Botched Ballots Threaten Integrity of 2020 Election
On Oct. 5 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles County (LA County), about 2,100 ballots were sent to voters without the listed option to vote for a presidential candidate. According to the Los Angeles Almanac, these ballots were distributed in an effort to provide California’s 21 million voters, 5.6 million of which live in LA County, with a way to cast their ballots amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Although in-person voting is still an option, absentee voting is offered to people who are under circumstances that make it difficult to vote in person. These faulty mail-in ballots featured a twice-printed list of state propositions in place of a slot for a presidential candidate like Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The error was waved off as a printing mistake by the LA County clerk’s office, with the promise that new ballots would be mailed out as soon as possible to the affected voters. Unfortunately, this mistake occurred at a time when many voters are skeptical of absentee voting, a form of mail in voting. Such skepticism originated from politicians like President Donald Trump and former congressman and chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party Bob Brady, who vocalized their doubts about the dependability of mail-in voting. Influenced by such politicians, registered voters began to reconsider the legitimacy of absentee voting. According to the New York Times, these doubts are baseless, though, and there is no evidence to support the incredibility of mail-in ballots. However, the circulated rumors are enough to create uncertainty about the mail-in system for some citizens. World History and U.S. History teacher Charles Kim is one of many U.S. residents with a lack of trust in mail-in voting this year.
“This clerical error definitely raised some concerns for me,” Kim said. “[It is strange] that the [printing systems] could be messed up enough for something like this to happen. Why did [the county clerk’s office] send out the ballot without double-checking the contents of what they were sending?”
Peninsula’s Model United Nations program adviser, Dr. Jim Dimitriou, also has doubts about absentee voting. He will not be voting by mail because not only have ballots been faulty, but there have also been fake ballot drop boxes. According to the Los Angeles Times, the California Republican Party recently admitted to placing fake ballot boxes around California and stated that they will continue, suggesting graver implications such as election fraud. To ensure that his vote counts, Dimitriou will go to a polling station and turn in his vote in-person.
“Because there has been so much confusion with [absentee voting], I want to make sure that my ballot actually gets to a polling station,” Dimitriou said. “Considering the fake ballot boxes, I am worried that people will put their ballots in the wrong place and not have their vote count.”
Though doubt has been shown in regard to the legitimacy of mailin ballots, they have been widely accepted throughout the history of the U.S. Mail-in ballots were first used during the Civil War, and have allowed people who cannot physically go to polling stations to vote. Furthermore, 29 states allow citizens to vote by mail without an excuse, meaning that citizens do not need to prove they are incapable of going to a polling station in order to vote by mail.
However, 76 percent of voters still casted their ballots in-person during the 2016 presidential election, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Since absentee voting has never been used on such a large scale before in any U.S. election, some mistakes are to be expected. Sophomore Maya Rosca considers the magnitude of these seemingly small mail-in ballot mistakes concerning for the presidential election process across the country.
“This entire situation seems suspicious,” Rosca said. “[2,100 botched ballots] may not seem like a lot in the bigger picture, but if this amount of votes [is] lost in every state because of faulty ballots, that is more than 100,000 votes that would not be counted in the election.” Furthermore, election researchers have estimated that almost two percent of mail-in ballots from California are rejected every election due to various reasons, such as missing signatures or late submissions. According to the Los Angeles Magazine, this translates to roughly 250,000 ballots that are not counted in the election. Ballots could be rejected because they are missing a signature, do not have a correct signature, were received late or for a multitude of other reasons. Although senior Grant Zane will be voting in-person this year, he still considers mail-in voting a necessary risk the U.S. government has to take in order to allow people to vote, regardless of a pandemic.
“Like many, I am a little unsure about mail-in voting, [as] the fact that ballots can be botched in general is suspicious,” Zane said. “However, it is still very important that we have some way to vote this year. [Absentee voting] is better than the alternative, which would be not voting at all.”
The issues with mail-in voting are apparent, and voting this year may be more difficult given the circumstances of the pandemic. Dimitriou states that in situations like these, with so much uncertainty, America needs to rise to the occasion.
“[When voting] becomes more difficult like it is in this [circumstance], we have to be better voters,” Dimitriou said. “We have to think not about where [America] has been, but where [it] is going, and how our vote contributes to that.”
