Talk:Postal voting in the United States/Archive 1

Archive 1

External links

I removed these external links from the article. Links on broad topics like this are often there for reasons other than to be a good general resource, and are almost always better either omitted or used as a source. Mostly, they fails WP:ELNO #1 (i.e. they should be sources if used at all). Others just push one person's opinion. Numbersinstitute reverted my removal. Putting them here for now.

• Vox article on the spread of Vote-by-mail in the US - May 2018
  • Fails WP:ELNO #1
• American University study finding vote-by-mail harmful
  • individual study issued by an organization that places undue emphasis on a particular point of view (i.e. not a good general resoruce). should be included as a source, if anything.
• No Vote By Mail, Problems with Absentee, Postal, and Vote-by-mail systems
  • No indication why we should include someone's self-published podcast. Again, not a good general resources. Expressing ideas/opinions that we should be using better sources for.
• "Vote-by-Mail: The Real Winner Is Democracy," by Bill Bradbury, Washington Post, December 31, 2004
  • Maybe in here to "balance" the study above, but it's an op-ed that just gives one notable person's opinion. Again, might be a place in the article for it, but doesn't make sense as an EL.
• "Voting Alone," by Nick Arvin, New York Times, November 8, 2008
  • Another op-ed
• Research about postal voting and electoral practices
  • A single author's personal website to link out to various books and paywalled journal articles (many of which aren't even about the US).

— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: You've convinced me. These are better on the talk page than in External Links. When people cite them to add material to the article, I hope they'll note it here, so we keep track of how much remains to be added. Perhaps the last cite should go back to the Postal voting page. Numbersinstitute (talk) 22:32, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Amount of postal ballot fraud

@Snooganssnoogans: deleted some facts and summaries, which led me to look at the sources more carefully.

Postal ballots being the source of "most significant vote-counting disputes in recent decades" is the opinion of Edward Foley, director of the Election Law program at Ohio State University, and needs to be cited to him. WP:NEWSORG

491 cases 2000-2012 are from News21, which itself is reliable source, funded by Carnegie and Knight Foundation, headquartered at School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Philadelphia Inquirer and NPR also report the findings, and more could be cited, but 3 is enough. Whether 491 is "significant" or "rare" is clearly opinion, and can mostly be left to the reader.

Cases since 2012 are cited to Heritage Fdn which is RS. WP:PARTISAN

Overturning of 15 elections is cited to Heritage's publication, Signal, which is similarly RS. WP:PARTISAN One could find original court filings, but WP prefers a secondary source, which the Signal article is.

In FactCheck, Robert Farley's quotes from experts are RS, when cited to them, but his own opinions are less significant, since he's not expert. WP:NEWSORG

I struggled with how to summarize the findings in the lede, and settled on "limited evidence of fraud..." since there is evidence, and it's not zero, and I thought "some evidence of fraud" implied a value judgment.

Michael Wines, reporter at NY Times, is not an expert on elections, law enforcement or statistical analysis, so his opinion is not RS, "Coordinated fraud by postal voting is hard to pull off undetected, given that officials, political operators, analysts, scholars and journalists can see indicators of large-scale fraud by observing statistical outliers in vote totals, and can confirm instances of fraud by checking signatures and conducting basic detective work." On the contrary, the expert Atkeson, cited by FactCheck, says fraud is very hard to detect. If reliable sources say something similar to Wines, we can put that in the article, and if appropriate also the discussion of statistical tests which have been done on past elections. Numbersinstitute (talk) 23:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

For the mere fact that the Daily Signal cites Christian J. Abrams and Hans von Spakovsky, two men who have made a career out of lying about voter fraud and making false accusations of voter fraud, as credible experts and as sources for the amount of voter fraud that goes on, the source rules itself as unreliable. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:11, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I want secondary RS coverage of the Heritage Foundation content, both to verify its accuracy and also for context of what kinds of elections these are. In pretty much every case I clicked on, it was for some minor race with low vote tallies. Secondary sources would provide the context that we'd use for describing the content. If no RS has bothered to mention the Heritage Foundation's database, then it's indicative that it's not reliable at all. Given that this is an organization that hires professional liars on the issue (such as Hans von Spakovsky) and promotes falsehoods about climate change, it's reasonable to ask for secondary RS coverage. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:11, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Content produced by the NYT is not just the work of one reporter, but by an editorial team, comprehensive fact-checking and input by experts. It should be restored. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

