Tag Archives: mail-in voting

Mail-in voting set to soar in Canada election, could undermine Trudeau, New Democratic Party

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Mail-in voting in Canada is set to soar ahead of the Sept. 20 election amid fears of COVID-19, and the complex registration process could deter voters, possibly undermining Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bid for a majority government.

Pollsters say mainly Liberal and left-leaning voters would like to use mail-in balloting, while Conservatives prefer to vote in person. But Liberal strategists are concerned the sign-up process for casting ballots by mail could discourage their supporters from using it and lead them to not vote at all.

Trudeau, 49, launched the campaign on Sunday, hoping that high vaccination rates and a post-pandemic economic rebound would help him rebuff a challenge from the opposition Conservatives and regain the parliamentary majority he lost two years ago.

Part of the problem is there is no substantive history of voting by mail during Canadian federal elections, where electors overwhelmingly go in person to polling stations. Of the 18.4 million people who cast their ballots in the 2019 election, just under 50,000 chose mail, and most of them were abroad.

But concern over COVID-19 means anywhere from 4 million to 5 million people out of 27 million potential voters could choose the mail this time, says Elections Canada, the independent body running the vote.

Some 71% of the country’s eligible population is fully vaccinated, but cases are creeping higher – mostly among the unvaccinated – in a fourth wave being driven by the Delta variant.

People who want to vote by mail must ask Elections Canada for a special ballot and provide proof of identity, either by applying online and sending a digital scan of documents, or by mail by with photocopies of identification.

“It is true that voting by mail demands an effort on the part of the elector,” Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Michel Roussel said in a phone interview. “We will insist, the moment the election is called, that if you plan to vote by mail, start now, because it is complicated.”

To better inform voters how to vote by mail, Elections Canada plans an advertising blitz once the campaign starts, using the Web, radio and television as well as social media channels.

But two Liberal sources who said they could not speak on the record said they feared that elderly voters – who tend to vote more than other age cohorts – would be put off by the application process while the fear of COVID-19 might keep them from voting in person.

“Support for mail-in is higher among New Democrats and Liberals and least popular among Conservatives,” said EKOS Research pollster Frank Graves, who said some 20% of mostly left-leaning voters want to vote by mail.

“If mail-in is more difficult than people would like, it would be least damaging to the Conservatives, because it’s not something they’re planning on using much anyway.”

Liberal and Conservative party spokespeople did not comment officially on the possible effects of mail-in balloting.

Opinion polls show the Liberals still might not have enough votes to win an outright majority in parliament.

Nationally, Liberals would win 35% of the vote, compared with 30% for the main opposition Conservative Party and 19% for the left-leaning New Democrats, a Leger Marketing poll showed on Aug. 12.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, edited by Steve Scherer and Jonathan Oatis)

More than 4 million Americans have already voted, suggesting record turnout

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans are rushing to cast ballots ahead of the Nov. 3 election at an unprecedented pace, early voting numbers show, indicating a possible record turnout for the showdown between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

With four weeks to go before Election Day, more than 4 million Americans already have voted, more than 50 times the 75,000 at this time in 2016, according to the United States Elections Project, which compiles early voting data.

The shift has been driven by an expansion of early and mail-in voting in many states as a safe way to cast a ballot during the coronavirus pandemic and an eagerness to weigh in on the political future of Trump, said Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, who administers the project.

“We’ve never seen this many people voting so far ahead of an election,” McDonald said. “People cast their ballots when they make up their minds, and we know that many people made up their minds long ago and already have a judgment about Trump.”

The early surge has led McDonald to predict a record turnout of about 150 million, representing 65% of eligible voters, the highest rate since 1908.

Biden leads Trump in national opinion polls, although surveys in crucial battleground states indicate a tighter race.

The numbers reported so far come from 31 states, McDonald said, and will grow rapidly as more states begin early in-person voting and report absentee mail-in totals in the next few weeks. All but about a half-dozen states allow some level of early in-person voting.

The percentage of voters who cast their ballot at a voting machine on Election Day already had been in steady decline before this year, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency.

The total number of early or mail-in votes more than doubled from nearly 25 million in 2004 to 57 million in 2016, it said, representing an increase from one in five of all ballots cast to two in five of all ballots cast.

Trump has railed against mail-in voting, making unfounded accusations that it leads to fraud. Experts have said such fraud is rare.

Those attacks by the president have shown signs of depressing Republican interest in voting by mail. Democrats have more than doubled the number of returned mail-in ballots by Republicans in seven states that report voter registration data by party, according to the Elections Project.

In the crucial battleground state of Florida, Democrats have requested more than 2.4 million mail-in ballots and returned 282,000, while Republicans have asked for nearly 1.7 million and returned more than 145,000.

A national Reuters/Ipsos poll taken last week found 5% of Democrats nationwide said they had already voted compared to 2% of Republicans. About 58% of Democrats planned to vote early compared to 40% of Republicans.

