The recent cancellation of the Ohio primary vote should be a wake-up call. If the 2020 general election were scheduled for tomorrow, the number of absentee ballots would be massive. Social distancing would require it. Nationwide, county election offices would be overwhelmed. As a nation, we are not ready for that. Should we be? Unfortunately, most folks believe that by November, today’s social distancing requirements will be a thing of the past. But will they? Uncertainty prevails.
America’s ability to conduct a fair and honest election is imperative. If the next general election requires most votes to be cast absentee, then there is reason to be concerned about the validity of the results. In the 2000 general election (George W. Bush vs. Al Gore), my absentee ballot vote was not counted by the Broward County Supervisor of Elections (Miriam Oliphant) even though my ballot arrived on time, as verified by UPS tracking.
My ballot was fraudulently stamped as received nine days late. In 2004, the Florida Elections Commission validated my claim and sent a letter to Brenda Snipes (Broward County Supervisor of Elections) asking her to count my vote in the official tally for that prior election. Brenda Snipes never responded to the letter. To date, my ballot has never been opened or counted.
So, as we have seen in the past, county election officials can manipulate the final totals by deciding which ballots to count and which ballots to mark “late.” They have access to voter rolls. If you are party-affiliated, they know it. It would be an easy task to separate the ballots by party and decide which ones to count. They did not count my ballot in 2000, and they might decide not to count your ballot in 2020.
But this is just one way county officials can rig the outcome. Many counties currently have more registered voters on their rolls than they should. That leaves the system wide open for potential abuse. Judicial Watch has been successful in getting some states to clean up their voter rolls, but much more remains to be done.
If we act now, the federal government and state governors could begin to provide the resources every county needs to expand their capability to conduct a general election entirely by absentee ballot. Officials also need to scrub their voter rolls and purge the names of folks who have died or moved out of state. Voters registered in more than one state should correct the error themselves, or their right to vote should be suspended until it is corrected. Our ability to hold a fair and honest election is at stake.
If you do vote by absentee ballot in the 2020 general election, here’s some advice: Don’t use regular mail. Regular mail has no tracking system. Use certified mail. It will cost you about $4, but at least you’ll know that an unscrupulous election official will hesitate to stamp it “late” because you will be able to prove when it was delivered.
Dave Lowry, a retired colonel, is a 30-year Army veteran with two master’s degrees. He lives in Nassau County, Florida.