When you say that the experts are rebutting the NYT, they are not. All the experts say there is little fraud. Both Atkeson and Minnite in that FactCheck.Org piece say there is no way to tell precisely how much fraud goes on, but that there is little of it. Minnite explicitly says that the kind of detective work that the NYT piece talks about can help you discover fraud. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Here's a Brennan Center rebuttal to the Heritage Foundation's election fraud database.[1] When the Heritage Foundation talks about "fraud", it seems to include flimsy things like not following the strict guidelines (e.g. a county commissioner failing to put his signature on envelopes of those he assisted, others failing to "co-sign" the absentee ballots, helping the diabled elderly to vote without any deception or coercion). That's precisely why secondary RS coverage is needed to put the Heritage Foundation's database in context. Here is also Brookings putting the data in context, saying it's indicative of the vanishingly small amount of fraud.[2] Brookings also explicitly says, "Republicans would have you believe that vote fraud is widespread enough to affect elections. But the fraud uncovered by the Heritage study is inconsequential. What has been uncovered in these five vote-by-mail states is on the individual level and not on an organized level." Here[3], NBC News provides the kind of context that I'm asking for: "The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has tracked documented cases of fraud for the past 20 years and found more than 1,200 instances, about 200 of which involve misuse of absentee ballots. In that time, about 250 million mail-in votes have been cast." Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

ProPublica writes that Heritage is not some neutral objective observer but is deeply involved in the GOP's voter suppression efforts: "The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has tracked documented cases of fraud for the past 20 years and found more than 1,200 instances, about 200 of which involve misuse of absentee ballots. In that time, about 250 million mail-in votes have been cast."[4] The ProPublica source also includes rebuttals from experts: "Amber McReynolds, chief executive of Vote at Home, and Charles Stewart, an MIT political scientist who studies election administration, contend that the database actually shows how rare fraud is." Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad you found those sites. Brennan and Brookings are as partisan as Heritage and may be useful for balance. I agree NBC and propublica quotes are good sources. They don't question accuracy of Heritage list, just compare scale. I tried to set a similar scale by saying, "Among the thousands of elections from 2000-2012..." The frauds affected varying numbers of ballots, so I'm not sure it's useful to compare to ballots, but I don't mind saying "Among the thousands of elections and millions of ballots [maybe ref to propublica+nbc] from 2000-2012..." In terms of the nature of the Heritage list, all I said was " the Heritage Foundation lists additional cases since 2012" with no numbers or value judgments, specifically since I have no characterization of them. Maybe add, "...cases since 2012, all in local elections"? Though that's a tautology.

I don't see any challenge to the 491 cases or 15 elections overturned (though author needs correction to Fred Lucas), which are individually listed for readers to consider. 2018 NC is not minor. We can describe them as local and state races, if that helps.

Yes Minnite says signature checking is a way to detect fraud, and the article has a thorough discussion.

The lede now says "no evidence that postal voting is linked to substantial electoral fraud"? I'd call canceling a US Rep's election "substantial". Also of course absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so I think that wording is weaker than "There is limited evidence of fraud in postal voting." How about "Few elections have evidence of postal ballot fraud." or "There is evidence of postal ballot fraud in few elections."?

To avoid undue weight on fraud, maybe the lede should also mention the known, measured problems which are not fraud: "Processing large numbers of ballots and signature verifications accurately has numerous challenges."

Somewhere other than Wise, I think I've seen the idea that statistical outliers can catch postal ballot fraud, but I can't find it. The statistical outlier statement is clearly interesting, and had a small section to explore it, but it's equally clearly an opinion. WP:NEWSORG says we have to identify the author of an opinion, and "the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint" Would you want to identify the NYT team as the source of the opinion? Numbersinstitute (talk) 01:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The NC case and the Miami mayoral case in the 1990s were precisely the kinds of cases that were spotted because they were on a grand scale. That's why the NYT reference noting that it's incredibly hard to pull off large-scale fraud without it triggering various warning signals was helpful in the lead. It might be wise to restore the NYT reference to the lead while also mentioning at least the NC house district election as a prominent case of fraud. The NC case was spotted precisely because the numbers were aberrational (consistent with the NYT reference). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

AP says it was not known originally why the NC case stood out, and journalists did not note statistical anomalies until later, so they were not "easily caught." . AP also said those Bladen County frauds started in 2016, and statistics did not cause those frauds to be found. I hear you saying NC was spotted because it was on a grand scale. I'm not sure grand scale applies to any or many of the other 14 recent elections overturned, let alone the 491 in the Arizona list.

