![]() | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(June 2020) |
Ballot collecting, also known as "ballot harvesting" or "ballot chasing", is the gathering and submitting of completed absentee or mail-in voter ballots by third-party individuals, volunteers or workers, rather than submission by voters themselves directly to ballot collection sites. [1] [2] [3] It occurs in some areas of the U.S. where voting by mail is common, but some other states have laws restricting it. [1] Proponents of ballot collection promote it as enfranchising those who live in remote areas or lack ready access to transportation, are incapacitated or in hospital or jail.[ citation needed ] Critics[ which? ] of ballot collection claim high probability for vote misappropriation or fraud.[ citation needed ]
As of July 2020, 26 states allow specified agents to collect and submit ballots for another voter. Usually such agents are family members or persons in the same household. 13 states neither enable nor prohibit ballot collection as a matter of law. Among those that allow it, 12 have limits on how many ballots an agent may collect. [4]
Many Republicans, notably 2020 presidential candidate Donald Trump, long criticized "ballot harvesting" and the early voting it enables as rife with fraud and cheating, encouraging their voters to vote only at polling places on election day. After disappointing Republican results in the 2020 and 2022 elections, some Trump-aligned organizations such as Turning Point USA recognized they needed to adopt similar ballot collection methods, which they named "ballot chasing." Turning Point said it would raise money to create "the largest and most impactful ballot chasing operation the movement has ever seen." Kari Lake, who refused to concede her loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race, said she would launch "the largest ballot chasing operation in our nation's history." [5]
Arizona banned the practice in 2016 except for family members and caregivers. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed the ban in 2016, with Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas describing the practice as "one of the most popular and effective methods by which minority voters cast their ballots". The United States Supreme Court then stayed the Ninth Circuit ruling that overturned the ban, [6] and a U.S. District Court judge upheld the ban in 2018. [7] In 2020, the Ninth Circuit found that the law violated the Voting Rights Act. [8] The subsequent challenge to Arizona's law was the centerpiece of the 2021 Supreme Court case Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee , which questions if the law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 decision in July 2021 that neither of Arizona's election policies violated the VRA nor had a racially discriminatory purpose. [9]
California changed its rules before the 2018 midterm elections to allow people other than family members to collect and submit ballots. Last-minute submissions of votes in the election delayed results and some pundits and Republican politicians suggested that it influenced the outcome of several elections. [10] [11]
While the Los Angeles Times editorial board rejected claims that any elections were affected by the new ballot harvesting law in the 2018 midterms, it did call for the law to be fixed or repealed, saying the law "does open the door to coercion and fraud." [12] Republicans, in turn, are seeking to improve their own use of the practice, according to The Washington Post. [13]
As of July 2020, Colorado imposes a limit of ten ballots on any collector who is not a properly designated official. [14]
In 2019 Georgia passed HB 316, which among other items prohibits any other person other than the elector, a relative (spouse, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and in-laws) or an individual residing in the same household from returning the ballot. Exceptions are enumerated for disabled electors, those confined to the hospital, and those imprisoned or detained. [15] [16] In 2021, the Election Integrity Act (Senate Bill 202) eased the requirements necessary for successful prosecution of ballot harvesters. [17]
In 2018, Montana voters approved a limit of six ballots per ballot collector. [18] A state court struck down the law in 2020, saying it disproportionately burdened older, low-income, and Indigenous voters. [19]
In 2021, the Montana legislature passed a law making it illegal for anyone who receives a monetary benefit to collect ballots. [20] Lawsuits challenging its constitutionality were filed shortly after it was signed into law, and a state court issued a temporary injunction blocking its implementation during the litigation. [21]
Ballot collecting is not legal in North Carolina for anyone other than a guardian or immediate family member to handle a voter's ballot. [3] Election fraud allegations related to Republican ballot harvesting in North Carolina's 9th congressional district election in 2018 resulted in an investigation [22] by the North Carolina State Board of Elections [3] and a subsequent special election. [23] The 2019 North Carolina's 9th congressional district special election was held as a result. [24]
Texas strictly limits collecting ballots, including by restricting eligibility for assistance and limiting assistance only to a voter who requests it and selects the person who will provide it. [25] In 2013, a state bill was passed, making it a misdemeanor to give or receive compensation for collecting mail-in ballots in any election. [26]
On 13 January 2021, the state of Texas arrested political consultant Rachel Rodriguez for election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot. [27] Rodriguez had been recorded by hidden camera media group Project Veritas discussing unlawful voter tactics and stating, "I could go to prison for what I just did." [28]
In July 2022, Texas prosecuted a volunteer deputy registrar for voter fraud in connection with ballot harvesting. [29] The registrar came under scrutiny after it was discovered that about 275 people in a rural town of 2,500 registered to vote using the same mailing address for a 2018 utility board election. [30] She pled guilty to 26 felony counts of voter fraud and was sentenced to probation. [31]
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Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system.
