This produces a phenomenon known as "Red Shift" where the exit polls -- the gold standard used across the world to measure the outcome of an election -- show Democrats winning but the actual "official" count shifts red and awards the election to a Republican.
As I note in my book, "The Hidden History of the War on Voting":
"For example, in the 2016 election, the exit polls showed Hillary Clinton carrying Florida by 47.7 percent to Trump's 46.4 percent, although the "actual" counted vote had Trump winning by 49.0 percent to 47.8 percent. Trump gained 2.5 percentage points ... somehow.
"In North Carolina, exit polls showed Clinton winning 48.6 percent to 46.5 percent, but the votes that were counted turned out with Trump's 49.9 to Clinton's 46.1, a red shift of 5.9 percentage points for the GOP.
"Pennsylvania's exit polls showed that Clinton won 50.5 percent to Trump's 46.1 percent, but when 'eligible' votes were counted, Trump carried the state 48.8 percent to Clinton's 47.6 percent -- a red shift of 5.6 percentage points.
"In Wisconsin, it was Clinton beating Trump in the exit polls 48.2 percent to 44.3 percent, but the 'real' count put Trump over the top at 48.8 percent to 47.6 percent, a red shift of 5.1 percentage points."
With mail-in voting, people know before they vote if they've been purged from the voter list, because they don't get a ballot in the mail. Ballots are mailed out early enough that people who've been purged will have time to figure out there's a problem and contact the Secretary of State's office to get it fixed.
Like with closing polling places or putting in broken machines, this particular type of voter suppression, which was responsible for Trump winning the electoral college, doesn't work.
Mail-in voting doesn't cause working people to lose income by taking time off to vote; they can vote from their kitchen table over the weekend or on an unhurried evening.
Mail-in voting doesn't force elderly people concerned about Social Security to have to undergo the pain and trauma of a road trip followed by standing for hours in line. Particularly with COVID-19 and the flu on the loose in November.
Mail-in voting doesn't give Republican "ballot challengers" the ability to know a person's race before they try to convince election officials to move a ballot into the provisional box because of "problems."
The strongest tool Americans have to prevent Republican attempts at voter suppression is mail-in voting.
Living in Oregon, where the state has been exclusively mail-in for over 20 years, we have one of the highest rates of voter participation in the country and no evidence of so-called "voter fraud." Louise and I sit down at the dining room table and look over the ballot, run a web search on various candidates and ballot initiatives we may not know, mark our ballots, and then drop the postage-paid envelopes in the mailbox out front.
There is only one reason Donald Trump and his Republican co-conspirators object to mail-in voting: it blows up their most effective and successful voter suppression schemes.
America must guarantee every citizen the right to vote, and national mail-in voting is a great place to start.
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