Elections 2024: Postal voting has become very common and many measures have been taken to ensure this

Voting by mail has become increasingly popular for Americans to cast their ballots, but it has come under fire with baseless accusations of fraud and mistrust.

And in recent days they have done just that literally come under fire of suspected perpetrators.

But despite these threats, election officials and law enforcement have worked rigorously to ensure that ballots are not only delivered and counted on time, but also free from any form of fraud.

As of Tuesday, more than 25.6 million Americans have returned a mail-in ballot and more than 65 million Americans, including military members abroad, have requested an absentee ballot, according to data from Elections Laboratory at the University of Florida.

More than 65 million votes were cast by mail at the end of the 2020 election, but experts noted that more voters chose this method due to the pandemic.

Former President Donald Trump did the same in the last two elections sowing doubt on voting by mail, arguing that mail-in ballots are not secure enough.

There is no evidence to support his claims, which have been refuted by various courts, election offices, audits and other security checks in several elections.

Several studies have shown that mail-in voting fraud is rare, and in those few cases, the perpetrator was punished and the votes were never counted.

An example of this occurred in North Carolina during the 2018 midterm elections, when Leslie McCrae Dowless, a political operative working for Republican House candidate Mark Harris, “deceived voters by collecting unfilled ballots and then collecting the rest.” fill to favor the campaign’s candidate,” according to a report from MIT’s election lab.

As a result of the incident, new elections were held and Dowless was convicted of fraud in 2020.

“Even many scholars who argue that fraud is generally rare agree that fraud in voting (by mail) is more common than in in-person voting,” researchers at the MIT Election Lab said in a report.

This year is no different when it comes to ensuring those votes are cast and counted on time and accurately.

The first line of security is at the election office.

Forty-two states require voters who vote by mail to request an absentee ballot, and those approval processes are thorough, according to the Brennan Center for Justicea non-profit public policy institute.

“Election officials compare the request to the voter’s registration information to ensure each ballot is sent to the correct voter and that only one ballot is sent to each voter,” the nonprofit wrote in a report.

The remaining eight states and the District of Columbia send ballots to all registered voters and give them the option of mailing in the ballot or voting in person.

“Regular mailings help keep voter registration information up to date so that ballots are sent to eligible voters at their current addresses,” the Brennan Center said.

When voters cast their ballots and send them by mail, there are more checks.

Ballots are sent in envelopes with unique tracking codes and barcodes that allow them to be tracked by officials. Several states also allow voters to track their ballots.

The US Postal Service is required by law to prioritize the delivery of election-related mail and has done so undertaken “extraordinary measures” to ensure deliveries continue. That includes additional deliveries and collections, special collections, specialized sorting plans at processing facilities to expedite delivery to election boards, and local handling and transportation of ballots, the agency said.

The USPS said 99.9% of 2020 ballots were delivered within a week and 98.3% within three days.

The USPS Law Enforcement Division investigates mail fraud, including whether a letter or package has been tampered with, and investigates every suspected case.

In addition, many states offer voters the option to hand-deliver their absentee ballot to an election office, an approved ballot drop box, or an early voting polling place.

All mail-in ballots require at least one signature, and some, like Pennsylvania, also require a signature on the envelope. The majority of state election offices (31) use a signature verification system in which election workers inspect the signature through multiple documents.

“Some officers receive training that law enforcement uses to detect counterfeits. “If election workers are unsure whether the signatures match, several states require that the ballots be sent to a bipartisan team for a second review,” the Brennan Center said.

The Brennan Center emphasized that the teams consist of an equal number of Republican and Democratic workers.

If an error is discovered, election officials in 24 states are required to notify the voter of the error and allow them to correct the error before Election Day.

Pennsylvania has no statewide requirement to correct erroneous mail-in ballots, but a 2022 court decision gave county elections departments the ability to correct those errors.