Jandos Rothstein
Vote-by-Mail Could Cost the Democrats the 2020 Election
With all the ways that Trump and DeJoy can mess with the mail, we need a major pivot toward live voting so that all votes are counted.
By ROY F. GREENWALD
Without a major pivot by the Democratic Party and its voters, vote-by-mail (VBM) will cost the Democrats the 2020 election. The evidence is overwhelming and almost too easily demonstrated by the data. Yet there is a solution. But it will require courage, resilience, and above all, leadership that is willing to admit that one battle has been lost but the war can still be won. The question is whether there is such bold leadership among the candidates, the volunteer community, and the Democratic Party at large to pull it off.
Step one is to answer the question: Why will Democrats lose as a result of vote-by-mail? Step two is to decide what to do about it.
To complete step one, the numbers will tell the tale. There are not many; the math is simple and it is important to understand it. Most of the figures in this study were gathered in late July and early August, but their general relevance and relationships will not change. It is not the intent of this simple analysis to predict the exact value of each of these variables, but to demonstrate that reasonable values within the realm of possibility will in fact swing the election results. We start with the table below, which shows Joe Biden to be leading in each of four key swing states and by how much.
Next, we need an estimate of the number of Democrats and Republicans who could be expected to vote by mail. A July 19 ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 54 percent of Biden voters say they prefer to vote by mail while only 17 percent of Trump supporters prefer to vote by mail. The difference here is 37 percent. This number is important. We will call it the VBM margin and return to it.
Also of import is the schedule of when ballots will be mailed and when they might be returned. The first three columns in the following table come from the Cook Political Report on July 30. The last column is the number of days from the middle of each state’s mailing period until November 3. This is the amount of time available for ballots to be mailed to a voter, processed by the voter, and then transmitted back to the voting authorities. This is called the voting window.
If one assumes that it might require one week for ballots to reach the voters, the voting window is reduced by seven days, meaning voters in the key states have 30, 28, 21, and 40 days, respectively, to complete their ballots, post them, and for their delivery, if they are using the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Although Wisconsin voters may have a better chance than Pennsylvania voters of getting their ballots in on time due to a larger voting window, this analysis will use an average. That average is 37 days, or about five weeks.
If voters uniformly mail in their ballots over those five weeks, 20 percent of ballots arrive each week. In fact, simply due to the likelihood of procrastination, it is reasonable to assume that more ballots arrive closer to November 3 than in early October, but we will stick with 20 percent being posted each week. And here is the problem. If the Trump administration simply slows the mail by one week, 20 percent of VBM ballots likely will not arrive in time to be counted. That means 20 percent of the Democratic VBM margin of 37 percent will not be counted, or 7.4 percent. That is larger than the current Biden polling lead in every one of the swing states. Game, set, match. If they can delay the mail by two weeks, it results in a Trump landslide.
This week, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said that he would suspend several “management” changes that added up to a sabotage of the postal system. But the pattern of the Trump administration is tactical retreat where necessary followed by fresh ploys. We can’t take DeJoy at his word that he will stop delaying the mail.
However, there is one solution, which we might refer to as …
The Big Pivot
Democrats at all levels and all organizations not only need to abandon vote-by-mail, they need to embrace this abandonment and have consistent and loud messaging about it. No organization or person should be apologetic or embarrassed about this need, because few would have imagined that the Trump administration would attempt to destroy the U.S. Postal Service to remain in office. It is not surprising, but it was something not easily anticipated. Enacting this pivot will require everyone to swallow hard, save the VBM battle for 2022, and direct their voters to change. The message: Democrats don’t let Democrats vote by mail. It is fine to request a ballot via the USPS; it is not fine to submit a ballot via the USPS. Here are some additional thoughts on how to enact this.
Ideally, the major voting rights and engagement organizations, including Indivisible, Fair Fight, Swing Left, NextGen, Common Cause, the DNC, the candidates themselves, and every organization out there, must immediately and quickly bite the bullet and make the pivot. Develop the message, mobilize their forces, and amass their huge networks to stop pushing VBM and make it clear that we are going to meet the Republicans head-on by voting via hand delivery. Hand delivery means that if voters receive ballots through the mail, they must either deposit them in a drop box or vote in person at the ballot box.