The NY Times Wines quote is "A fraud big enough to swing any but the very closest elections is easily caught by looking for statistical outliers in vote totals, checking signatures and conducting basic detective work. Carrying an entire state election by mail ballot fraud would be a nigh-impossible triumph of concealment in all but a harrowingly close contest." As you and I agree, US ballot fraud has not been widely identified in state-wide elections, so this quote does not seem appropriate for US ballot fraud. This Wikipedia article covers all US elections: local, state and national, not just state elections.

The quote itself says it does not apply to close elections, which the NC election was. 5% to 9% of election contests have winning margins under 2%. There are 10-20 contests on most ballots, so many elections have at least some close contests, so the quote doesn't apply to those elections either. I haven't seen any mention of "statistical outliers in vote totals" in NC or any of the other identified frauds. NC had statistical differences in ballot return rates among races, and it could be great for election offices to publish such rates as a standard practice, but Wines doesn't mention that, and if a reliable source does, we would quote it. Futhermore it is not common to have a single quote in a lede, which is only a summary. Can we find another way to say what is going on with US ballot fraud? Numbersinstitute (talk) 05:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I seem to recall very early that people were calling out data in NC 9th as showing strange patterns. But your other points are good. How about we change the lead so it says that postal voting creates a "greater risk of fraud" than in-person voting while also noting that known instances of such fraud are very few. That seems to be in keeping with all the RS in the article about postal voting and fraud. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Done. Numbersinstitute (talk) 17:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

After all those discussions, the current lede says, "Postal voting has a greater risk of fraud than in-person voting though there are relatively few known instances of such fraud.[8] Per one database, there were 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012; a period in which billions of votes were cast.[9] Processing large numbers of ballots and signature verifications accurately has numerous challenges other than fraud.[10][11][12][13]"

I'd like to add "Election offices rejected 67,000 ballots in the 2018 election and 92,000 in the 2016 election, because mis-matched signatures led officials to believe someone could have forged those ballots. If they were not forged, voters were disenfranchised."

The issue of ballot rejections has been widely covered in the press and is covered in the article, and is important enough to be in the lede. I just wonder about the right way to frame it. Kim9988 (talk) 02:57, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Underrepresented portion of article

In the section of the article titled "Other Challenges" I feel is underrepresented. For example, there is only three sentences that focus on how postal voting solely depends on the usage of the postal service. The article spends very little time explaining how even though postal voting is dependent on the postal service, the financial crisis due to the pandemic has resulted in defunding of the postal service. The defunding of the postal service is vital to postal voting especially in current times as the election is soon thus this section was underrepresented and needs more representation. Tasmia.r (talk) 19:16, 7 September 2020 (UTC)tasmia.r_

In addition, the Fortune article quoted the unfunded liabilities and negative net worth of the USPS - but doesn't address why that is the case, considering that this administration's own reports show the USPS would actually be making a profit by removing the RHB mandate, allowing for capital improvement and further modernization. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/USPS_A_Sustainable_Path_Forward_report_12-04-2018.pdf#page=23 Obsideus (talk) 20:05, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Breakdown by State

For the purpose of increasing visibility and access, I would like to propose a section in this article that shows a state-by-state breakdown of the policies, deadlines, and procedures for mail-in ballots. Using information from other articles and public sources, the breakdown can be updated as states release their guidelines for November 2020's election.

One question I have is: Is it relevant to include previous instances of fraud during mail-in voting in the Past problems section? What about specific examples, such as a mayor in Miami who, in 1997, fixed his ballots?. RiaVora (talk) 04:57, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

