538 "North Carolina Is Already Rejecting Black Voters' Mail-In Ballots More Often Than White Voters'

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/north-carolina-is-already-rejecting-black-voters-mail-in-ballots-more-often-than-white-voters/

In every election, a small percentage of mail-in ballots get rejected. But this election is likely to have a whole lot of mail-in ballots. And in an election where a record number of voters are expected to cast their ballots by mail, you’re likely to hear a whole lot about ballots that don’t count, especially because voters of color have ballots rejected at a higher rate than white voters.

It’s already happening. In North Carolina, absentee ballots have already been sent back and the state has been updating statistics on those ballots daily. As of September 17, Black voters’ ballots are being rejected at more than four times the rate of white voters, according to the state’s numbers.1 Black voters have mailed in 13,747 ballots, with 642 rejected, or 4.7 percent. White voters have cast 60,954 mail-in ballots, with 681 — or 1.1 percent — rejected. In addition, 434 ballots cast by white voters and 127 ballots cast by Black voters were marked “spoiled,” which can mean literally spoiled or something as simple as a voter informing the election office that the address they had requested a ballot to is wrong. (These are a tiny portion of the votes from one state, so obviously we have a long way to go before we know the full landscape of ballot rejection rates.)

The vast majority of these ballots were rejected because voters made a mistake or failed to fill out the witness information,2 according to state records. A rejected ballot does not necessarily mean the voter is denied his or her vote: North Carolina allows for a process called “vote curing,” where voters are notified that there’s a mistake and given a chance to fix their ballot. But that’s not an option in every state: only 19 states currently allow some form of ballot curing. And even that isn’t foolproof. In Nevada’s statewide primary in June, for example, 12,366 ballots had a missing or mismatched signature, but even after voters were notified to fix it, only 45 percent were successfully cured.

Meanwhile, the racial gap in rejected ballots is not a problem unique to North Carolina.

snip - rest at the link above

[Awsi Dooger]

1. Self suppression

That may be a bit extreme but when I filled out an absentee ballot in August for the Florida primary I was struck by how many little obstacles there were, ones that were guaranteed to trip up a certain percentage of intended votes

[Ilsa]

7. Agreed. In my county in GA, the inner envelope

must be "sealed," but there is no instruction on what to use and for what purpose. There was no glued flap. I assumed tape would work. I assume it must be sealed to prevent alteration.

[LisaL]

11. Ours in OH had a glued flap.

Then we had to sign the internal envelop. Some states want you to sign an external envelop. You have to read instructions carefully.

[Buns_of_Fire]

19. You're lucky. My last inner envelope wasn't even an envelope.

It was more like a folded-over sheet of paper that SAID it was the ballot envelope.

So I put the ballot in the "envelope" and sealed it as best I could with lots of good ol' Dollar Store tape with paper strips so that there was no chance of the tape sticking to the ballot and ripping it.

Maybe they gave me points for ingenuity, because the final note when I checked my ballot status online said "accepted."

[LisaL]

22. We had a normal inner envelope with a glue flap in OH primary.

The signature had to go on the inner envelope. My ballot was accepted also.

[Buns_of_Fire]

23. The upsurge in absentee voting may have caught them a little flatfooted here in Georgia.

I know the prior election (the primary) had a real gen-u-wine envelope that I had to lick and everything.

I await to see what happens this time. I just checked my online status, and it shows that my ballot was issued 9/18. The game is afoot.

[Indykatie]

2. Signature Matching is a Scam that is Often Abused

The Dems needs to spend some of their millions on helping voters get these rejected ballots corrected and providing education so they don't get rejected in the first place. The requirement for a witness is a no- brainer. Hard to believe so many voters miss that obvious requirement.

[Kaleva]

10. Michigan doesn't require the signature of a witness.

[LisaL]

12. OH doesn't either.

Some states make it harder than others.

[Kaleva]

15. Michigan makes it pretty easy.

And they just passed a law allowing clerks to start processing the ballots the day before the election.

[LisaL]

16. OH also plans to start scanning the ballots before the election.

So there is not going to be a "red mirage" because those numbers (for absentee ballots that arrived before the election) will be entered first, not last.

[pnwmom]

21. It's not a scam in my state. Computers do the matching, and if they reject an occasional ballot,

the person will be contacted -- by whatever method they indicate on their ballot.

[ooky]

3. Well, I hope they all go back and cure their ballots, because we can't afford to lose 5%

of the Black vote in NC.

[Maru Kitteh]

17. Part of our voter outreach absolutely MUST include this. Helping all Dem voters check

the status of their ballot and fix any problems.

[Bayard]

4. How do they know if a voter is black or white?

[blueinredohio]

5. Id like to know that myself.

[triron]

6. Good question.

[Ilsa]

8. With some minorities, the name might give them away.

Asian names like Chen or hispanic names. Other times, an address or precinct might lead to suspecting a voter is a minority.

As for black or white, I have no idea.

[Kaleva]

13. But they were also able to figure out rejection rates based solely on age.

https://www.aclufl.org/sites/default/files/aclu_florida_-_report_on_vote-by-mail_ballots_in_the_2018.pdf

I read thru the above and can't see how they determined the voters age or race.

[LisaL]

14. Age is easier if they have access to voter rolls (which I am assuming they do).

Not sure how they figured out race. At least in OH one doesn't put race on any ballot information.

[rufus dog]

18. not very difficult

Not hard to identify, take the occurrences of Surnames, cross it against blacks by Zip Code and you have a damn good probability of targeting black voters. (A couple hours of work)

Now if you have first name, last name, address then it is very simple to cross reference against another database and determine ethnicity.


https://namecensus.com/data/black.html


NAME # Occ. Rank % Black
WILLIAMS 716,704 1 46.7% 3 1,534,042
JOHNSON 627,720 2 33.8% 2 1,857,160
SMITH 527,993 3 22.2% 1 2,376,206
JONES 514,167 4 37.7% 5 1,362,755
BROWN 476,702 5 34.5% 4 1,380,145
JACKSON 353,179 6 53.0% 18 666,125
DAVIS 329,957 7 30.8% 7 1,072,335
THOMAS 271,273 8 38.2% 14 710,696
HARRIS 247,092 9 41.6% 24 593,542
ROBINSON 221,835 10 44.1% 27 503,028
TAYLOR 199,326 11 27.7% 13 720,370
WILSON 198,269 12 25.3% 10 783,051
MOORE 188,082 13 26.9% 16 698,671
WHITE 175,099 14 27.4% 20 639,515
LEWIS 172,509 15 33.8% 26 509,930
WALKER 171,297 16 34.2% 28 501,307
GREEN 149,803 17 36.2% 37 413,477
WASHINGTON 146,520 18 89.9% 138 163,036
THOMPSON 145,176 19 22.5% 19 644,368
ANDERSON 137,688 20 18.1% 12 762,394

[Blue_true]

20. In the voter registration, a person chooses a race.

The elections office would have to refer to the voter’s registration information at some point, if the ballot has a problem.

I really hope that the vast majority of Black voters are masking up and voting in person.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

9. K&R