The threat to vote by mail isn't fraud. It's disinformation and sabotage
Millions of Americans have voted by mail securely for more than 150 years, with fraud historically being so rare that election officials wouldn't even consider it significant enough to be a rounding error. But with the coronavirus pandemic pushing a record number of absentee ballot requests, President Donald Trump and his administration has attacked the time-tested system, claiming that it will lead to a chaotic Election Day outcome.
Since April, Trump has questioned the legitimacy of vote-by-mail on Twitter, saying it will "lead to massive corruption and fraud," without offering any evidence of what security flaws are present. Attorney General William Barr also claimed, in June, that voting by mail "opens the floodgates to fraud," also without any proof.
These attacks on mail-in voting aren't new, but they do come at a time when a record number of people in the US are expected to request absentee ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has killed more than 160,000 Americans, causing businesses to shut down to prevent the spread of the infectious disease; pushing people to keep their distance from each other; and leading children to attend school online or have their parties via webcam. Sending in your ballot is the next logical step when trying to stay safe.
In Minnesota alone, the number of requests for mail-in ballots has risen more than 16 times, to roughly 470,000, according to Steve Simon, Minnesota's secretary of state, who doesn't buy into the concerns raised by the president.
-more-
https://www.cnet.com/news/the-threat-to-vote-by-mail-isnt-fraud-its-disinformation-and-sabotage/?ftag=CAD-04-10abi6g&bhid=24447454298893839703959737945916&mid=12989317&cid=534320049
