“If concern about vote fraud with mail-in ballots is delusional, it is a delusion shared by most of the world.”
~John Lott
A new report highlights the restrictive laws most European countries and other developed areas throughout the world have in regards to mail-in voting, contrasting highly permissive U.S. regulations, as the debate over the security of the practice ramps up ahead of the presidential election.
The report’s analysis of these countries’ voting laws — specifically on how restrictive their rules are on mail-in ballots, –leads the study to conclude that the permissiveness of American laws toward widespread mail-in voting is rather unique in the developed world.
The results of the study come as most states in the U.S. have made some changes to loosen their absentee ballot rules, but Republicans in many cases are fighting back in the courts. They argue that such changes open up elections to potential fraud.
“If concern about vote fraud with mail-in ballots is delusional, it is a delusion shared by most of the world,” John Lott, the report’s author, writes.
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Thirty-seven states have so far changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the Coronavirus. They are doing it despite President Trump’s warnings that mail-in ballots allow for vote fraud and vote buying. There is evidence of it in the United States and across the world. It is the reason the vast majority of countries ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad.
Most developed countries ban mail-in ballots unless the citizen is living abroad or require Photo-IDs to obtain those ballots. Even higher percentages of European Union or other European countries ban mail-in ballots for in-country voters.
Among OECD (members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries besides the United States, the report states that 78% of the countries either do not allow mail-in ballots “for people living in the country” or require a photo ID to get a mail-in ballot. In the EU, 85% of countries either bar mail-in ballots for people not living abroad or require a photo ID for such a ballot, according to the report. And every European country that is not a member of the EU has mail-in policies that fall into that category.
In addition, some countries that allow voting by mail for citizens living in the country don’t allow it for everyone. For example, Japan and Poland have limited mail-in voting to those who have special certificates verifying that they are disabled.
France has made an exception this year to the ban on mail-in ballots to those who are sick or at particular risk during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Poland and two cities in Russia have adopted mail-in ballots for elections this year only, but most countries haven’t changed their regulations.
France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people. There are many other examples.
The report, commissioned by the conservative Crime Prevention Research Center and released Monday, examines voting laws in countries in the European Union (EU), non-EU states in Europe and members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — an international body consisting largely of developed and free countries throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and South America.
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Citation: Lott, John R., Why do most countries ban mail-in ballots?: They have seen massive vote fraud problems (August 3, 2020). Available at SSRN:https://ssrn.com/abstract=
There are so many ways it can all go wrong, making the USA the laughing stock of the world.
FAIRFAX COUNTY SENT ILLEGAL BALLOTS FILLED OUT BUT IT WAS JUST A ‘MISTAKE’
Then there is this. A D.C. based liberal group mailed illegal and incorrect pre-filled absentee ballot request forms to voters. The group, Center for Voter Information, is affiliated with the Voter Participation Center started in 2003 by Democrat consultant Page Gardner.
Thousands – nearly half a million — of these were sent out to Fairfax County residents.
“Some [voters] think it’s a scam, some of them think it’s an attempt at voter suppression when in reality it’s just a third-party group trying to do a mailing and they didn’t do a very good followup,” said Democrat Gary Scott, director of elections for Fairfax County.
Scott said there were two problems with the absentee ballots. The first was that voters in Fairfax County were issued return envelopes addressed to Fairfax City, which has a separate elections office. The second issue was that the applications were partially filled with voters’ information, and in some cases the information was wrong.
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