Election Day every 4 years has always been a mixed blessing for me. Long lines to do my civic duty. I remember living in a racially integrated Maryland neighborhood during the Obama elections (Cummings was my Congressman). I already knew Obama, who I didn't support, was going to win; still, I was inspired by the long lines of people of color, many bringing their small children to share in those historic moments.
It's been a weird year with somehow my private cellphone getting texted by a GOP House candidate in Charleston, SC and a struggling incumbent GOP senator from Arizona. As a nominal Republican I had already left the GOP while in SC in the spring of 2016 with Trump's hostile takeover. I had moved to Arizona shortly thereafter as a registered Libertarian. I'm not sure how the campaigns got my phone number. I'm particularly unhappy with McSally who has been too Trumpkin for my tastes. I haven't been in either state for 3 years. I would likely still vote for either if they were on my ballot (although I would consider LP challengers).
Trump seems to be taking every step he can to suppress the vote, which is intrinsically immoral, corrupt and self-serving. Given the pandemic, there's uncertainty over in-person voting. For example, Maryland reports a possible shortfall of several thousand election judges statewide. Now, personally, I don't regard polling places as any riskier than grocery stores. And let's freely admit alternative voting schemes, like Vote By Mail, do not have the integrity controls over chain of custody of ballots. And to : be honest, voter rolls are notoriously inaccurate: duplicate registrations, obsolete registrations (relocated voters), ineligible voters (e.g., deceased), unregistered voters, etc. From 2014, I made 4 interstate moves. I think I got one notice, from Arizona, some time after I moved. (Obviously they learned from USPS or some other source my new mailing address. I had assumed when I register to vote at my new address, my former state/local registration was canceled; quite often, I just register to vote when I go to DMV/MVA to register for a replacement license/car registration on relocation. Maybe not. I've never tried to vote twice in an election. I know I would carefully scrutinize out-of -state voters, especially if I were in a residential college community.)
I don't want to fear-monger about the USPS, but to give an example, I continue to occasionally get mail for prior apartment residents, even legal summons, years into my own lease and it's not uncommon to get mail intended for a neighbor. What if the family gets a deceased relative's mail? Not to mention the USPS notorious "lost mail" issue? How do I become aware that my ballot is lost vs delayed in the mail? Is there a way to void the missing ballot? Not to get paranoid here, but suppose the letter carrier is a Biden supporter, and he knows you've bought MAGA caps. Maybe you never see your ballot, which is not to say it's not used by somebody, say a Biden supporter. Not to mention issues in returning your ballot; paper ballots, e.g., can be damaged in mishandling or deliberately rendered unusable--or delayed until the election deadline passed.
Trump has knowingly fear-mongered the risks associated of Vote By Mail schemes. Being intellectually lazy, he really hasn't fleshed out the risks but merely asserted corruption. Major fact checkers have basically argue that Trump hasn't provided compelling evidence for his assertions; let's be clear: the country has only had limited experience with comprehensive vote by mail; and this is beyond our generally small-scale exposure to absentee ballots. There are ways to crosscheck absentee ballots for vetted applications (note that progressive trolls have accused Trump of hypocrisy for requesting absentee ballots from Florida), but how scalable are related controls, especially in the rush preceding election day? The point is, if voting by mail was a good idea, we would have implemented it decades ago. We really need to implement an IT solution (perhaps with voter smartcards) but as I pointed out in a recent post there is a major issue involving device security among other things.
Trump has consistently opposed Vote By Mail, and there has been speculation that recent decommissioning of mail sorters is intended to sabotage Vote By Mail efforts. Let's be clear: the USPS processes over 180 M pieces of mail a day, and Clinton/Trump votes in 2016 amounted to 130 M votes. The USPS can easily accommodate the volume. The USPS is seeing decreasing volumes of its cash cow first-class mail business and is working on expanding its more profitable packaging business. It also looks like Trump is inclined against signing USPS bailout money, which Obama calls "kneecapping the USPS". Now personally I oppose bailouts in concept and have long called for privatization of the USPS; but any attempt for Trump to abuse his veto power for self-serving purposes like trying to suppress voting is unconstitutional, even though technically he has the constitutional right to veto. I do think politically Trump will pay a price for anything looking like he's trying to manipulate the election.
Trump has been arguing fraud from the get-go. Among other things is his bogus claim that ineligible undocumented resident votes kept him from winning a vote plurality in the 2016 election. So here he's trying to set up a disingenuous pretext for rejecting the election results in just over two months.
So in a recent post, I noted there was no need to depend on the USPS for delivery at ballots. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to hand-deliver ballots at a local elections office or a ballot drop box. My local Walmart not only sells postage stamps, it has a USPS mail receptacle in front of the complex. On Twitter the other day, I noticed that Trump was even protesting Pennsylvania ballot drop boxes. This won't go anywhere; states, not the federal government, run elections.
I had started this essay the night that Trump delivered his nomination acceptance speech from the White House. In my mail Thursday was a 2-page letter of voting information from Maryland on the upcoming general election. I think Gov. Hogan ensured in-person voting election day is an option, including early voting centers. Voting by mail is an option; you can have your ballot mailed, you or a surrogate (with an agent form) can pick it up or you can print the ballot via the Internet (they explain this is a slower tabulation option). You can mail the ballot back, drop it off at a designated drop box, or hand-deliver it to your local election office.
The one question I had was when I registered to vote by mail, when could I expect my ballot (choosing mail delivery of the ballot)? The MD AG implied 3 weeks before the election, but Maryland had announced they would start tabulating (but not releasing results) as early as Oct. 1. So I got an email from Maryland this morning acknowledging my application, saying it should arrive between 30-45 days before election day.
So chances are, I'll cast one of the first votes in the nation for Jo Jorgensen. And I'll probably trust the USPS to deliver my ballot as a symbolic middle finger to Trump.
