10 Reasons to End Vote-By-Mail

CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY ISSUES

Vote By Mail increases the number of hands that touch, and the amount of time a voted ballot is out of the hands of the voter.

CENTRALIZED TABULATION BY MACHINES

Vote by mail systems rely on centralized counting of ballots by tabulation machines, which do not allow observers to see the ballots actually counted.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOW ID TO VOTE

When you vote at a polling place you show ID. Mail-in ballots in Utah today rely on signature matching, which is not as sure a method to verify the ID of the voter.

THE ELECTION IS LONGER, WHICH CAUSES CAMPAIGNS TO SPEND MORE MONEY

Mail-in ballots are sent out 21 days before the election, forcing campaigns to spend more money on voter contact over the extended time ballots are in the hands of the voters.

COUNTERFEIT BALLOTS CAN BE INTRODUCED INTO THE SYSTEM

This problem has surfaced where the ballots are not handed to the voter by a poll worker, as occurs with in-person voting.

THE “SECRET BALLOT” IS OFTEN NOT COMPLETELY SECRET

Family members and others can pressure the voter to vote a certain way. With a ballot voted on the kitchen table, the voter’s privacy can be compromised.

COUNTING TAKES DAYS--DELAYING RESULTS AND TEMPTING SHENANIGANS

Counting the ballots now takes days. In the razor-close presidential election of 1960 between Nixon and JFK, where nearly all voting was in-person, the nationwide outcome was determined before morning.

FAMILY MEMBERS/ROOMMATES ARE TEMPTED TO VOTE BALLOTS THAT ARRIVE AT THEIR DOOR BY MISTAKE

Despite what is often the best efforts of our election officials, ballots can arrive at a residence by mistake, tempting parents to vote for adult children, or the ethically challenged to cast other ballots in their possession but which do not belong to them.

NO EXIT POLLING

An exit poll is the most accurate indicator of the outcome of an election. If an exit poll differs from election results by more than one or two percentage points, then we can rightly suspect that the election has been tainted.

BUYER’S REMORSE

With vote-by-mail, and with early (poll) voting, voters can cast their ballots for a candidate and then--days later--learn something that would have caused them to vote for someone else. Polling in 2020 showed that over 5% of voters who voted for one of the presidential candidates would have made a different selection had they known negative information that surfaced later in the campaign.