Voting by mail is a “hoax”, according to Donald Trump, despite about 29% of American voters casting their vote this way in 2024.
uncertain
% → vote → 2024
The US president has repeatedly done so himself.
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president → do → ?
Outlandish claims about the threats posed by mail-in voting have become a cornerstone of Republican midterm election rhetoric.
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claims → pose → rhetoric
But Trump’s efforts to restrict it before November’s US midterm elections continue to face legal challenges.
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efforts → restrict → challenges
What is mail-in voting?
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voting → mail → ?
Rather than go to a local polling place to cast a ballot on election day, voters can ask their local elections office to mail them a ballot.
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voters → go → ballot
This can either be returned to a drop box, or by postal mail.
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This → return → mail
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have conducted at least some elections entirely by mail.
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states → conduct → mail
At least 13 states demand an “excuse” to vote by mail, requiring voters to attest that they are infirm, away from home or otherwise unable to cast a ballot in person.
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they → demand → person
Some states require a ballot to be mailed by election day, while other states require a ballot to be received by election day.
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ballot → require → day
What has Trump got against it?
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Trump → get → it
Donald Trump falsely attributed his loss in the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden to fraud propagated through mailed ballots.
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Trump → attribute → ballots
Trump, his officials and supporters argued that changes made amid the Covid pandemic to expand mail-in voting in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania were unlawful.
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changes → argue → Georgia
Trump claimed at the 2020 RNC convention that expanded mail-in voting was “the greatest scam in the history of politics”.
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voting → claim → politics
His initial argument against the legality of the pandemic expansion of mail-in voting has since shifted over the ensuing years onto a broader crusade against mail-in voting as a practice.
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argument → mail → practice
Ballots arriving by mail at elections offices are typically counted last.
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Ballots → arrive → offices
The process of opening envelopes and verifying voter information can be laborious, stretching vote counts into hours or – in the case of states that vote almost exclusively by mail – days.
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that → open → mail
Though Republican voters have increased their use of mail in voting in recent elections, Democrats have generally been more likely to vote by mail than Republicans.
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Democrats → increase → Republicans
As election night unfolds and mailed ballots are counted, Democratic margins often widen.
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margins → unfold → ?
Trump has taken this observation and weaponized it with disinformation, baselessly alleging that unscrupulous elections officials add fraudulent votes to the mail-in ballot count, or that Democratic activists steal voters’ identities and cast ballots in their name, if not simply forging ballots outright.
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activists → take → ballots
Is Trump’s claim of voter fraud by mail substantiated?
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claim → substantiate → mail
As Trump has amplified claims of fraud, academic and legal observers have increasingly put his allegations to the test – and found no real support.
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observers → amplify → support
A UCLA Voting Rights Project brief from April 2020 found only 31 credible cases of voter impersonation out of a billion votes cast.
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brief → find → votes
A look at fraud cases last year by the Brookings Institution noted: “An average total mail voting fraud percentage across the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 general elections of only 0.000043%, or about four cases of mail voting fraud out of every 10 million mail votes.”
Mail-in voting fraud is rare.
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fraud → note → votes
To do so on a significant scale, someone would have to be able to pick up dozens, or hundreds, of ballots from individual addresses of registered voters.
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someone → do → voters
That fraudster would also have to be quite certain that none of those voters would then show up to vote on election day, discovering that someone had tried to vote in their place.
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someone → have → place
A single case of a stolen mail-in ballot prompts an investigation – a large scale pattern would draw in state and federal authorities.
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pattern → steal → authorities
The UCLA report notes that mail-in fraud has occurred, however.
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fraud → note → ?
It highlighted a 2018 North Carolina ninth district case where a Republican operative improperly collected and possibly tampered with absentee ballots .
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operative → highlight → ballots
The state overturned the election result.
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state → overturn → result
This suggests that current safeguards can catch a meaningful attempt at mail-in voting fraud at scale.
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safeguards → suggest → scale
What is the Trump administration trying to do to mail-in voting?
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administration → try → voting
The president began a full-throated attack on mail-in voting in August, vowing to lead a nationwide effort to ban the practice.
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president → begin → practice
In March, Trump issued an executive order requiring the US Postal Service maintain a list of eligible voters and block mailed ballots to anyone not on that list, wresting the power of election administration from state officials.
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Service → issue → officials
He has tried, so far to no avail, codify the change into law via the Save America Act in the US Congress.
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He → try → Congress
The US Postal Service issued rule-making guidance to implement the executive order earlier this year, but federal courts issued an injunction blocking the rule from going into effect.
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courts → issue → effect
How have voting rights advocates responded?
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advocates → respond → ?
Trump’s executive order was met by federal lawsuits almost instantly.
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order → meet → lawsuits
The most important lawsuit is moving through the first circuit, where a three-judge panel upheld a preliminary injunction on Thursday against Trump’s order.
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panel → move → order
The injunction by US district court Judge Indira Talwani blocks the US Postal Service from implementing a rule blocking mailed ballots to voters that did not meet the Post Office’s standard.
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that → block → standard
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
