The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for November 8, 2022
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
NBC News — Mail-in and early in-person votes cast
Brookings Institution — Help democracy—cancel election night
National Conference of State Legislatures — When Absentee/Mail Ballot Processing and Counting Can Begin
Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency — Mail-In Voting Safeguards
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
Don’t expect election results on Election night. A surge of early midterm voting – particularly mail-in voting – will mean that we shouldn’t expect results on Tuesday, or possibly even until next week, in many states.
NBC reports as of Monday morning, Nov. 7, 41.3 million ballots had been cast early. 54% of those ballots were cast by mail, and 46% were by early in-person voting. Election workers will tell you that counting mail ballots is a slower process, even if the tabulation is done by machine.
Each mail-in ballot usually has an outer mailing envelope which must be scanned and carefully opened. Then an inner envelope with the ballot and signed affidavit is opened. There also may be copies of identification enclosed which need to be checked. Mail-in ballots are often folded to cut postage costs, but folding in itself can sometimes challenge optical scanning machines. The process just takes longer. While some states have changed their laws to allow counting of early ballots BEFORE election day, in other states, processing can’t even begin until election night.
The good news is that mail-in options, while slower, give access to many who might not otherwise be able to vote, including hourly workers, disabled voters, seniors, citizens living in remote areas, and others. So while we’re all itchy to see the results, the benefits of increasing access to all eligible voters is worth the wait.
We have links to articles on the counting and security of mail-in ballots at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org
For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.