Thanks Mr. Secretary, as well as The Supremes

Roughly 30 percent of U.S. voters cast their ballots by mail. In states where this is the standard, like Oregon, which uses entirely mail-in balloting, it is called “Mail-In Voting.” The more standard term used in a majority of the 50 states is “Absentee Voting.” Its most common and regular use was for Absentee Ballots for men and women serving in American military service branches, and for decades those Absentee Military Ballots were predominantly Republican, with the exception of the American South.

The federal government has traditionally had very little role in the elections process, which by the U.S. Constitution are powers conveyed to and held by the states. In the spring of 2020, the pandemic lockdown fell almost atop Georgia’s planned Presidential Preference Primary. That election was re-scheduled, to take place atop the General Primary, and every Georgia voter was mailed an Absentee Ballot application.  Nearly 70,000 volunteer and senior citizen poll workers resigned over fears of contracting COVID while working in a crowded polling place on Election Day.

Unrelated, but simultaneously, the State of Georgia was rolling out an entirely new electronic voting system, following an 18-month series of public hearings, demonstrations of several different voting platforms and seeking input from dozens of local election officials.

The new system and related training would cost well over $200 million to implement. And meanwhile, local election officials and the Secretary of State’s office would train nearly 100,000 new poll workers to replace those who retired or resigned.

As the fall elections approached, Georgia voter registration reached an all-time record and by Election Day, well over 5 million ballots had been cast. And in that cycle, largely due to the pandemic, roughly 25 percent of all ballots were cast by mail.

Since his return to the White House, President Trump has made innumerable attempts to change the balloting process, in all 50 states, in ways designed more to guide outcomes, versus improving election security and ballot integrity.  Recently by Executive Order, the President ordered the U.S. Postal Service to secure voter roll lists from all 50 states. These name/address lists are already public record in a majority of states.

Further the president’s E.O. requires the 50 states to use a common scannable exterior envelope for sending out Absentee Ballots, as well as their Ballot return envelopes. With the General Election less than 60 days away, a common envelope design has not even been circulated, and North Carolina became among the first states during early September to mail out Absentee Ballots.

Multiple court challenges to the new E.O. resulted in a federal judge halting implementation of the new USPS rules, largely based on the short time frame and the likely cluster to follow, as well as potential disenfranchisement of millions of American voters. The Trump Administration then appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had recessed earlier this summer, not scheduled to resume hearing oral arguments until the first Monday in October, less than one month prior to Election Day. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and a bi-partisan coalition of 38 current and former Elections Officials from 10 states also appealed to the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on implementing these new USPS ballot handling rules.

In a decisive 7-2 vote by the Supremes in mid September, the implementation ban was upheld.  Admittedly, the justices did not speak to the intent of the new rules or their legality, only on the poor timing and inability to implement these new rules so close to an Election Day. I would still recommend, as the president is likely to make at least one more run at restricting Absentee Ballots, in this critical election, that you vote early and in person or on Election Day if at all possible. And if a Mail-In Ballot is your only option, use the Drop Boxes, at least a week prior to Election Day.