The Mail of the Specious

There was an excellent and important article yesterday in the Washington Post by Greg Sargant about Trump and mail-in voting.  You can read it here (though Wapo has a paywall, they may allow a few free articles a month).  If  you can't get to it, the very short version is that the only battleground state that allows mail-in ballots to be counted that arrive after Election Day (even if postmarked before) is North Carolina.  Trump is trying to reinforce this, though Democrats and Team Biden are looking to get those laws changed in the states.

As I said, the article is worth reading and very thoughtful.  I always think all such articles are important, if only to keep everyone on high alert, even if sometimes the chances of them coming to fruition may be small.

The article also confirms what I’ve always presumed – that Democrats are well-aware of such things and working to correct the issue.  I tend to think that's the case with most of these election concerns that trouble so many Democrats these days.  My theory is -- if you know about it, it's a safe bet that the Democratic organization and Biden team are well-aware of it, too, and working to counteract it.  That doesn't mean that they'll be able to, just that one shouldn't panic that, "Oh, my God, I just read about this threat.  Did you realize this???!!"  The people who can actually do something about probably do realize it.  And are working on it.

One important thing that the article didn’t mention are people using drop-off boxes that totally bypass the post office.  I know a lot of states have them, and I suspect others will be adding them – and that Democrats are pushing to get more such boxes.

I fully agree with Sargent saying that while Biden could have a big enough lead on Election Night that mail-in votes arriving after Election Day won’t matter, no Democrats should count on that.  But while not remotely counting on it -- and again, he's 100% right that one shouldn't rely on that -- I do think that it’s not an unreasonable likelihood to happen.  After all, I think most people who get mail-in ballots will mail them in earlier than usual this year, because of all the attention on potential problems with the mail.  I also think Democrats will launch a huge campaign to get people to mail ballots in early.  (I’ve already seen some of that.)  Indeed, it seems to me likely (though not at all certain, and nothing to count on) that most mail-in ballots for any given state will be received by Election Day and that Biden will have a big enough lead in.  Consider:  if Biden has “just” a 5-point lead in a state on Election Day (and polls right now show that to be the case in many battleground states), these states know exactly how many mail-in ballots were sent out and received, so they know how many are still outstanding.  And there would have to be a massive amount that have not arrived yet to overcome a 5-point lead.

Moreover, I think that Trump’s ranting against the post office and mail-in voting could backfire on him in two unintended ways -- 

The first is that we've already seen in primaries that many Republicans rely on the Word of Trump and think there's something inherently wrong about voting by mail and aren't doing so, and likely won't in the general election.  If only a small amount are concerned enough about voting in person in November, even that could be a significant loss of votes in a close race.

The other is that I think the concern about the post office cut-backs will cause more people to send in their ballot before they might have otherwise.  Which means those votes are locked in.  So, no ads, no arguments, no positive news, no debate points, and no October Surprises can change them.  And when you’re behind in the polls – and by so much – as the Trump campaign is at the moment, you need every day available to convince people to change their minds.  So, if Trump is scaring people into voting by mail even earlier than normal, he may be cutting his own available days down.  And that not only affects Trump, but Republican Senate and House candidates, too, who are in close or losing races.

By the way, if Trump is behind on Election Day, I think it’s reasonable to think that he will want mail-in ballots counted that arrive after Election Day.

To be clear, I am not at all dismissing the article.  It’s an extremely good one, an important one, and I agree with it.  It’s critical that people stay vigilant on all such things.  I’m only suggesting that there are probably “fixes” in the works that make The Worst Case Scenario less likely – though worth staying on top of and making sure they don’t happen.