Today’s column will again be on the US political scene (not about the oldest profession). And the topic: mail-in voting.
"Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." Ronald Reagan, an American politician who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989, became a highly influential modern conservatism voice.
This type of voting is particularly significant because it delivered the votes that helped President Joe Biden, a Democrat, win.
Caught 'Sleeping'
As a leading Republican leader said: “Republicans were caught napping with mail-in ballots.”
The use of mail-in voting in the US is very controversial. It is a political issue with the Democrats supporting it and the Republicans opposing it.
Absentee/mail-in voting does not happen in person on Election Day but instead occurs another way (generally by mail).
All states allow voters to cast a vote by mail in some form, though the rules around who is eligible to do so vary widely from state to state.
Subject Of Poll Fraud
The main problem in mail-in voting is that it can be the subject of fraud or may be a form of cheating.
Absentee/mail-in ballot vote fraud occurs in many ways. Examples include voting more than once, voting using another person's name, and voting while being knowingly ineligible to do so.
There is debate surrounding the extent to which this form of voter fraud occurs.
John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says that "the media aren't doing our democracy any favors by summarily dismissing the existence of voter fraud."
Extremely Rare, Though
But according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive group: "The consensus from credible research and investigation is that the rate of illegal voting is extremely rare.”
There are two significant features of mail-in voting that raise concerns.
First, filling up the ballot is not observed by election officials, and thus the opportunities for coercion and voter impersonation are great.
Second, the transmission of votes is not as secure as traditional in-person ballots.
Since April 2020, then President Donald Trump, a Republican, questioned the legitimacy of vote-by-mail on Twitter, saying it will “lead to massive corruption and fraud."
Democrats Mailed In
In the state of Nevada, Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak said, “We prefer that people stay home, especially if you’re in a vulnerable situation.”
There is no question that the Democratic Party benefited from the mail-in ballots.
According to polls, Democrats are three to four times more likely to vote by mail than Republicans.
Republicans Cast Votes
True enough, on election night (November 3, 2020), Trump was well ahead in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia then suffered a sudden reversal of fortune.
Election day voters were strongly Republican, and election officials still had to count much of the mail-in votes in those states.
With the inclusion of mail-ins, President Biden won Wisconsin by 0.6 percent and Michigan by 2.6 percent.
Ph's Absentee Voters
In the Philippines, the law divides absentee voters into two types: the local absentee voters and the overseas absentee voters.
Local absentee voters include people working during Election Day, such as soldiers, police officers, and government employees.
Overseas absentee voters are Filipinos residing abroad.
In 2019 the Philippines had 1,822,173 Filipino voters overseas.
Expanding Category
But with the COVID-19 pandemic, the government may expand the category of those who may vote by mail, to include the vulnerable groups such as senior citizens, which is approximately 10 million votes or about 17 percent of the voting population.
Some of our Senators, such as Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senator Franklin Drilon, oppose mail-in voting, citing that it is the “easiest system of voting to cheat”.
Also mentioned is the "lack of infrastructure needed to ensure that voting by mail will reflect the true intent of our people.”
Are they saying that voting in person in the polling places has a higher priority than the seniors' possible exposure to the pandemic?
Counting Votes Matter
We can expect more debates on this to occur in the coming months.
Not allowing mail-in voting for seniors could disenfranchise millions of voters that could, in turn, affect the outcome of the election.
We conclude with this quote:
“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” —Joseph Stalin, a Soviet politician who ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until he died in 1953.