VOTE !!! VOTE !! Extraordinary !

In two political battlegrounds, thousands of mail-in ballots are on the verge of being rejected


Boxes of illegal and legal vote-by-mail ballots at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department ahead of Florida's Aug. 18 primary election.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

Boxes of illegal and legal vote-by-mail ballots at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department ahead of Florida's Aug. 18 primary election. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots for the 2020 election by mail, building on a historic shift in voting methods that started with primary elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mail-in ballots, however, aren’t automatically accepted as in-person ballots are. Rather, they can be rejected if they have signature defects on their return envelopes. Unless cured by voters – which means that voters fix the signature errors on them – these submitted ballots will be rejected.

Thanks to ongoing reporting of voter turnout in two battleground states, Florida and North Carolina, we can identify the number of mail-in ballots at risk of being rejected. So far, we can tell that there are thousands of ballots flagged for rejection in these two states. In addition, racial minorities and Democrats are disproportionately more likely to have cast mail ballots this election that face rejection.

The signature issue with mail ballots

Above, we use the word “risk” when describing ballots in Florida and North Carolina that have been flagged for rejection. While these ballots have signature defects, they have not yet been formally rejected.

Not all states have the same requirements for mail-in voting, but ballots usually face rejection if they’re missing a voter’s signature. Another source of defects is an ostensibly mismatched signature. This happens when an elections official concludes that a voter’s signature on a return envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file.

A person signs their name.

Some states, like North Carolina, require witness signatures on ballot return envelopes, with the lack of such a signature considered a defect.

Enough ballots face rejection to sway an election

Our counts of mail ballots facing rejection in Florida and North Carolina are conservative. When calculating them using official data, we assume that any inconsistencies we find in the data are resolved in favor of ballot acceptance.

That said, here is what we know as of Oct. 22.

In Florida, 3,210,873 voters have cast mail ballots, and of these, 15,003 ballots face rejection, corresponding to a potential ballot rejection rate of 0.47%. This rate is not an estimate. It is based on counts drawn from official statewide data.

These thousands of mail ballots currently in limbo can make a difference. Consider the 2018 midterm election. In his successful United States Senate bid in this contest, Republican Rick Scott beat incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson by only 10,033 votes.

Over 2 million Floridians have yet to return the mail ballots sent to them by county election officials, so the number of mail ballots subject to rejection in Florida could grow well beyond 15,000.

In North Carolina, an even greater percentage of mail ballots face rejection. In that state, 8,228 of 701,425 mail ballots fall into this category, yielding a potential rejection rate of 1.2%.

As in Florida, North Carolina’s elections can be extremely close. In the state’s 2016 gubernatorial race, a mere 10,277 votes out of roughly 4.6 million cast separated the winner, Democrat Roy Cooper, from incumbent Republican Pat McCrory. The number of ballots at risk in North Carolina – 8,228 – remains smaller than this margin but could grow as more ballots are returned.

Partisan and race-based ballot rejection rates
The risks of mail ballot rejection are not spread uniformly across voters, and rejected mail ballots are not politically neutral.

We can see from our Florida and North Carolina election data that registered Democrats have greater rejection rates than Republicans. The partisan differences in potential ballot rejection rates – Democratic rate minus Republican rate – are approximately 0.07% and 0.16% in Florida and in North Carolina, respectively.

In addition, Democrats have expressed a greater willingness to vote by mail than Republicans – though this might be changing. This will compound any biases caused by differing ballot rejection rates across Democratic and Republican voters.

Official election data in Florida and North Carolina also reveal a clear racial pattern among mail ballots facing rejection: Black and Hispanic voters are much more likely to have their ballots flagged for missing signatures or other discrepancies than are white voters.

In Florida, ballots cast by Hispanic voters face a rejection risk 2.6 times that of white voters. In North Carolina, where the two most common racial groups are Black and white, the risk of ballot rejection for Black voters is three times that of white voters. White voters thus have lower ballot rejection rates than minority voters, who tend to support Democratic candidates over Republican ones.

Ballots can still be ‘cured’

In both Florida and North Carolina, voters who have submitted mail ballots with signature defects can still cure them.

Florida voters have the opportunity to fix their mail ballots through Thursday, Nov. 5. This can be done via affidavit. Details about ballot curing in North Carolina were until recently tied up in court. But voters in the state can now, in some cases, fix ballots with defects. However, ballots in North Carolina missing witness signatures cannot be cured, and voters in the state who cast these types of ballots must request new ballots if they want their votes to count.

