Are @TheDemocrats having second thoughts?

The Democrats’ Vote-by-Mail Problem https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/the-democrats-vote-by-mail-conundrum/616535/

“Mail-in votes require several steps, and different steps in different locations, including postmarking the ballots, signing in various places, and using the proper number of envelopes.

For that reason, it can confuse first-time voters, and even experienced voters used to queuing at local high schools. Two studies of the 2018 midterm elections in Florida and Georgia found that young and minority voters are especially likely to have their mail ballots rejected.

(Both of those voting groups skew Democratic.)

With millions of people voting by mail for the first time this year, experts expect more errors—and more rejected ballots.

In the 2020 primaries, more than 550,000 mail-in and absentee ballots were disqualified, a much higher number than four years ago. The problem is especially severe in some swing states.

More than 23,000 mailed ballots were rejected in the presidential primaries in Wisconsin—more than Donald Trump’s margin of victory in that state in 2016. Deep-blue districts have had the same problem: New York City alone threw out more than 84,000 ballots this primary season.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court recently ruled to throw out “naked ballots”—mail votes that aren’t sealed within two different envelopes—which could invalidate hundreds of thousands more votes.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, more than 6% of the ballots in Philadelphia’s 2019 municipal election were “naked” ballots. Disqualifying one in 16 votes in Pennsylvania would be a historic disenfranchisement in a crucial swing state.

There is no question which party would benefit from the mass disqualification of mail-in ballots. According to polls, Democrats are three to four times more likely to vote by mail than Republicans.

“I am concerned, but not panicked,” Elaine Kamarck, an elections researcher at the Brookings Institution, told me. If a clear majority emerges for Trump or Biden in November, she said, the parties would likely accept the outcome quickly.

“But a close election could be a mess,” she said. “Every detail will be scrutinized—the postmark on the ballot, the signature, the envelope, everything (as it should be). If the election isn’t close, nothing matters. If it is close, everything matters.”