Convinced that election lawyers could chew on mailed-in votes, the head of the Federal Election Commission is calling on people to vote in person.
“Without question, the safest, best way for anyone to have their vote count and assure that it counts is to vote in person,” FEC Chairman James E. “Trey” Trainor III said.
While there is no national election system, and the FEC does not oversee voting, Trainor made his recommendation based on his years as a lawyer who often went into post-election combat over mail-in votes.
He said that because there are so many rules and hurdles to mail-in voting, those votes are typically targeted first by lawyers.
“If you’re an election lawyer and you get a call that says, ‘Hey, I’ve got a close election,’ or there’s some question about the outcome of this election, the first question that you as counsel for the candidate ask is, ‘How many mail-in ballots are there?’ to know where you need to challenge. Because those are the easiest ballots to get discarded because of the number of statutory requirements that a person has to go through in order to be able to vote by mail,” said Trainor, a Texas-based election lawyer.
“At the end of the day, it’s just too easy to have those ballots be the ones that get discarded or throw the election into question,” he told Secrets.
And this year, he added, several states that haven’t done mass vote-by-mail programs are trying them for the first time as a way to avoid coronavirus infections. And that’s confusing voters.
”There’s just going to be innumerable mistakes,” Trainor, the newest member of the FEC, said.
To prevent that, he suggested that people vote in person, early or on Election Day. “I know it’s difficult for people to have to stand in line for a couple of hours, but that’s part of living in a democracy,” said the President Trump-appointed chairman.
His comments could be a red flag for Democrats, as polls have shown significantly higher percentages plan to vote by mail or absentee versus Republicans who plan to vote in person.