Curing a ballot with a signature defect requires knowing that it is facing rejection. But not all states send out notices informing voters of ballot defects.

In some states, voters who cast mail-in ballots can check on the status of their ballots with local officials or using web resources provided by the secretary of state, which voters can do in New Mexico and Ohio.

However, other states, such as Maine and New Hampshire, don’t have laws mandating that voters get the opportunity to cure mail ballots of deficiencies. For this election, though, officials in these two New England states have developed procedures to allow voters to fix ballots with defects.

Given the surge of mail-in ballots in this election cycle, there’s likely to be confusion over rejected ballots and cures. In the future, it’ll be important for states to provide voters with transparent processes for fixing defective ballots so they can ensure they’ll be able to exercise the right to vote.

The early vote in Texas and Florida is already greater than Trump's 2016 totals in those states
Kathryn Krawczyk, The Week • October 23, 2020

Texas and Florida's early voters have already surpassed a meaningful record, and several other states are close behind.

As of Friday, Florida had already counted more early votes — 4,771,956 — than votes for President Trump in the 2016 election — 4,617,886. Texas passed that same threshold earlier this week with more than 5 million votes cast so far in 2020 to 4.69 million cast for Trump in 2016. It all points to a record turnout for the 2020 election — and potentially good news for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In Florida, a poll from St. Pete Polls and Florida Politics suggests those early and absentee voters are overwhelmingly directed in Biden's favor. Among those who'd already voted, 58 percent voted for Biden while 39 percent went for Trump. Still, the poll found 49 percent of likely voters — including those who had yet to cast their ballots — were opting for Biden, with Trump close behind at 47 percent. Republicans will also benefit from a surge of voter registration in Florida for this election.

In Texas, polls have also suggested Biden has a chance of turning the state blue for the first time in decades, and a rush of early votes lends credence to that possibility. California, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, New Mexico, and Vermont also cast more early votes as of Monday than Trump won in those states in 2016. Georgia, with 1.9 early and absentee votes cast as of Thursday, is close to passing that threshold as well.

The poll of 2,527 Floridian likely voters was taken Oct. 12–14, with a 2 percentage point margin of error. Of those likely voters, 60.3 percent had already voted by mail or in person.

More than 50 million Americans have cast ballots in presidential election
Reuters • October 23, 2020

(Reuters) - More than 50 million Americans have cast ballots in the U.S. presidential election with 11 days to go in the campaign, a pace that could lead to the highest voter turnout in over a century, according to data from the U.S. Elections Project on Friday.

The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, as well as Americans' desire to reduce their risk of exposure to COVID-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the United States.

Many states have expanded in-person early voting and mail-in ballots ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3, as a safer way to vote during the coronavirus pandemic.

The high level of early voting has led Michael McDonald, the University of Florida professor who administers the U.S. Elections Project, to predict a record turnout of about 150 million, representing 65% of eligible voters, the highest rate since 1908.

In Texas, the level of voting has already surpassed 70% of the total turnout in 2016.

The pandemic has upended campaign traditions and its effects still are being felt. Americans may find themselves waiting days or weeks to know who won as election officials count tens of millions of mail-in votes.

On Friday, Trump will hold rallies in the battleground state of Florida, where opinion polls show a tight race and over 4 million votes have already been cast, approaching half the total four years ago. Biden will deliver a speech in his home state of Delaware on his plans for leading a recovery from the pandemic.

Published 52 mins ago
2020 election sees at least 58 million ballots cast so far
Fox News

The 2020 presidential race between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden has seen at least 58 million people cast their ballots so far.

While Democrats have continued to dominate the initial balloting, Republicans are reportedly narrowing the gap, with nearly a week until Election Day.

Temple wrote:

You're fired..
24/7 vote crap..
did you vote, huh?

I voted early - Oct. 19th

Message from Arapahoe County Ballot Track
Your voted ballot has been received for processing by the Arapahoe County Elections Division. Thank you for voting!

Visit www.arapahoevotes.com to see unofficial election results after 7 p.m. on Election Day.



Arapahoe County Elections Division
Phone: 303-795-4511
Email: elections@arapahoegov.com

Texas Republicans Ask State's Supreme Court To Throw Out 100,000 Cast Ballots
Sebastian Murdock·Senior Reporter, HuffPost
Sat, October 31, 2020, 3:33 PM MDT

Texas Republicans asked the state’s Supreme Court to throw out more than 100,000 ballots that have already been cast just days before the next U.S. presidential election.

A lawsuit filed earlier this week by two GOP candidates and a Republican member of the Texas House asked the Texas Supreme Court to throw out drive-thru ballots, arguing such voting was illegal. Before the case goes to the Texas Supreme Court, it will go before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston.

