How difficult would it be to audit "mail-in" ballots?

[kentuck]

It seems to me that it would be rather simple to audit every precinct in question, simply by auditing a dozen or a hundred or a random number from that precinct? Each of those voters could be easily located and asked to verify their ballot. It doesn't seem that complicated.

I suppose that is why Republicans do not like "mail-in" ballots? They leave a paper trail that can be easily traced, unlike those questionable machines that are programmed by who knows who?

Personally, I do not care so much that votes are counted the night of the election. Instead, I would prefer that it be accurate.

[hlthe2b]

1. You could contact some for whom absentee ballots were mailed to ask if they returned them.

You can't do the opposite (match received ballots to voter) since ballots are confidential and unidentified once the signature on the envelope is validated and the ballot separated.

[kentuck]

3. It still seems more secure than the machine voting with no paper record.

Just a personal preference, I suppose?

[hlthe2b]

8. Well, I'm firmly opposed to machine only (no paper record) voting, but which audit are you

speaking about?

[Turbineguy]

2. Trumpistas

are not looking for a solution.

[randr]

4. That we question the difficulty is a red flag

If we can securely count every single cent spent each and every day we can sure as hell count the minuscule comparitive number of votes once every few years.
The fact that we are not as secure with our voting system is enormous cause for action

[kentuck]

7. You are probably correct.

Just questioning our voting system is "cause for action".

[jimfields33]

5. I'd like them to have voting one weekend Saturday and Sunday in November

24-hours, no more then 500 voters per precinct. It would take a lot of work but I think it would make voting available for most everyone. A small percentage may need an absentee but most would be done that weekend. It would result in a much better system.

[exboyfil]

6. How come nobody is whining in Washington?

A ballot is mailed to every registered voter.

One thing I did notice is that under DeJoy's "stewardship" of the mail, the mail back window is far too short.

If you are registered to vote in Washington, there is no need to request a ballot. Your ballot packet is mailed out by October 16 to the address where you're registered. Check out these quick links to USPS and Election Mail Resources.

[Retrograde]

16. Because elections by mail can be safe and secure

if the people running them put the right resources into them. California sent a mail-in ballot to every registered voter this time - previously you had to either request one for a particular election or sign up to be a permanent mail voter or live in a county that opted for all-mail voting (IIRC over 60% of the state voted by mail in previous elections, and that's a lot of people). Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado - none of them had any obvious issues. It's a matter of the state and counties wanting to do a good job.

A lot of the whining seems to be on behalf of states where Trump expected to win but didn't, and I think he's mad that the election didn't stay fixed in his favor.

[ret5hd]

9. How do you tie a secret ballot to a voter?

Describe your process please. After filling the ballot, placing ballot inside secrecy envelope, mailing etc. ...outer envelope is opened...then what?

[kentuck]

11. I guess the best we can do is to verify the person's name when ballot is received....?

.... to their voter file?

I do not know if they put the precinct number on the ballot? I did not notice? (of course, if we had 1000 people in a precinct but 2000 voted, we would know something was fishy.)

[yellowdogintexas]

13. our ballots have signature on the outside of the mailing envelope, over the flap

the ballot board has the voter's signature from registration to verify. If the ballot board approves it, then it is part of the daily count of received ballots, and that voter's info will show that he/she mailed in the ballot. When we are checking folks in at the polls, we can see if a mail in was received for that person.

If they come in to vote in person, we can call to check if anything was received and the vote by mail will be cancelled.

[yellowdogintexas]

12. I don't think you could tie the actual vote outcome to an individual's ballot,

but there should be a database which shows the # of application requests received, the dates theapplications are mailed, the date returned to the elections office, date ballots were mailed out and the date the ballot was received by the elections office.
We can trace our own ballots online so we can see that information and we can see when it passes ballot board.

As a precinct chair, I can look up the chain of events above by voter. There are always voters who request an application but never return it. They just want it in case something happens which could keep them from voting in person. I did not send mine in until July, because I had expected to be an election judge and vote at my posted station. Once we decided to not work the election, we requested our vote by mail ballots.

Numbers will never be perfect because there are always folks who will forget to mail in that ballot.

[orwell]

10. They are completely auditable...

...they are paper ballots.

[Make7]

14. A couple short videos about methods of verifying election results.

(8 minutes 34 seconds)

(8 minutes 46 seconds)


As pointed out in replies above, the issue is keeping ballots secret while still being able to verify the results to everyone's satisfaction. We are obviously not achieving that goal presently.

[Retrograde]

15. Some sort of audit is SOP for my county

They do a hand count of some % of the ballots to make sure they match the machine tallies, per an interview with the county registrar, before the certified results are rolled up to the state level.

I don't think the Republicans calling for "audits" understand exactly what they are calling for. All mail ballots are numbered and tracked at each step of the process, and here voters can actually check to see what the progress is. Once a ballot is accepted, after the signature on the return envelope is compared to those on record (and multiple signatures are compared, including those obtained from the DMV and previous elections. The first pass is done by machine, but if the machine kicks it out several levels of real humans look at it. If it still looks off, the registrar's office contacts the voter to let them explain or fix the discrepancy). This is the step where they compare the number on the envelope to the voter id number: even if someone managed to duplicate the envelope it would be caught at this stage. After the ballots are removed from the envelopes there is no way of matching the ballots (and ours have multiple separate pages) with the voter.

Now suppose the ballot makes it past this initial scrutiny. It's removed from the envelope and fed into a scanner. If there's something wrong with it, it gets kicked out and one or more election officials will manually look at it. Even if someone managed to slip additional ballots into the envelope, flags would be raised if they were on the wrong paper stock or if they got the slew of individual elections in the wrong place or for the wrong office (remember it's not just president on the ballot! And for populous counties such as mine someone would have to get everything right down to the precinct level, including the right Congressional and state assembly districts, and all the local issues).

IMHO, there was a lot of cheating or attempted cheating going on in this election, but I'd expect it to be in the more rural, Republican districts where they vote mainly in person by machine. I'd like to see spot audits in Florida, North Carolina, and especially Kentucky but I'm not going to hold my breath.