References

Split 2020 election section to new article

This topic is of particular relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The new article might be called something like: Postal voting in the 2020 United States elections. -- M2545 (talk) 11:29, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Oppose This fits just fine in this article and does make up a significant portion of it either. In case of expansion, encyclopedicness of listing every minor detail across states should be considered, as should whether details have lasting impact. Reywas92^Talk 19:40, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Oppose Agree with @Reywas92: this short section fits fine in current article. In a year or two, may be better moved to 2020_United States presidential_election#Postal voting, so this article would then just deal with long term issues. Kim9988 (talk) 20:50, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Support It will have a historic relevance to the 2020 elections, and I see no reason not to accommodate as much information as we can, then, about it. Special:Contributions/TheSands-12 12:38, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Support This is in the news almost every day and will continue in the foreseeable near future. I was surprised there wasn't already such a separate article. It is clearly notable, and I don't think it is appropriate for this article to be dominated by what is happening in just this one election, especially when postal voting has existed since the Civil War (according to CNN). --David Tornheim (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Reiterating my oppose above. M2545, you don't have to add every link here. Although issues were not as widespread before, there's still lots of news about postal voting in the 2016 and 2018 elections, and there will certainly continue to be new expansions and controversies in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Having a separate page to list every single thing with details of litigation, etc. reeks of recentism and WP:NOTNEWS.

Support Already one of the most important aspects of the 2020 elections. Mcrsftdog (talk) 21:37, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Support! What @Mcrsftdog said. Arglebargle79 (talk) 12:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

New article has been started with content copied directly from this article. -- M2545 (talk) 16:27, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Editing War - Fraud Concerns not fairly represented

I have had my additions to this article removed or undone several times by @Snooganssnoogans and @TJRC. The article makes the statement "It has been argued that postal voting has a greater risk of fraud than in-person voting" and proceeds to give evidence and logical reasons for why this is not the case. The article then fails to have a section which provides the other point of view and reasoning as to why it may be a valid concern. I have inserted my paragraph giving the facts and reasoning for why there may be a concern for voter fraud and have cited various sources of information. I have friends in Illinois who have shared with me ballots for dead relatives which they have received in the mail. So I see this as a real concern and a view which should have the right to put forth the facts and reasoning for its concern.

Those that have concerns about the potential for voter fraud due to impromptu implementations of mail-in-voting in response to covid-19 raise several issues with the way the facts are stated and the conclusions that are reached.  The first concern is an understatement of the difference between solicited and unsolicited mail-in-voting.(https://www.foxnews.com/politics/what-is-the-difference-between-absentee-voting-and-universal-vote-by-mail) Solicited mail in votes ensure that a verified voter is receiving a ballot prior to mailing one out.  Currently in 90% of states a formal request for mail in voting is required; ten years ago 98% required a formal request.(https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vopp-table-5-applying-for-an-absentee-ballot-including-third-party-registration-drives.aspx, https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/501577-heres-where-your-state-stands-on-mail-in-voting) These requests are validated against voter registration and government birth and death databases. One of the early adopters of statewide mail in voting, Colorado, has integrated their voter registration with the post office's change of address system, the birth and death database and with the DMV state ID and driver's license systems to ensure ballots are mailed to a verified voter at their correct address.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/12/how-voting-by-mail-works-colorado/)  Other states implemented checks have not been as successful and have experienced cases of voter fraud such as Washington state where cases of registering phony addresses have been found as well as disenfranchisement of voters due to 4000 rejected ballots later found to be legitimate. (http://www.utahconstitutionparty.com/opposition-mail-ballots-utah/)  Those having concerns in the 2020 election are not against mail-in-voting as long as appropriate check are in place to ensure actual living voters are mailed a single ballot at the correct current address. In the 2020 election many states are rushing to implement unsolicited vote by mail systems and already there are reports of individuals receiving ballots for dead relatives or former residents.  House Democrats included $25 billion dollars for the USPS in a recent corona virus legislation which included $3.5 billion for national mail in voting.  The president raised concern about funding a rushed system of mail-in-voting which is open to fraud.  The bill was blocked not only based upon this concern but also justifications for the $21.5 billion dollars allotted for other uses. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/08/16/separating-fact-from-fiction-on-trump-and-the-post-officeand-why-it-matters/#79543b2f3d74).

