Description

VOTING BY MAIL IS A FINE CONCEPT — UNLESS YOU LIVE IN NEW YORK — HERE IT COULD BE A DISASTER.

In the age of COVID-19, Democrats are pushing for voting by mail, while President Trump claims it is “rigged” and “corrupt.” Both parties may be wrong. Voting by mail does not benefit Democrats. If anything, it benefits Republicans. Voting by mail is not corrupt. There is relatively little fraud. Voting by mail is becoming commonplace. Some states have 100% voting by mail, while others, like California and Arizona, have 60% and 79%. Voting by mail is a safe and efficient system, unless you live in N.Y.

Of all 50 states, N.Y. has the worst problems with voting by mail.

• In 2018, N.Y. only had 3.6% voting by mail.
• Almost 10% of the votes received were not counted.
• 15.% the votes counted were rejected, compared to a national average of 1.4%
• Only 53% of New Yorkers who requested mail-in ballots had their votes counted.
• N.Y. rejected provisional votes at 5x the national average.

If New York had these many problems in the 2018, when there were few absentee votes, what will happen in 2020 when the number of absentee votes will skyrocket?

New York’s voter list is more outdated than that of any other state. N.Y. does not inform people when their votes are rejected or not counted. N.Y. does not start counting mail-in votes until election day. New York is not ready for an upsurge in mail-in voting.

Unless New York takes action now, we believe more than 50% of people who ask for mail-in ballots will not have their votes counted. This could jeopardize the legitimacy of many elections in New York.

In this presentation and discussion by Peter Siris and Reform Elections Now, we will consider all of the strengths and weaknesses of mail-in voting, then focus on the unique problems in New York State, and make recommendations as to actions that can be taken to avoid jeopardizing the 2020 election.