With the COVID-19 pandemic still around, many people decided to use mail-in ballots as a safer way to vote. However, with the increasing population of voters using mail-in ballots, the numbers of votes being rejected increases as well, when compared to past elections. This raises questions as to why.
The government first introduced mail-in ballots in the 1864 election between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan, where Union soldiers voted from the fields during the Civil War, according to History. Since then, the majority of voters have consistently voted in-person, with roughly 45% of American citizens showing up to the polls, and in contrast with around 17% of voters exercising their democratic rights through mail-in ballots, according to The Election Administration and Voting Survey.
In 2020, with rising concerns of a second COVID-19 wave, mail-in ballots became the preferred and safest choice for voting. However, voting rejections increased with the number of voters using mail-in ballots. According to NPR, “An extraordinarily high number of ballots— more than 550,000—have been rejected in this year's presidential primaries, far more than the 318,728 ballots rejected in the 2016 general election.” The possibility exists that these higher rejection numbers stem from the higher number of mail-in ballots this year.
One reason for the high number of rejections could be the unknown and tedious rules in place, such as the requirements for signatures. Another reason could be racial and age differences: according to The Washington Post, “As of Friday, election officials had set aside ballots from Black and Hispanic voters at two times the rate of ballots from White voters, according to an analysis by University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith. For people younger than 24, the rate was more than four times what it was for those 65 and older.”
Students who became just old enough to vote most likely will use mail-in ballots. Using mail-in ballots might be the future of voting for everyone, however, with the restrictions limiting the number of votes actually being accounted for, there comes a question: does voting by mail actually make the opinions of people heard?
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