Ross: How not to promote voting by mail
Aug 14, 2020, 6:30 AM | Updated: 10:47 am
Vote-by-mail in Washington has been around for years. (MyNorthwest)
(MyNorthwest)
Democratic-leaning groups are pushing to get more states to vote by mail – but the campaign could backfire.
For example, in Virginia, 500,000 applications for absentee ballots were mailed out – NOT by state election officials. No, they came from a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that wanted to make it super-easy to get an absentee ballot – so they sent ballot applications with the registration information already filled in.
The trouble is, many of the return envelopes had the wrong address! But even more embarrassing – it gave fresh ammo to a fella who thinks this mail-in stuff is all a fraud.
“500,000 applications for ballots! Got sent to dogs, got sent to dead people. They said ‘oh we made a mistake I’m sorry.’ 500,000 phony ballot applications,” Trump said.
Well, they weren’t actually phony, but let’s face it: Private groups mailing out ballot applications has a certain odor to it.
If you want to help voters get absentee ballots, why not just direct them to the state website? You enter your name, birthday, county, last four digits of your social security number — and then right before you click SEND — you have to check a box, which says that if you lie, as in you’re actually dead, or a dog, you’ll be prosecuted for computer fraud.
Gets the job done, and smells SO much better.
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