More than 550,000 mail-in ballots were rejected nationwide this primary season, according to a recent report released by National Public Radio.
The NPR report showed how legitimate ballots were not being counted, showing a higher rejection rate nationwide in the 2020 presidential primaries than in the 2016 presidential primaries when only 318,000 legitimate ballots were rejected.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that Florida, which had 18,000 mail-in ballots rejected in the 2020 primary election, had a lot of problems that went unaddressed with their mail-in ballot laws.
In the 2018 general election in Florida, either because of an alleged signature mismatch, no signatures on envelopes, or late arrival at elections offices, an estimated 20,000 general election ballots were rejected in the state.
University of Florida professor Daniel A. Smith said that between the 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries, the use of vote-by-mail soared by more than half, going from 30 percent to 46 percent.
“What my research has been showing, along with [professor] Michael Herron at Dartmouth, is that experience matters,” Smith said. “And so across race and ethnicity and party, people who haven’t voted by mail in past elections are much more likely to have their vote-by-mail ballot rejected, either for a signature issue, or because it’s late.”
Smith added that those who voted by mail in the 2020 presidential primary after voting in-person in the 2016 and 2018 elections were more likely to have their ballots turned down than those who voted by mail in 2016 and 2018.
Two Democrat Super PACs have created a $7.5 million campaign to encourage the use of vote-by-mail. President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly said that the process has led to fraud.
His 2020 re-election campaign recently sued the state of New Jersey for letting residents decide whether they want to vote by mail or vote in person.
Trump has also warned activists could double-count ballots, print off their own ballots and sign them, or take ballots out of mailboxes.
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