McDonald said early voting typically starts strong, then drops before surging just ahead of the election. But in some states, rates of participation already have skyrocketed a month out.

In South Dakota, early voting this year already represents nearly 23% of the total turnout in 2016. It is nearly 17% of total 2016 turnout in Virginia and nearly 15% of total 2016 turnout in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

“That’s just nuts,” McDonald said. “Every piece of data suggests very high turnout for this election. I think that’s just a given.”

(Reporting by John Whitesides; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Will Dunham)

U.S. House to vote on $25 billion postal infusion, mail-in ballot safeguards

By David Shepardson and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Democrats unveiled on Wednesday legislation that would require same-day processing for mail-in ballots and give the cash-strapped Postal Service a $25 billion infusion while erasing changes pursued by the agency’s new leader, an ally of President Donald Trump.

The Democratic-led House is scheduled to vote on the legislation on Saturday, though there is little chance for passage in the Republican-led Senate. The bill would prevent the Postal Service from implementing policies to alter service levels that were in effect at the beginning of this year.

Democrats and other critics have accused the Republican president of trying to impair the Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting as he trails Democratic challenger Joe Biden in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Under intense criticism, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced on Tuesday that he would put on hold until after the election cost-cutting moves at the Postal Service that Democratic lawmakers and state attorneys general argued could imperil mail-in voting. DeJoy said he suspended all “operational initiatives” through Election Day to “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.”

DeJoy, who has been a major political donor to Trump, assumed the job in June.

The Postal Service long has faced financial woes with the rise of email and social media, losing $80 billion since 2007, including $2.2 billion in the three months ending June 30.

Democrats want DeJoy to explain how he will reverse the changes he has made, including whether he will order the return of sorting machines already removed.

Separately, Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, asked the Postal Service Board of Governors to release all materials related to the selection of DeJoy and for “additional information” regarding the role of Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin in the search and selection process.

The board in May said it reviewed records of more than 200 candidates before narrowing the list to more than 50. The board then interviewed more than a dozen candidates in first round interviews, and invited seven candidates for follow-up interviews.

Trump has repeatedly and without evidence claimed that mail balloting is vulnerable to fraud. Voting by mail is nothing new in the United States, and Trump himself plans to vote by mail in Florida this year.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the White House was not involved in the Postal Service changes. The Treasury Department and the Postal Service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Susan Cornwell and David Shepardson; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. Attorney General Barr says the left wants to tear down system

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General William Barr mounted a partisan attack on the Democratic Party in an interview that aired Sunday, claiming the left believes in “tearing down the system” and pursues absolute victory as “a substitute for religion.”

Barr also told a Fox News TV host he was worried that an increase in mail-in voting could lead to a contested presidential election in November, sounding in on an issue often raised by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In an interview with conservative pundit Mark Levin, Barr said Democrats had pulled away from classic liberal values and now were akin to the “Rousseauian Revolutionary Party” aimed at destroying the institutions upon which the country was built.

“They’re not interested in compromise, they’re not interested in dialectic exchange of views. They’re interested in total victory,” Barr said of the left. “It’s a secular religion. It’s a substitute for a religion.”

The comments come nearly two weeks after a contentious hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in which Barr denied accusations he was doing Trump’s bidding by intervening in high-profile cases and sending federal agents into cities.

Barr has come under fire from Democratic lawmakers for sending federal officers to disperse protesters in Portland, Oregon, where some demonstrators have attacked a federal courthouse and others have gathered to speak out against racism and police brutality following the May 25 death of George Floyd.

Barr said police have been unfairly maligned and targeted with violent attacks during nationwide protests, and argued greater attention should be paid to a recent surge in violence in some cities that has led to numerous deaths of Black people.

He said he believed systemic racism existed, but that the “best example” was in education, with public schools consistently failing inner-city youth. He pointed to school choice – a policy endorsed by Trump – as one solution to the problem.

“I believe Black lives matter, but I believe all Black lives matter. I also believe that it’s not just a matter of protecting their safety from physical harm, it’s also providing economic opportunity, which this administration has done,” Barr said.

Trump, who trails Democratic challenger Joe Biden in opinion polls, has raised questions about the integrity of the November election and he and his allies have proclaimed without evidence that expanded voting by mail – sought by many due to the coronavirus pandemic – will lead to widespread fraud.

When asked about the push to expand mail-in ballots, Barr said he was “very worried about it.”

He said he was fine with “individual cases” where people that have difficulty making it to the polls apply for and receive a ballot in the mail.

“But the idea that you, without any request from the voter, will mail out your voting list, all these thousands and thousands of ballots, is scary because most of those mailings go to a lot of addresses where the people no longer live,” Barr said. “They could easily create a situation where there’s going to be a contested election.”

(reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)