After Approving Mass Mail-In Balloting, California Loses 10 Million Ballots In November Midterms

After September 2021, when all-mail voting was approved by the Golden State, the 2022 midterm elections were the first major elections in California. All registered voters in California are automatically mailed a ballot each cycle under the new system. However, Californians have the option to still vote in person. But during California’s first foray into mass mail-in balloting for the 2022 midterms, 226,250 mail ballots were rejected and more than 10 million remain unaccounted for, according to a new report By the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

The report found that late arrival (48%) was the leading reason for rejecting mail ballots during the 2022 election cycle. California law states that mail ballots must arrive at the tabulation centers within seven days and must be postmarked no later then Election Day. For the state’s 2022 general elections, more than 57,000 ballots arrived after Nov. 15 (the seven-day mark). More than 57,000 Californians were denied the right to vote, largely due to the switch from mail-in voting. As long as the state maintains its vote-by mail system, voter disenfranchisement will continue.

“Mail ballots disenfranchise,” J. Christian Adams, president of the PILF said this in a statement. “There are many reasons mail ballots fail ultimately to count. No one casting a ballot at home can correct an error before it’s too late. California’s vote-by-mail demonstration should serve as a warning to state legislators elsewhere.”

Another concerning figure coming from California’s midterm election cycle is that 10 million ballots still remain unaccounted for, after processing all polling place votes and rejected ballots. Officials assume that the majority of these ballots went unnoticed or were rejected by recipients. However, this information gap increases fraud risk. According to the report, “The public cannot know how many ballots were disregarded, delivered to wrong mailboxes, or even withheld from the proper recipient by someone at the same address.”

For states that use all-mail ballots, unaccounted mail-in votes can be a serious problem. Data from the federal Election Assistance Commission shows that there are approximately 1.2 million unaccounted mail-in ballots. 28.3 million mail-in ballots are still missing These are elections between 2012 and 2018. There is no way to know if these ballots have been forged, but they are still a danger to the integrity of elections.

Take ballot harvesting — the practice of third-party organizers collecting ballots from voters and returning them to election offices — for example. States that allow all-mail voting are more likely to encourage ballot harvesting. Doorknockers for Democrats can persuade potential voters to fill in their ballots and turn them over to their newfound Democrat friends. These lax systems may be used by partisan activists. And they already do.

All-mail voting also creates more opportunities for chaos, which in turn undermines voters’ confidence. In a traditional system, where voters cast their ballots in person at the polls, poll workers have to keep track of all election materials and keep a log of how many ballots were cast. If there are problems, such as missing ballots, they can be resolved.

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