It should be reasonable to include the concerns from both sides of a debate. Please consider the validity of adding this section to this article. 2600:1700:4051:43B0:55CE:105A:523A:E175 (talk) 23:50, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I have friends in Illinois who have shared with me ballots for dead relatives which they have received in the mail and if your friends complete them and mail them in, they'd be committing voting fraud. Otherwise, they're useless, so throw 'em away and there's no harm. Even if everyone who received a ballot for a dead person actually decided to commit a felony by completing it and sending it in, its effect would be infinitesimal. the potential for voter fraud There's a potential for just about anything, but that doesn't mean there's a probability of it, and there's virtually no evidence of it. It should be reasonable to include the concerns from both sides of a debate We rely on reliable sources. Please provide reliable sources that show mail-in ballots pose a threat of widespread voting fraud. The president raised concern about funding because "if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again." soibangla (talk) 00:05, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Your statement "Even if everyone who received a ballot for a dead person actually decided to commit a felony by completing it and sending it in, its effect would be infinitesimal." is wild speculation. Those that believe lying is immoral would not but others such as those that follow Alinsky's Ends and Means moral compass says that "The ends justify the means" and they would vote multiple times. You say there is virtually no evidence for it but the Utah Constitution Party researched and documented cases of it in Washington state. Also my family has seen voter fraud at the poles on election day on different sides of the city of Chicago as undocumented immigrants were helped to vote, yet they say no evidence of this. You say please provide reliable sources but who is to decide what is a reliable source? It is not your job to determine what is a reliable source. Sources you consider reliable I'm sure I do not in fact I see some on this page which I do not and sources I consider reliable you would not. It is up to the reader to look at the source, to consider the facts presented and their interpretation and logic and determine if it makes sense or if it does not make sense. For example in this article the BBC is cited with the headline "Trump blocks postal funds to stymie mail-in voting" which right off the bat by following principles of critical thinking this article is suspect. By principles of critical thinking; if a headline draws an emotional response it was designed to do so. Conversely the Forbes article I referenced looks at the entire context of what the president said and seeks to understand the meaning the president was trying to convey. The articles with sensational headlines which focus on a few words of someone, especially out of context, are disingenuous. Dchadint (talk) 13:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

The Utah Constitution Party is not a RS. Nor are contributor posts on Forbes per WP:RSP. BBC News is a RS. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I could see how a small Party may not be seen as RS so how about replacing that sentence with this then

The concerns surrounding mail-in voter fraud are not without supporting cases; the MIT election lab has determined that mail in voter fraud is more frequent than in person voting fraud.[5] In Washington state seven Acron workers were charged with voter fraud for submitting thousands of requests for mail-in ballots using false names and addresses.[6] In other voter fraud indictments in LA county and Minneapolis homeless voters were offered compensation for either their votes or signatures on ballots. [7][8] Some suggest that there are a low number of cases proving insignificant numbers for fraud but this just means that an insignificant number have been caught and successfully prosecuted. Recently the Herritage Foundations database has swelled to over 1200 cases and is continuing to grow.[9] Most disconcerting are the allegations of an individual who has been orchestrating voter fraud on a large scale across multiple states.[10] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:4051:43B0:9CB:AAB8:218B:F98C (talk) 15:16, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Unequal Signature Rejection Rates edits reverted

Snooganssnoogans I have tried to add a piece of information to the "Unequal signature rejection rates", more specifically in the "Rejection rates are higher for ballots that claim to come from young or minority voters" section. This portion of the article cites no possible reason why there might be higher rejection rates amongst young and minority voters. One popular conclusion is there are higher rejection rates amongst these demographics because they do not have as established of a signature as other, more "veteran" voters do. I put a sentence saying "It is believed this may be due to the fact that these demographics of voters are less familiar with signatures, and the act of voting in general" along with four sources to corroborate it. I did look at Snooganssnoogans's reversion note, and it said I only specified young voters, not minorities. This is true, and I will fix that later, but until then, I want to make sure I won't be crucified for fixing that edit.

Here's what the final addition will look like: It is believed this may be due to the fact that these demographics of voters are less familiar with signatures, and the act of voting in general.

This is the addition I will add once I get the all clear.

Now if there's some other reason other than the omission of minorities from my addition, (Which I fixed above) and I speculate there is, can you just tell me now? There's a lot of other people in this talk page complaining about Snooganssnoogans reverting their edits, many of them similar to mine.

Just to recap, the reason why I want to add this addition is because I believe the portion of the article I am adding it to does not tell why there are higher rates of rejection amongst young and minority voters, it just says that there is a disparity, and I want to make that section clearer.

Thanks, JazzClam (talk) 21:46, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Updating

Currently several passages were obviously written before the general election, eg. "As of July 2020", "will result", "has indicated", "will mail", "is expected", etc. The whole article needs to be edited to change it to a post-election situation. Mcljlm (talk) 14:36, 7 November 2020 (UTC)