We’ve been repeatedly told by members of the media and leftist politicians that voting by mail is perfectly safe and in no way provides mass opportunities for voter fraud.
Again and again, the available evidence disagrees.
The latest example comes from Colorado — a state that implemented statewide mail-in voting several years ago and should, therefore, have the process down, at least in theory.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case: “About a dozen” mailers encouraging individuals to register to vote in the state were sent to people who are not eligible to vote, such as the deceased and people who are not U.S. citizens, according to KCNC-TV.
If 12 mailers have been reported to be received by ineligible voters, how many more went unreported?
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Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold defended sending the mailers to ineligible individuals.
“I think the key is that the mailing to encourage potentially unregistered people to register is not the same mailing as our ballot mailing. Those are two separate universes. When we send you a ballot or the county clerk sends out a ballot, those are to people who are registered,” Griswold said.
“This postcard, encouraging people to register, goes to people who are potentially eligible but unregistered and, you know, the mailings aren’t always 100 percent correct.”
Does this story make you worried about the potential for error in mass-mailing of ballots?
Griswold said the list of addresses to send mailers to is compiled by the Electronic Registration Information Center, which is independent of the elections division and uses Division of Motor Vehicle records and the Social Security Death Index to source potentially eligible voters.
“Griswold says about 750,000 people received the postcard this year and she expects 75,000 of them will register to vote,” KCNC reported.
That raises the question: If DMV records and the Social Security Death Index — which are both governmental entities — led to ineligible individuals, who’s to say the voter registration records are any more correct?
Additionally, what would happen if these people tried to register to vote? Would the process ensure they are not allowed?
Judd Choate, director of the secretary of state’s elections division, echoed Griswold’s defense of the mailers.
“Yes, it’s true that occasionally it will go to a person that it shouldn’t go to, someone who’s already registered or somebody that’s below the age of 18, but the vast, vast majority go to the people who are eligible and then many of them follow up and become registered voters and they get their ballot in the mail and can vote in our election,” Choate told KCNC, according to Breitbart.
It is vitally important that all ballots — not just the “vast majority,” as Choate said about the mailers — are sent to the correct people. How are Choate and Griswold ensuring that happens?
The fact that this is happening in Colorado is particularly concerning because Colorado is one of the nation’s leaders in voting by mail.
While many states are rushing to implement mail-in-moving for the first time in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Colorado has offered mail-in voting to all voters for years (ballots are mailed to all registered voters; they may be mailed in or dropped off or a voter may choose to vote in person instead).
If we’re seeing these issues from a veteran mail-in voting state, one can only imagine the issues faced by new states voting by mail.
Just look at what’s happened this week with New York’s absentee ballots.
In 2016, Colorado boasted one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country at 72 percent, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation.
Ensuring that only eligible voters are able to vote is extremely important to protect the integrity of our elections. It’s clear that mass mailings are imperfect and potentially dangerous.
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