If we are to have safe, healthy, and fair elections this year in the face one of the worst pandemics in a century, Americans must make widespread use of mail ballots. Election administrators and other leaders from across the political spectrum have urged support to make the necessary adjustments to their election infrastructure. They recognize we have no choice. Most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, agree.
President Trump and his allies, however, are pushing back against this option, raising spurious claims that fraudulent mail ballots will contaminate the election. “I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,” Trump said earlier this week. “Mail in voting is a terrible thing. . . . I think if you vote, you should go,” he later added, not long after he requested a vote-by-mail ballot for the Florida primary. Shortly afterward, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel echoed the president in a Fox News op-ed. (This is in sharp contrast to former chairman Michael Steele, who coauthored an op-ed arguing that “the current emergency demands expanded use of vote-by-mail,” and that “democracy depends on it.”)
Trump’s claims are wrong, and if used to prevent states from taking the steps needed to ensure public safety during November’s election, they will be deadly wrong. Mail ballot fraud is incredibly rare, and legitimate security concerns can be easily addressed.
Mail balloting is not a newfangled idea; it was already deeply embedded in the American electoral system before the coronavirus hit. In the last two federal elections, roughly one out of every four Americans cast a mail ballot. In five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington — mail balloting has been the primary method of voting. In 28 additional states, all voters have had the right to vote by mail ballot if they choose, without having to provide any reason or excuse. Over time, a growing number of voters have chosen that option. Since 2000 more than 250 million votes have been cast via mailed-out ballots, in all 50 states, according to the Vote at Home Institute. In 2018, more than 31 million Americans cast their ballots by mail, about 25.8 percent of election participants.
Despite this dramatic increase in mail voting over time, fraud rates remain infinitesimally small. None of the five states that hold their elections primarily by mail has had any voter fraud scandals since making that change. As the New York Times editorial board notes, “states that use vote-by-mail have encountered essentially zero fraud: Oregon, the pioneer in this area, has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000, and has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud.” Rounded to the seventh decimal point, that’s 0.0000001 percent of all votes cast. An exhaustive investigative journalism analysis of all known voter fraud cases identified only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012. As election law professor Richard L. Hasen notes, during that period “literally billions of votes were cast.” While mail ballots are more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting, it is still more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than to commit mail voting fraud.
States have multiple tools to address valid security concerns and protect election integrity when it comes to mail ballots. And recent technologies and strategies have significantly enhanced the security of mail balloting.
April 20, 2020
Brennan Center
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