Rejected Mail Ballots Are Showing Racial Disparities

[L. Coyote]

Source: NY Times

SEATTLE — Among the thousands of mail-in ballots that were rejected in Washington State during the 2020 election, auditors have found that the votes of Black residents were thrown out four times as often as those of white voters.

The rejections, all of them because of problematic signatures, disqualified one out of every 40 mail-in votes from Black people — a finding that already is causing concern amid the national debate over voter access and secure balloting. Washington, a state with broad experience in mail-in balloting, found that rejection rates were also elevated for Native American, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander voters.

State officials said there were no signs that ballots cast by Black or other minority voters were knowingly singled out by poll workers, or that any of the ballots were deliberately falsified; the rejections were a result of signatures that were missing or did not match those on file, a possible result, the officials said, of voter inexperience, language problems or other factors.

“It’s not acceptable, quite frankly,” said State Auditor Pat McCarthy, a Democrat, whose office conducted the audit. She urged election officials to take steps to address the disparities.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/us/mail-voting-black-latino.html

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Link to tweet

[gab13by13]

1. Yeah but,

all we have to do is GOTV.

[NurseJackie]

15. Yes. GOTV is a very important element. Why ridicule it? Why shit on it?

What good purpose does that serve?

Yeah but,

Lord.

[dchill]

2. shocked shocked i say

[RockRaven]

3. Well, slap me silly and call me a pickle...!

Who could have possibly seen that coming?

[Hoyt]

4. Sounds like local Democratic offices need to increase education.

I’m sure some of rejections were GOPers. Don’t care about them.

[L. Coyote]

5. Rural areas probably don't do much rejecting.

For one thing, people know each other.

[paleotn]

6. Someone que Jim Nabors....

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! Not.

[Phoenix61]

7. I'd like to know how many were missing

signatures and how many didn’t match. I’m sure they couldn’t guess at race because LaTonya Jackson, Manual Hernandez, and Suzy Wu are common Caucasian names just like Tommy Smith and Julie Davis, right?

[MichMan]

24. Implying the poll workers are racist?

[Phoenix61]

25. I was thinking more hidden bias.

Lots of studies about what happens when you change just the name on resume. Deciding if two signatures match is subjective which is the type of decision that is impacted by hidden bias.

[groundloop]

8. How many people doing the rejecting are handwriting experts?

For one thing it's a well known fact that signatures change over time (mine certainly has).

[OneCrazyDiamond]

20. That's a great question.

Hopefully they consult with California. We have signature match without throwing out PoC votes.

[DallasNE]

9. Those Ballots Should Not Have Been Outright Rejected

Technical problems like that should only cause them to be flagged as provisional ballots where the voter is notified and given a few days to correct the defect. Only then should the ballot be rejected.

[WHITT]

10. That's A Feature Not A Bug

[cadoman]

11. is race part of voter registration?

I'm kinda curious how they're cross referencing this. I don't see any racial information on the voter registration form.

https://olvr.votewa.gov/VoterIdentification.aspx

https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/vrf_print_2022_english.pdf

[E. Normus]

17. NAMES tell enough

John, Pedro, Shaquelle. Jane, Juanita, Valencia. Get my point?

[cadoman]

26. yes, I've written algorithms for name analysis before

You can make a wonderfully accurate algorithm for basic male/female name analysis. Race is tougher though.

Is it your understanding that they used a name analysis algorithm to determine what race of voters were discriminated against? I would've guessed they lumped it up and generalized by precinct.

I'm genuinely curious as to what methodology was actually used, because again, it's not on the voter registration form. So this data must've been extrapolated, cross referenced, or sampled somehow.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. Who is surprised by this?

[elleng]

13. No sh*t, sherlock.

[DallasNE]

14. So, What Was The Impact?

Let's assume there were a total of 15,000 black mail-in votes cast and 60,000 white mail-in votes cast.

1/40 of 15,000 is 375
1/160 of 60,000 is 375

Black split 92% D and 8% R is 345 D and 30 R
White split 30% D and 70% R is 112.5 and 262.5
Total D vote lost is 457.5 and R vote lost is 292.5

Net R pickup is 165 votes.

I don't have the demographics for Washington State so the actual numbers will be slightly different, but the effort was to fill in important data the story lacks on impact.

Since these were technical issues those 750 ballots should have been handled as provisional ballots with the voters given the opportunity to correct the defect rather than just tossing them out, so the law needs to be fixed. Example: the registration may list the name as Susan Brown-Johnson but after a divorce she now goes by Susan Brown. Or the difference could be Susan B. Johnson rather than Susan Brown-Johnson. A fixable error like these should not cause the ballot to be outright rejected. That is why the provisional ballot law was written. Now they seem to be reversing course and eliminating provisional ballots and disenfranchising voters.

[madville]

16. I used to deal with a bunch of paperwork

Stuff like IT network user requests and security clearances. The number of people that couldn’t follow simple directions or sign or initial forms in the correct places was way higher than I thought it should have been.

I never paid any attention if there were any racial disparities though, but that workplace was over 90% white males at the time so that’s who I was usually correcting just because that’s who was mostly there.

I don’t doubt people screw up their mail in/absentee ballots regularly, the racial aspect is interesting though, wonder how it lines up with educational disparities in skills like reading comprehension, literacy etc.

[Lonestarblue]

18. This is exactly why Texas changes the law on signature matching.

The former law required matching to a signature no more than six years old. The new law allows the matching on any signature on file—the clerk’s choice. So a 30-year old signature is unlikely to EXACTLY match the same person’s signature today, thus giving an excuse to throw out ballots with Hispanic or other ethnic names and ballots from certain ZIP codes. Elections clerks are given no training in how to evaluate signatures.

With the new Texas requirements, which are similar to the secret handshake you only know if you’re part of the right group, around 59% of requests for mail ballots are being rejected, along with as much as 50% f voter registrations because people aren’t filling out a form correctly since it has conflicting information. And one of the worst decisions ever, you have to put your Social Security number on both the inside ballot and on the outside envelope to be mailed where anyone can see it and record it with the mailer’s name for use in security fraud. Way to go Texas Republican idiots!

[Jose Garcia]

19. This is Jim Crow on steroids! Washington election are exclusively vote by mail

[Bengus81]

21. But if Trump lived there somehow his signature would be readable?

Or would his vote be tossed out?

[CosmicSloth]

22. Interesting finding but...

There really shouldn't be a conspiracy attached to all this. Washington State elections are all mail in and have many safeguards. One must sign the envelope and the signature should match reasonably with what is on record from either previous elections or a driver's license.

Further there is a line underneath the signature where you can (and should) put your phone number or email address that actually says "optional in case there is an issue with your signature". And on top of that, there is a tracking tab you must detach that allows you to follow your ballot's progress online - and it indeed works.

The racial disparity is interesting, but the official's explanation noted is quote plausible. Anyhow, there are safeguards and second chances to track one's ballot status...none of the ballots are just tossed without an attempt to have them counted.

Even here in blue Washington State, there are forces (minority republicans) that want to scrap the excellent all mail in voting system we have or bring doubts on its fairness to further their attempts at overcoming the demographics here which don't favor them. This article should be used as a learning experience to help educate voters who may be unintentionally disenfranchising themselves - and it seems to be more prevalent in the minority communities.

[L. Coyote]

23. DITTO that.