. Or if you’re like me and procrastinate until the day of, dropping it off at a polling location in a dropbox. Usually even dropping it off at a polling station takes minutes and is so convenient that it is hard to make excuses to not vote.
Studies show repeatedly that mail-in ballots yield a higher turnout— in 2018 alone, Colorado had the second-highest turnout rate in the country. And it hasn’t just increased turnout for one political party or another. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the increased turnout in 2014 for both parties was almost identical. Independent voter participation, however, increased the most. That year, Republican Cory Gardner unseated then-U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, and Republicans won three of four other state seats.
As a resident in Colorado, it feels as if we are living in the twilight zone in regards to mail-in voting. In Colorado, mail-in voting is not, and has never been politicized. As a concept, it has historically enjoyed bipartisan support. In a state where a fair amount of voters also live in the mountains, making a simple “trip to the polling place” not so simple down dirt roads, and sometimes in impassable conditions during a snowy season. Mail-in ballots have become less of a luxury and more of an expectation from our government to make sure we all have a voice.
Recently, the New York Times found that voter turnout increased across the board when incorporating mail-in ballots, and specific groups plagued by low voter turnout stand to benefit the most from mail-in voting— young people, BIPOC, and blue-collar voters, in particular, saw the biggest increases.
The second and even more ludicrous argument against mail-in ballots always hinges on “voter fraud” and as every late-night host and political commentator with a brain will tell you —it is a non-issue.
Take for example this Gem:
It’s sometimes hard to articulate how colossally idiotic this point is in 2020, especially from the view of anyone who has lived in Colorado or any other vote-by-mail state during an election. Since we have the commander and chief tweeting out straight-up lies, it bears repeating that a recent Washington Post analysis of data collected by three vote-by-mail states with help from the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) found that officials identified just 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people out of about 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, or 0.0025 percent.
The last, and by far most sneaky argument against mail-in ballots is that “the post office just can’t handle all those letters!”
OK — currently, in its underfunded and frankly kneecapped state, the post office still handles 472.1 million mail pieces each day. That’s 144 million MORE than it would need to handle if literally EVERYONE voted in this country (which, let’s face it, is never going to happen). Currently, there are 158 million registered voters in the US, since it takes two pieces of mail to vote, that’s a hypothetical 316 million pieces of mail. Seems like a big number to be adding to the system, but when you compare it to the Christmas season where USPS processes nearly HALF a BILLION packages, cards, and letters, the argument for a limited surge capacity flies straight out the window.
Even Louis Dejoy, the very same man who has been strategically trying to undermine the very institution he heads, has confirmed that despite his meddling the USPS has the capacity to handle a mail-in election.
With 5.5 million cases of COVID-19 in this country and a thousand deaths a day, we cannot afford to send millions of people to in-person polling locations. Earlier this year we witnessed what it was like for Wisconsin to give in-person voting a try during a pandemic and it led to rampant voter suppression through limited polling locations. According to a paper out of The University of Wisconsin and Ball State University, after the fact it was found that there was a “statistically and economically significant association” between in-person voting and the spread of Covid-19 weeks after the election.
At its core, this whole long-winded ‘debate’ is about our democratic values. The best way to maximize democratic participation is to expand systems like mail-in voting and automatic voter registration. It is laughable that Republican politicians would oppose mail-in voting if they have any interest in maintaining the freedom that they so desperately seem to hold over the heads of their constituents. Remember the groups that stand to benefit the most from mail-in voting? The poor and blue-collar workers of the country are amongst them. Studies have shown that mail-in voting helps Republicans as well. An April poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans supported giving all voters mail-in ballots in the 2020 general election.
We have had it in Colorado for years now, multiple elections cycles, with practically zero fraud. I can’t say that every state should copy our model directly, every state is going to have its own needs. However, as a floor to build a more inclusive and democratic system that helps everyone, Democrats and Republicans, this is a clear, bipartisan win.