Postal voting

In Georgia, he found requests for mail ballots are down 40 percent, while in-person voting is, quote, through the roof.

In Wisconsin, McDonald's says mail voting is down compared with four years ago, but early in-person voting jumped the first day it was open.

Nationally, more than 15 million people have already cast their votes, including more than 5.6 million at in-person locations and about 9.7 million by mail, which includes drop boxes, according to McDonald's tallies.

Want to bring in our political panel to end the week.

We have early voting, which is an in-person at a vote center, as opposed to election day, which are neighborhood polling places.

But I think what Gabriella refers to, we just call that mail ballot voting or vote by mail voting.

And Yeah, so mail ballot voting started differently in Florida.

And there was never, it started as you had to have an excuse and it was very limited and it started expanding.

Candidates for the top election post split.

on mail voting and election trust.

James Wiley was debating Amanda Gonzalez.

Amanda's the Democrat.

Can you dispel some of the myths around voting by mail around the country and answer the bottom-line question, which is, how secure is it to cast your ballot by mail in this country?

Yeah, a- and I think it's important to note that we've been talking about potential changes to mail voting the whole year-

Mm-hmm

... because the president has been fighting for them, but no laws have changed broadly.

Typically, that means checking, uh, to make sure your signature matches.

Election officials take signature verification courses in s- many states.

Uh, in states like Georgia, there's more restrictions where you have to put your driver's license number so that people can verify that that's you here in Georgia, where they have these, uh, a very strict mail voting-

Mm-hmm

It's led to more racial vote dilution, especially at the local level, so it's harder for the votes that are cast in parts of the country that were covered to translate into being into... able to elect their candidates of choice.

Um, things like voter ID and cuts to mail voting.

Kinda everywhere we look, you know, it has harmed the political power of racial and ethnic minorities.

And the...

Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued an executive order trying to gum up the works and make it really difficult to vote by mail.

That has been stopped by the court.

So I apologize for not knowing off the top of my head what the mail voting rules in Mississippi are, but they haven't changed because of what the, the administration tried to do this year.

And that's the number one thing.

But I think, namely speaking, the pandemic forced a huge spike in the number of mail ballots that people used to vote.

It was, you know, mail voting was gaining popularity nationwide.

States like California were, you know, were kind of switching their systems to it.

But obviously people's fears about the coronavirus caused a lot of people to stay home and vote from home that year.

[upbeat music] BIN News This Hour, I'm Doug Davis.

Coming up, President Trump flips the script on mail voting.

Why are you telling your supporters to vote by mail if you think it's fraud?

No, vote by mail or vote in person.

Back to you, Doug.

All right, thanks a lot.

Well, years after talking down about mail voting, President Trump is now telling Republicans to use it.

Trump released an ad over the weekend urging Republicans to access the options as part of the party's Swamp the Vote USA program.

Well, without a doubt it's taken a hit, but do I think, for example, that voters in states have heavily relied on mail-in voting, um, Washington State, Oregon.

Do I think that there'll be a change in the voting system there, that they'll sort of retreat from their commitment to mail voting? No, I, I don't think so.

I do think, by the way, and this is one of the curious outcomes of the, President Trump's war on mail-in voting, that, uh, he's engaged in this campaign against mail-in voting probably more to the detriment of voters in his own party-

Hmm

I, I agree with Ben that there's going to be a limited impact this time around.

Um, I think that this whole case reflects a very disturbing development in this election cycle, and that is this flurry of last-minute executive branch ef- efforts to, in one way or the other, intrude into the electoral process.

Uh, you discussed mail voting previously.

The executive branch has also been attempting to obtain from states through litigation, because states are resisting their voter rolls or unredacted electronic voter databases, and this is very destabilizing to have these fights right now right before the election.

Trump's anti-voting executive order signed in March instructs DHS and the Social Security Administration to identify all people eligible to vote in federal elections in all 50 states using vast troves of Americans' personal data.

Of course, the order also includes a directive to the Postal Service to restrict mail voting, though multiple federal courts have halted that implementation as well.

The Trump administration has refused to disclose the exact purpose of and function of the voter lists.

However, voting experts have warned that they are unconstitutional and could lead to a significant number of eligible voters being disenfranchised.