If Donald Trump says black, Democrats say white. (Actually, they say white supremacist, but that’s another story.) Although virtually every issue has become a bone of contention between the president and his detractors on the Left, the dispute over the way in which Americans cast their ballots on Election Day could backfire bigly for the party of Biden in the upcoming election. The president argues that with precautions voting can be carried out safely in-person, while the Democrats insist that the only way to avoid the coronavirus while voting is via mail-in ballots. Never mind that an epidemiological study by top scientists found that long lines at polling places do not lead to more cases of COVID-19. The “party of science” refuses to be persuaded.
But the available facts taken together suggest the Dems’ stubbornly held position on voting by mail could yield some unexpected consequences. These facts include the following:
- “At least three-quarters of all American voters will be eligible to receive a ballot in the mail for the 2020 election,” the New York Times reports.
- According to a survey conducted by the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape project, 37% of those eligible to vote by mail will avail themselves of that option. Of that percentage, 48% of voters says they plan to vote for Joe Biden said they are likely to vote by mail, according to the survey, while 23% — less than half — will cast their ballot for Donald Trump.
- In the last four elections, 28.3 million mail-in ballots went missing. The likelihood that similar catastrophes might taint this election is suggested by tails of woe such as the one reported by the state of Nevada, which sent more than 200K mail-in primary ballots to wrong addresses. Other horror stories, including names of voters being misspelled, which invalidates the ballot, and confusion over which materials need to be sent, have peppered the headlines of late.
Even if only 3% of ballots go missing, as was the case in an experiment conducted by CBS News, that would be enough to change the outcome of the election in a battleground state where the race is tight, such as Florida, North Carolina, or Arizona.