There will be some who for various reasons cannot do so and will need to vote by mail, and they must do so as soon as possible. But for the remainder of Democrats who do not use a drop box, it will be the same as how people go to the grocery. We will put on our masks, go to our polling places, remain socially distant, cast our ballots, and sanitize our hands on the way out. Since many states now have early in-person voting, this need not all happen on Election Day. Most importantly, the Biden campaign needs to address this. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris need to lead this campaign, and it needs to happen soon.
Finally, there is a second hugely important benefit of voting by hand. As Jamelle Bouie so eloquently noted in an August 11 piece in The New York Times, winning the election in this way foils the Trump campaign’s election night and post-election strategy to challenge the results. If the Democrats prevail through in-person or drop-off voting, there is no supposed fraud by mail. The basis of any significant post–November 3 challenge completely disappears. In addition, by clearly pivoting away from reliance on the USPS for ballot delivery, the Democrats’ argument to restore the USPS becomes less self-serving. It will truly and totally be in the interest of allowing retirees to receive their Social Security checks, veterans to receive their medications, small businesses to continue to function, and rural America to receive vital services.
So will the Democratic Party and its support networks accept the fact that a key battle has been lost, but that overall victory is still well within reach? The future of the Republic will most likely depend on it. Which major organization or candidate will be the first to jump-start the Big Pivot? We are begging for your leadership.
The Most Important Pivot Is to Early Voting
We can take practical steps to thwart a Postal Service slowdown and ensure that mail-in ballots are received on time.
By ROBERT KUTTNER
Roy Greenwald raises several valid concerns. Despite Postmaster General DeJoy’s apparent capitulation this week in his reversal of management changes intended to sabotage the Postal Service, there should be no doubt that DeJoy and Trump will continue trying to mess with the mail.
And Greenwald’s numbers are absolutely chilling. Since Democrats are indeed more inclined to vote by mail than Republicans, and since human beings are inclined to procrastinate, it is quite likely that a nontrivial percentage of mailed ballots will arrive late or will get lost, and that we will have a protracted delay in the count. All of that will play into Trump’s hands, since his story will be that he really won, and his strategy will be to delay final results and prolong court challenges until after the Electoral College meets on December 14.
We need Biden to win big, and we need to know the winner on election night. Right now, nobody expects that. And the evidence from recent primaries, with far fewer voters, confirms Greenwald’s fears. In several states, final results were not known for weeks, even in states controlled by Democrats, such as New York and New Jersey, where there was no motive for delay. We cannot afford that luxury in the presidential contest.
But there is a better remedy than trying to get rid of vote-by-mail. To begin with, there has been so much promotion of vote-by-mail by so many groups, as well as reliance on VBM as the primary mode of voting in increasing numbers of states. It is not practical to do a 180-degree reversal less than three months before the election.
The remedy has four parts.
First, redouble our efforts to end sabotage of the Postal Service by the Trump administration, and give the USPS the resources it needs. Congress should not take DeJoy at his word, but should pass the Maloney bill and lock management practices into law.
Second, engage in a massive public-education campaign encouraging voters to vote by mail early, especially if they have to submit an application first, and drop their absentee ballots in a drop box rather than mailing them.
Third, in the 37 states that allow early voting, use that to lessen the pressure on Election Day. Greenwald is also sympathetic to this. Early voting, often confused with vote-by-mail, allows a voter to cast a ballot in advance of Election Day, either live or via drop boxes, with the period varying between 5 and 45 days—usually at least two weeks—depending on the state.
And fourth, for voters who have reason to believe that their mail-in ballots will be delayed and not arrive by Election Day, or who see a snafu in the offing, absolutely put on a mask and show up in person to vote. We will have a pretty good sense a week before the election of which states plan deliberate slow counts.
A corollary for this is that states should be recruiting a large number of poll workers both to count mailed-in ballots and to accommodate the large numbers of in-person voters and relieve elderly people at greater risk. In fact, this would be an excellent use of the National Guard.
Roy Greenwald deserves our thanks for documenting the risks of mail balloting leading either to an undercount or to a long count and excessive delays. But there is a better grand strategy than tossing out vote-by-mail altogether.
