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Since the presidential elections in 2020, the former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, along with his allies, has been spreading misinformation about the mail voting process in the U.S. He has installed this false idea and keeps on spreading it currently, in light of the 2024 presidential elections.
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In this #ElectoralExplainer, we’ll explain why Trump is wrong and why mail voting is a safe process.
Mail voting fraud: how to identify it and prevent it
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, ally organization of Factchequeado, these are some ways to identify and prevent fraud:
Verifying the information in the electoral register against the information in the ID and signature on the envelope in which the ballot is sent.
The barcodes on the envelopes in which the ballots are sent allow the electoral authorities and voters to track the vote to see if it was safely received. Through the barcodes they can also identify and eliminate duplicate votes.
Ballots sent by mail can also be tracked through smart barcodes from the USPS. This is a way of confirming whether the vote was safely received in the corresponding voting center.
There are safe locations and ballot boxes which are specifically set to receive votes by mail. These ballot boxes are locked, they are tied to immovable objects and are also monitored by security cameras.
Anyone who tries to commit fraud can face federal charges including sentences of up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines. Additionally, the state in which the fraud attempt is committed also applies penalties.
There are hearings after the elections in different jurisdictions, which allow the electoral authorities to identify irregularities in the process.
Additionally, the Bipartisan Policy Center, non-profit organization that promotes bipartisan public policies, states that the electoral register is updated on a daily basis and that in cases in which a person has voted by mail and then tries to do it in person, only one ballot is taken into account and the authorities investigate the case afterwards.
The Bipartisan Policy Center also highlights the constant increase of the mail voting process, the highest point being the COVID-19 pandemic.
Taken from the Bipartisan Policy Center. In the chart we can see the increase of the mail voting process. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we see a drastic increase. Also, in the midterm elections in 2022, although it decreased a little, it still was a higher number than that of the elections before the pandemic.
The amount of fraudulent votes in the US has been less than 0.001%, several researches show
In the 2016 elections, on a national scale, out of the 250 million votes sent by mail, only 0.00006% of them were fraudulent, according to a research done by the Michigan Technological University (MIT). This research concludes that there are more chances of getting struck by lightning in the United States than having fraud in the mail voting process. According to the National Weather Service, the chances of getting struck by lightning are 1 in 15,300.
On the other hand, the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that analyzes public policies, states that in Texas, during the 2020 presidential elections, there were 103 cases of electoral fraud confirmed. In that election, there were over 11 million votes by mail in Texas, so the fraudulent votes would constitute 0.000096%.
Another clear example of how extremely unusual the electoral fraud in the U.S. is is Florida: the Brennan Center highlights that in this state, where an Electoral Crime Office was created, there were only 20 people arrested for alleged fraud committed in the 2020 elections, and that mostly, the people involved had a criminal record and were confused about their eligibility to vote. In 2020, in Florida, approximately 11 million people voted, meaning the alleged fraudulent votes would account for 0.00018% of all votes.
Like we’ve explained in this article, the false theory of electoral fraud installed by Trump was rejected by over 60 Courts, dismissed by his administration’s general attorney and by other government agencies. Moreover, the people in charge of his campaign testified and said they never found any evidence of fraud, in spite of Trump saying the opposite publicly.
Read more articles of our #ElectoralExplainer by clicking here.
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