With the 2020 General Election just around the corner, the instances of mail-in and absentee ballots being corrupted, discarded, and mismanaged are mounting, validating the concerns of many Americans that the election process may be vulnerable to corruption.
An audit by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) performed in September found that 350,000 dead registrants remain on voter rolls across 41 states and are, thus, receiving mail-in ballots in states where officials have mandated ballots be mailed to all registered voters.
While this number is dramatically less than the 2 million deceased voters that were found to be still included on voter rolls when Pew Research conducted a similar audit in 2012, the number is significant in what is perceived to be a close election in November.
In the 2016 and 2018 elections, the PILF found that 14,608 registrants were found to have voter after their death certificates were filed. The foundation vetted for cases where votes may have cast early or absentee ballots before passing.
In California, a Redondo Beach man reported that his parents, who had been deceased for ten years, received mail-in ballots.
“I am the son, and I’m getting these officials ballots for people who passed away many years ago,” Tom Thompson said. “Why is this happening?”
I am the son of John and Gertrude Thompson. Both passed away over ten years ago and got ballots for the upcoming election. I gave Richard Grenell permission to post these pictures and ask for an investigation as to why they were mailed ballots for the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/HcsIzvPk7k
— Tom Thompson (@tthompson90277) October 8, 2020
And the election watchdog group, Election Integrity Project California (EIPC), has discovered that many voter lists being used in the 2020 General Election cycle are choke-full of duplicate entries, meaning many voters are receiving two valid ballots to cast.
Why is the County of Ventura, California sending out duplicate ballots? My wife received two, each with a different tracking barcode. @VC_Reporter @vcstar @FoxNews @CNN @latimes @NBCLA pic.twitter.com/kgRsbymY2z
— Dave Zubak (@DaveZubak) October 11, 2020
Ellen Swensen, the chief analyst with EIPC, believes 2,379 people will get two ballots from Kern County alone; 18 will get three, and six people will get four ballots due to the fact they have duplicate voter registration IDs within the database. Swensen says California perennial problems with its voter registration database.
Additionally, reports are increasing about mail-in and absentee ballots being found in the trash, the latest report coming from Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree, California, the area around the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center.
President Trump has been wary of the mail-in ballot initiative throughout the election cycle saying the system is ill-equipped to handle the influx of ballots given the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus and that the process is vulnerable to bad actors.
