California rejected 1.5% of all mail-in ballots in its primary, raising questions about the accuracy and effectiveness of the voting system that has grown in popularity amid the coronavirus pandemic.
That percentage translates to more than 100,000 votes that election officials voided for the March 3 primary, according to data from the Associated Press. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Super Tuesday contest with 35.97% of the vote. Former Vice President Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, came in second with 27.90%.
The figure will surely give ammunition to President Trump and GOP’s concerns about the integrity of mail-in ballots, particularly as more and more states dramatically expand voter access due to concerns over spreading the coronavirus.
Nearly 7 million votes were cast in California’s Democratic primary, and 102,428 of those were rejected. That made for the highest proportional amount in any state primary since 2014 and the highest in California since 2010.
State officials say most of the ballots were rejected because they were received too late. In order for a vote to be counted, it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received within three days, according to California law. According to state data, 70,330 ballots failed to be received in time.
Republicans have largely rejected calls to expand mail-in voting, citing instances of fraud or concerns about so-called “ballot harvesting,” the practice of when third-party volunteers collect ballots from voters.
Last month, Trump claimed that “millions” of mail-in ballots would be “rigged” because of interference by “foreign countries.”
A study from the Public Interest Legal Foundation released in April found that more than 28 million mail-in ballots have gone missing in the last decade, with “absentee ballot fraud” being the most common, according to the organization’s president, J. Christian Adams. Earlier this month, an Atlanta family received a voter application for the family cat, which died 12 years ago.
Democrats at both the state level and Congress have put forward bills that would virtually allow all voters to participate in November’s election by absentee ballots. Last week, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed a law that will allow all eligible residents to vote in the fall with absentee ballots.
Some states, such as Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, already conduct their elections entirely through mail-in ballots.
Vice President Mike Pence told the Washington Examiner last week that the White House will “continue to oppose efforts for a mass distribution of mailed ballots because we think it’s a potential for tremendous voter fraud.”
“I think virtually every state in the Union has an absentee ballot system where you can apply for an absentee ballot mailed to your home,” he said. “And we’re going to have a great absentee ballot program in our campaign and urge people who choose to request a ballot to do so, but we’ll also continue to stand for the time-honored principle — one person, one vote.