Jocelyn Benson is an American academic administrator, attorney, and politician serving as the 43rd Secretary of State of Michigan since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former dean of Wayne State University Law School, a co-founder of the Military Spouses of Michigan, and a board member of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality. Benson is the author of State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process.
Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States.
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Mark Brnovich is an American attorney and politician who was the 26th Attorney General of Arizona from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he was an unsuccessful candidate for its nomination in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Arizona. He is married to Susan Brnovich, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.
Voter impersonation, also sometimes called in-person voter fraud, is a form of electoral fraud in which a person who is eligible to vote in an election votes more than once, or a person who is not eligible to vote does so by voting under the name of an eligible voter. In the United States, voter ID laws have been enacted in a number of states by Republican legislatures and governors since 2010 with the purported aim of preventing voter impersonation. Existing research and evidence shows that voter impersonation is extremely rare. Between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 documented instances of voter impersonation. There is no evidence that it has changed the result of any election. In April 2020, a voter fraud study covering 20 years by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found the level of mail-in ballot fraud "exceedingly rare" since it occurs only in "0.00006 percent" of individual votes nationally, and, in one state, "0.000004 percent — about five times less likely than getting hit by lightning in the United States."
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Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. was an American political operative and convicted fraudster from the state of North Carolina. Dowless' actions were at the center of a fraud investigation following the 2018 North Carolina's 9th congressional district election. In February 2019, North Carolina's election commission determined that the doubts surrounding the integrity of the election were sufficiently serious that the election results should be invalidated and a new election held.
The 2018 election in North Carolina's 9th congressional district was held on November 6, 2018, to elect a member for North Carolina's 9th congressional district to the United States House of Representatives.
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Postal voting in the United States, also referred to as mail-in voting or vote by mail, is a form of absentee ballot in the United States, in which a ballot is mailed to the home of a registered voter, who fills it out and returns it by postal mail or drops it off in-person at a secure drop box or voting center. Postal voting reduces staff requirements at polling centers during an election. All-mail elections can save money, while a mix of voting options can cost more. In some states, ballots may be sent by the Postal Service without prepayment of postage.
Postal voting played an important role in the 2020 United States elections, with many voters reluctant to vote in person during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The election was won by Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate. The Republican candidate President Donald Trump made numerous false claims of widespread fraud arising from postal voting, despite nearly-universal agreement to the contrary, with overwhelming amounts of supporting evidence, by the mainstream media, fact-checkers, election officials, and the courts.
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Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to voting rights established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), and specifically the applicability of Section 2's general provision barring discrimination against minorities in state and local election laws in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder, which removed the preclearance requirements for election laws for certain states that had been set by Sections 4(b) and 5. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee involves two of Arizona's election policies: one outlawing ballot collection and another banning out-of-precinct voting. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 decision in July 2021 that neither of Arizona's election policies violated the VRA or had a racially discriminatory purpose.
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no person other than a duly authorized agent of the county clerk and recorder or designated election official may receive more than 10 mail ballots in any election for mailing or delivery. Colo. Rev. Stat § 1-7.5-107(4)(b)(I)(B).