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Lots of questions on our vote-by-mail experiment this morning, so I thought I'd do a big wrap with some extra info.
- 21% of our mock ballots hadn't arrived after 4 days
- 3% hadn't arrived after 7 days
- 21% of our mock ballots hadn't arrived after 4 days
- 3% hadn't arrived after 7 days
Those results align with the Postal Service's own audits of First Class and political mail.
- The Postal Service has missed its own goals for First Class mail delivery for 5 years running, with about 20% of mail failing to arrive after 5 days.
- The Postal Service has missed its own goals for First Class mail delivery for 5 years running, with about 20% of mail failing to arrive after 5 days.
A 2018 audit of election and political mail--which, by the way, is a maddeningly blended category that includes ads but also ballots and has a crazy wide delivery window of between 1-10 days--reported a 96% percent success rate. That's a big failure rate for a person's vote.
It's true that 99 percent of mail-in-votes arrived and were counted in 2016, but a late vote is a dead vote. Every vote is a person and every vote counts. Plus, the 99% number is a little too comforting. Some 8M mail-in-ballots were sent out but never returned, late or otherwise.
A lot of people are saying they hand deliver their ballots. Good for you! You're lucky. Most states do not allow people to hand deliver their ballots. Just because you live in Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, etc, and your system works doesn't mean it works for everyone. It doesn't.
Some people are saying, oh, but is your little experiment really that realistic, really, really? YES. We matched the envelopes, the weight, and the class of mail, and we devised the experiment in conversation with current and former election officials and other experts.
I think what's so shocking to people is that a ballot is just another piece of first class mail going from point A to point B. Which means, yeah, your ballot really is mixed in with all the other junk and treasure we send through the mail.
Oh, but Tony, a real ballot has a special stripe on it and a logo and the mail carrier is supposed to look out for it. Great! But you probably have a credit card offer in your mailbox right now with a special stripe and a logo and a mail carrier who is responsible for it.
But you don't really need to take my word on any of this. The Postal Service ITSELF is making NO PROMISES. In fact, it's telling Americans it "cannot guarantee" that your ballot will arrive on any particular date. Think about that for a moment.
The Postal Service is also telling Americans to give every ballot 14 days round trip. That means if you want to vote by mail, and you want to feel good about your vote being counted, Election Day is not November 3.
Election Day is Tuesday October 20th.
Spread the word.
Election Day is Tuesday October 20th.
Spread the word.
