Racism is so baked in to the electoral system that it isn't just preventing people of color from getting to the polls in the first place, it means that votes actually cast by people of color are more likely to be rejected. It's happening again this year, and in some key battleground states like Florida and Georgia. NBC News and Democratic political data firm TargetSmart reviewed information about tens of thousands of spoiled ballots in 11 states.
In Florida and George in particular, the votes by Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters are marked for voter error at a higher rate; twice as frequently in Florida. In that state, voters are contacted and have until Thursday to "cure" their ballots—correct whatever error flagged it—so that their vote will count. The most common reason for rejected ballots is a lack of a signature in Florida. A second analysis by University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith confirms that ballots from Black and Hispanic voters are set aside at twice the rate as ballots from white voters, and that voters younger than 24 are more than four times more likely to have ballots rejected than voters over age 65. As of Friday, that was about 15,200 ballots out of about 4.3 million cast, but there were still 1.6 million mail ballots outstanding in the state as of Friday. Voters there have until 5 PM ET on Thursday, November 5, to correct them.
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In Georgia, Asian voters' mail ballots have been flagged at nearly three times the rate of white voters' mail ballots; Black voters' mail ballots at over twice the rate of white voters'; and, Hispanic voters' at twice the rate of white voters' ballots. Those ballots are considered rejected, but officials have been notifying voters that there are issues with them. The secretary of state's office told NBC that only a "handful" have thus far corrected their ballots. It could be because of confusing and contradictory information from elections officials like Victoria Benedict, a 51-year-old Atlanta resident, faced. She is a regular mail voter, has been for years, but was notified this time around her ballot was rejected for an "invalid signature." She said the Fulton County elections office told her to make an appointment to come in to fix her ballot, but that she learned from the state Democratic Party the she could fix it by emailing an affidavit to the elections office. "It's terrifying to me that the office is disseminating incorrect information that could have a chilling effect on voters curing their ballot," said Benedict. "I'm worried that people won't know what to do or have the time to research it like I did."
Benedict counteracts the conventional wisdom, that it's inexperienced or infrequent voters who are mostly likely to be rejected, and as Black voters are much more likely to vote in person, they are more likely to have errors like not signing their ballots when using the unfamiliar process. There are so many more mail-in ballots and so many more inexperienced election workers this year because of the coronavirus pandemic compounding the issue. "The problem is, if you've got millions of ballots, you're trying to notify a large number of voters that there's a question about their signature, you have untrained staff looking at signatures, people may have a 30-year-old signature," Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, explained. "This is going to be an issue if it's a close election in a number of states because there will be battles over whether absentee ballots will be counted or not," he added.
The rejection rate of ballots in the 11 states NBC and TargetSmart reviewed show relatively low rejection rates at about 0.27% of all mail ballots, about 60,000 ballots in total. But a plurality of those ballots, 44%, come from Democratic voters, younger voters and people of color. That's so far. There will be a higher rejection rate because of all those states where ballots have to be received by Tuesday—late-arriving ballots are the largest chunk of rejected votes. And what communities are most likely to have problems with postal service delivery, with inaccessible and inadequate early voting opportunities? Communities of color.
This all makes it even more critical that we beat Donald Trump. That Democrats take back the Senate. That Democrats take key legislative chambers in the states. It's the only way to restore our republic.
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