According to a Wall Street Journal report, millions of mail-in ballots haven’t been received by election offices in critical battleground states. There is a risk of some ballots not returning in time due to USPS slowdowns.
As of Oct. 30, more than seven million mailed ballots had not been returned in the 13 most competitive states that require ballots to arrive on or before Election Day. The Wall Street Journal analyzed the data from the University of Florida’s U.S. Elections Project.
That’s about 28% of the more than 24 million ballots that had been tallied in those states, the Elections Project data show.
Many of the states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Florida, were narrowly won in the 2016 presidential election, in some cases by only a few thousand votes, making the outstanding ballots potentially critical to figuring a winner this time around.
Among the thirteen most competitive states that require ballots arrive before or on Election Day
Total outstanding ballots, as of Oct. 30 — 7,007,367.
Trump’s total margin among those states in 2016, in votes, 1,950,460.
Nationwide, the Postal Service said just 62% of first-class mail was delivered on time on Tuesday, with Philadelphia and Detroit both seeing on-time delivery rates below 50% that day. Performance ticked up in those cities on Wednesday, with the national on-time delivery average currently hovering at 89%.
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In Michigan, where Donald Trump eked out a victory with just 10,704 more votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016, election officials have not received more than 700,000 requested ballots as of Oct. 29, Elections Project data show.
In Arizona, where Mr. Trump won by 91,234 votes, 1,225,387 ballots had not been returned as of Tuesday, the Elections Project data show.
Similar slowdowns occurred in Georgia, where 624,842 requested ballots had not been returned as of Oct. 29, the Elections Project data show. In 2016, Mr. Trump won the state by 211,141 votes.
The Journal forgot to attribute the slowdowns to the extreme number of ballots going through the system that isn’t set up to do it.
Number of outstanding ballots—mail-in ballots that haven’t been received by election offices—in comparison to the margin of victory in 2016
For competitive states that require ballots arrive before or on Election Day
Expect a lot of lawsuits, and they will keep counting until Joe Biden wins.
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