The Facts About Vote By Mail Elections
- Rockville Verity
- Oct 10, 2019
- 2 min read
This election is the first time that Vote By Mail has been used to conduct an election in Maryland. Incumbent Mayor Bridget Newton raised concerns in August of this year about "ballot harvesting":
Rockville Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton said in an interview Monday that she worries about the potential harm of “ballot harvesting” — a practice in which a third party delivers a ballot on someone’s behalf. Ballot harvesting typically occurs for absentee voting or other situations in which ballots are mailed.
As stated in the Bethesda Beat article, "ballot harvesting" is legal in the state of Maryland. It is a method by which individuals can designate an individual to deliver a ballot on their behalf. This method would be helpful to the elderly and handicapped voters in the City of Rockville.
The Truth About Voter Fraud
Further in the aforementioned Bethesda Beat article, ballot harvesting is linked by the current Mayor to the potential for voter fraud. Which begs the question: what is the incidence of voter fraud in states that use Vote By Mail for all their elections?
In Oregon, which has had entirely Vote By Mail elections for 19 years, 10 individuals out of 2,051,448 voters committed voter fraud in the 2016 Presidential election. The main conviction was due to voting in more than one state.
The 10 convictions represent a broad spectrum of age, party affiliation and geography. Those convicted include four Democrats, one Republican, one Libertarian and four people not affiliated with a political party.
Washington State has held vote by mail elections since XX. In the last election, there were 74 cases of suspected voter fraud out of 3,036,000 voters. The main conviction in Washington State was, again, voting in more than one state.
Most of Washington’s cases of potential voter fraud — 59 of them — involved people suspected of voting in more than one state, the Secretary of State’s office said.
At no point could evidence be found of voter fraud by ballot harvesting. Neither was evidence found that there is an increased pattern of voter fraud in states with Vote By Mail elections. The Verity will follow-up on this story at the conclusion of this year's election to determine if there were any cases of potential fraud reported.
Other Articles of Interest:
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