The lawsuit could jeopardize the votes of more than 115,000 voters in Harris County, which includes Houston, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court already smacked down multiple attempts to stop citizens from drive-thru voting. The new complaint seeks to invalidate votes that have already been cast.

“Allowing an illegal voting scheme that invites corruption and fraud is tantamount to voter suppression because legal votes will be nullified by illegal votes,” the lawsuit, filed in part by Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, said.

The lawsuit argued that drive-thru voting goes beyond what the Texas election code permits for curbside voting because the code’s “narrowly defined categories” do not include drive-thru voting during a pandemic.

“Despite the fact that the Texas Election Code restricts curbside voting to specific and narrowly defined categories of voters Defendant — using the COVID-19 pandemic as his pretext — is permitting any and all Harris County registered voters to vote curbside or drive-thru and vote in violation of the Texas Election Code,” the lawsuit argued.

The lawsuit added that 100,000 “illegal drive-thru votes” had already been cast.

Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, named as the defendant in the lawsuit, said the plan was legal and approved by the Texas Secretary of State.

“We’ll keep saying it: Drive-Thru Voting is safe, completely legal and the plan was approved by the Secretary of State. Every vote cast by registered voters will be counted,” Hollins tweeted Wednesday.


The push to invalidate the ballots ― in a state and county that have seen record-breaking turnout of early voters ― is especially alarming given that conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas signaled earlier this week that they may favor throwing out some ballots after the election. Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a similar opinion.

Abhi Rahman, a spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party, told the American-Statesman that this week’s petition was filed by “cowards.”

“They are a disgrace to our state and our country,” Rahman told the publication. “They are so afraid of losing this election because Texans are rising up.”

Austin lawyer C. Robert Heath argued in a memo prepared for Harris County that the purpose of state voting laws is to preserve the right to vote, not take it away.

“If a court or other authority were to decide to invalidate those votes, it would require ignoring or overruling more than a century of Texas law,” Heath said.

The case now goes before conservative Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court, who scheduled an emergency hearing for Monday morning, Slate courts reporter Mark Stern tweeted Saturday.

This stock market ‘presidential predictor’ is forecasting who will win the White House
Jessica Menton, USA TODAY • November 2, 2020

If you're watching the stock market for a signal about who the next president will be, Friday's closing is a telling sign.

The S&P 500 index finished lower over the period of July 31 to Oct. 31. When that happens in election years, it isn’t a great sign for an incumbent presidential party to win, according to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at research firm CFRA.

Stovall’s “presidential predictor” has found that when the S&P 500 has risen from July 31 to Oct. 31 going back to 1944, it typically corresponds to a presidential win by an incumbent party, while a decline in that three-month span signals a loss.

Is the stock market rooting for Trump or Biden?: The answer may surprise you

When the S&P 500 is up from July 31 to Oct. 31 in election years since 1936, the incumbent party has won 85% of the time, according to Jeffrey Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader's Almanac. But when the broad index is down during this three-month span, the party in control of the White House has changed 88% of the time, he said.

On Friday, the S&P 500 finished at 3,269.96, leaving it below its July 31 close of 3,271.12. U.S. stocks rebounded Monday, as Wall Street recovered some of its sharp sell-off from last week.

Polls show that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is leading Trump nationwide, though his edge has narrowed in recent weeks in key swing states including Michigan.

“The ‘presidential predictor’ implies, but does not guarantee, a Biden victory,” Stovall said in a note.

The Real Clear Politics average of major polls shows Biden's national lead at 6.5 percentage points as of Monday.

Some analysts argue the stock market cares more about which party controls Congress than it does about which one wins the White House. Stocks have typically thrived under legislative gridlock in Washington, and a split Congress has historically been the best scenario for investors.

That suggests that markets may prefer divided power come November because it would make it harder for lawmakers to undo policy measures already in place, experts say.

The stock market typically performs best when the incumbent party wins an election. One reason why is because the status quo is maintained, which signals to investors that the U.S. economy is holding up well enough that the incumbent isn’t voted out of office, analysts say.

Markets don’t like uncertainty. Among investor concerns are what happens not only if Biden wins, but if Democrats regain the Senate, too. A Democratic sweep could raise the risk for more regulations and potential tax increases, some experts argue. Democrats already control the House.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that a Democratic sweep would be negative for markets, especially for heavily regulated industries, but further economic pain could demand more fiscal support from Washington, according to Raymond James analysts. That could help boost economic growth.