The Case For Voting By Mail Just Became Clearer

A report by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission indicates that less than one-third of voters in last year's Presidential election, which the former guy lost by a substantial margin, cast their ballots at polling places on Election Day. With the pandemic surging at that time, most voters chose to vote early or to vote by absentee ballot / by mail, despite continuous efforts by neo-fascist demagogue Donald "Loser" Trump and his stooges to undermine voting by mail. From the AP report:

"Roughly a quarter of all voters used a mailed ballot during the 2016 and 2018 elections, but that jumped to more than 43% in 2020, according to the report, which is based on responses submitted by state and local election officials. Remaining voters were split about evenly between casting their ballots at a polling place on Election Day or during early voting before Nov. 3. [snip]

A major concern of voting experts was that a significant increase in mailed ballots would result in more of those ballots being rejected. They worried that an increase in the rate of rejections seen in some primary elections, held as the virus outbreak was worsening, would carry over to November. But that didn’t happen."

Sinister Trumpist Postmaster General (still??) Louis DeJoy set about aiding Trump by removing mailboxes in areas predominantly serving communities that vote Democratic, cutting employee hours, and dismantled high-speed sorting machines in Postal Service facilities around the country the summer before the elections. With the aid of Federal judges, the Postal Service was mostly able to recover before the election.

Where DeJoy failed, Trumpists at the State level now are creating obstacles to voting by mail, particularly in swing states that the former guy lost (AP report):

"It’s unclear whether the high percentage of voters casting mailed ballots will continue in future elections, in part because the expansion of mail balloting was temporary in a number of states.

Republican lawmakers and governors in a number of states also have implemented new restrictions. Georgia has new ID requirements for requesting mailed ballots, and Arizona and Florida will now force voters to repeatedly request mailed ballots instead of remaining on a list of permanent absentee voters." (our emphasis)

Trumpist Republicans won't stop trying to suppress the votes against them, selecting who votes rather than the other way around. Voting by mail is another fight that needs to be fought for elections going forward.

(photo: Jason Redmond / Reuters)