Deadlines and counting procedures can be problematic.
Jennifer Roberts, former mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, and a former diplomat, says others voting from afar include overseas workers with the US Commercial Service, USDA, USIA, AID, and more; corporate executives and contractors working overseas with international companies; students studying abroad; teachers. Hundreds of thousands of ballots can be involved.
Unless protected, these votes can be lost, stolen, or manipulated.
5. Will return applications & ballots be pre-stamped, put in drop boxes, mass harvested, or what?
Election protectionists must work to guarantee that pre-paid return envelopes go out with VBM ballots, as required by law.
They should also encourage voters to walk their ballots into the election boards or put them in neighborhood drop boxes (which some election boards don't want to provide). But care is needed: some election boards may require that walked-in VBM ballots be delivered before November 3.
"Ballot-harvesting" (i.e. the mass gathering of paper ballots) has already been linked to criminal fraud in North Carolina and elsewhere.
"Ballot parties" in elder/nursing homes conducted by partisan activists, where witnessing and/or notarizing can be accomplished, are a gray area.
6. Will there be a US Postal Service?
A sabotaged USPS will pose huge challenges to a fair 2020 election. This hallowed, unionized institution demands protection. The White House is already gutting the USPS, making clear its intent to subvert the fall balloting. Making Vote by Mail work in the face of official subversion will be among the greatest challenges ever faced by this nation.
Key in 2020 is getting ballot applications and then ballots out from the election boards to the voters and then back within a legal time frame. Deadlines vary, as do postmark requirements.
Ohio now requires that returning ballots be postmarked a week before November 3. In Wisconsin's fall primary, many returning ballots were not postmarked at all; some counties accepted them, some did not.
So EP activists advocate all citizens vote in person as early as possible. Many are getting ballot applications from election boards and distributing them as widely as possible. Where allowed, some are printing them independently.
We encourage citizens to take ballots they receive in the mail and as quickly as possible fill them out and walk them into the election board (make sure you bring your envelope). We want neighborhood drop boxes and voting in arenas as well.
Above all, we want the functioning, protected and respected US Postal Service the nation deserves.
7. Early voting & where?
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