Voting by mail should be encouraged | ANOTHER VIEW/USA TODAY
Less than five months until Election Day, there's a surprisingly fierce debate over mail-in balloting, driven largely by an unpopular president apparently worried that too many people will cast votes in November.
But Donald Trump's outrageous outbursts about the issue — "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent," he tweeted last month — don't stand up to even casual scrutiny. Twitter for the first time slapped a fact-check label on that tweet.
The fact is, Trump himself votes by mail. All 50 states allow it to some degree. One in four Americans voted by mail in 2016 and 2018. And the practice dates to Union troops voting absentee in the Civil War.
A deadly pandemic renders mail-in voting even more important, particularly as epidemiologists warn of a possible second coronavirus surge come fall. Casting ballots after waiting in long lines unquestionably carries risks. In April, after the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked the governor's effort because of the pandemic, people still braved the polls in record numbers. Dozens voting in person contracted COVID-19.
Even before the pandemic, five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington — conducted elections primarily by mail, proactively sending mail-in ballots to registered voters.
The nation is embracing the practice. At least two-thirds of Americans say mail-in voting is necessary during a pandemic.
But Trump continues to make false allegations that states are sending mail-in ballots to noncitizens or people who aren't registered to vote, that ballots will be fabricated, or that children are going to raid mail boxes for them.
This hand-wringing would be laughable if Trump wasn't threatening to destabilize the Postal Service and to "hold up" federal funding where battleground states are increasing voting by mail. The Republican Party is investing millions of dollars on court challenges to vote-by-mail initiatives.
The reality is that the risks of fraud are tiny. A Washington Post analysis this month showed that in three vote-by-mail states, there were 372 questionable ballots out of 14.6 million cast, or 0.0025%. Research has demonstrated that the practice favors neither Republicans nor Democrats in voting results.
To be sure, states need to adopt adequate safeguards as they race to expand such voting. Regular efforts should be made to ensure the accuracy of voter rolls, and ballots need to be authenticated through processes like signature matching. Experienced vote-by-mail states allow law enforcement training of election workers on matching signatures. Ballot-return envelopes should typically require the voter's signature and include a unique bar code linked to the voter's record.
These changes cost money, and the $400 million in election security funding provided by Congress this spring isn't nearly enough. The House proposed $3.6 billion in the latest coronavirus relief package, and if Congress wants to ensure a fair and accessible election in a pandemic, it needs to up the ante on state support.
A party that thinks its best hope is to suppress votes is a party in trouble. The case for expanded mail-in voting was already strong. In the midst of a pandemic, it's even more so.