Nearly half of U.S. states allow voters to request absentee ballots less than a week before elections. Even under normal circumstances, that often is too little lead time to guarantee voters get ballots and sufficient time to return them, officials say
FILE PHOTO: A resident drops off a mail-in ballot at the Edmondson Westside High School Polling site, during the special election for Maryland's 7th congressional district seat, previously held by Rep. Elijah Cummings , in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., April 28, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File Photo
“It is not logistically possible” for all voters asking for ballots at the last minute to get them in time to return them by mail, LaRose told Reuters. “That relies on a lot of luck.” Some are taking action. Wisconsin’s bipartisan election commission is working on adding new barcodes to ballot envelopes for tracking them in the mail, a move experts say would help the United States Postal Service process them more quickly. The commission also plans to mail absentee ballot applications to 2.7 million registered voters who are not already on absentee voter rolls, a move that should help reduce 11th-hour requests.
Failure by these states to prepare could lead to messy legal fights in the event of a close contest in November, said Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University. Some voting rights advocates worry these efforts don’t go far enough. Setting an earlier deadline for requesting a ballot could also make it harder for people to vote if they contract the coronavirus or have other problems just before the election, said Jen Miller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
What was not known to them at the time, and which Reuters has exclusively learned, was that a coronavirus outbreak was ravaging a mail sorting facility in neighboring Michigan called the Michigan Metroplex, delaying election mail bound for northwestern Ohio.
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