Two things before we get started here: this video is sponsored in part by Newsvoice, and
also it’s another collaboration with the terrific Cynical Historian.
Stick around for more information, cool beans?
(drop mail into mailbox) Oh hey I’m Mr. Beat. I just voted by mail.
As Election Day gets closer, many of you will be doing the same thing here in the United States.
But apparently voting by mail has been controversial.
Trump: Absentee voting...great. But this mail-in voting where they mail mil- indiscriminately millions and millions of ballots to people. You're never gonna know who won the election. You can't have that.
We decided to test it, sending 100 mock ballots simulating 100 voters
from locations all across Philadelphia.
To a PO Box we set up to represent a local election office.
21% of our votes hadn't materialized after four days, and the batch we mailed a week prior? Some of those were missing, too.
So of our 100 ballots, 97 arrived. Which sounds pretty good, unless you consider the fact that 3 people who tried to vote by mail in our mock election were in fact disenfranchised by mail.
You’d think that voting by mail is a new thing.
(starts walk away and turning suddenly) but it’s not.
It all started in what would become the United States of America.
One of the earliest known instances of voting by mail was during the American Revolution.
Say what?
It’s true.
In December 1775, a group of Continental Army soldiers couldn’t make it back home to vote
in Hollis, New Hampshire.
So, the town let the soldiers deliver their votes via a letter.
Some soldiers also voted by mail during the War of 1812.
During that war, Pennsylvania let soldiers vote by mail if they were stationed more than
two miles from their home.
Woah, TWO WHOLE MILES.
Hey that was even before trains ok?
The first widespread use of voting by mail occurred during the American Civil War.
For the thousands of soldiers stationed far away from home, nineteen states changed their
laws to allow them to vote using an absentee ballot.
An absentee ballot is a ballot completed and mailed in by a voter
who couldn’t be physically present in their home district on Election Day.
I completed an absentee ballot the very first election I voted in way back in 2000.
I was in college at the time, and I couldn’t make it back home on Election Day.
Not all mail-in ballots are absentee ballots, though.
Just a few years after the Civil War ended, on the other side of the world, parts of Australia
had begun experimenting with voting by mail.
By 1906, the whole country was letting certain citizens send in ballots through the mail.
Oh just a side note, Australia has a long history of being ahead of the curve when it comes
to democracy.
Anyway, back in the United States, more and more states were passing laws to expand absentee
voting to civilians.
By 1924, almost all of the states had allowed at least some of its citizens to vote by mail
in certain circumstances.
And this idea even spread around the world.
Canada, in 1917.
West Germany, in 1957.
Switzerland, 1970.
In fact, the Swiss liked mail-in voting so much that today the majority of Swiss vote
by mail.
In 1998, the U.S. state of Oregon became the first state to require ALL elections
to be conducted by mail.
That said, voters still have the option to drop their ballots off at official drop sites.
Since, Oregon has saved a lot of money but has spent much more time tallying up the votes.
Today, Washington State, Colorado, Hawaii, and Utah also conduct their elections entirely
by mail, and many other states also have counties and/or small elections where everyone votes
by mail.
Not only that, but today dozens of countries around the world also allow mail-in voting.
Despite the fact that it happens so many places and it's been around for awhile
it's still a controversial thing.
In fact, it has been controversial ever since it was first widespread back during the Civil War.
Back then, it almost immediately became partisan.
Republicans viewed a higher voter turnout as a way to help them get elected, so they
tended to support mail-in voting, while Democrats felt mail-in voting could hurt their chances
of winning elections so they opposed it, and fought it in the courts.
Ultimately, four states got rid of mail-in voting because of this.
And there are potential problems with mail-in voting.
First of all, the tallying process is incredibly long and tedious.
Second, a ballot could get lost or stolen in the mail or not processed on time.
Third, a voter’s request could be altered or forged.
Fourth, a voter could be more easily swayed by a family member or caregiver to vote a
certain way, or more easily paid to vote a certain way.
Fifth, sabotage.
Someone could intercept ballots in the mail and tamper with them.
That could even be the postal workers themselves.
Sixth, forgery.
Even if ballots require signatures, those can still be forged.
Seventh, corruption.
People who count the votes could potentially have too much freedom with rejecting ballots
and get carried away with it or be biased, and those same folks could simply ignore or
falsify ballots as well.
They also could be bribed.
And those aren’t even all the potential problems with mail-in voting.
That said, some of those things could also potentially happen with in-person voting.
Voting with paper ballots is more secure than online voting, so most places will have to
deal with counting paper ballots anyway.
Even with voting in person, ballots get lost or stolen.
People who count the votes could still tamper with the results, or at the very least be
biased with which ballots they reject.
Also, most of the potential problems with mail-in voting I mentioned could be resolved
with tightened security measures.
According to a study by the Washington Post, there is no evidence that mail-in voting actually
increases voting fraud.
In the presidential election of 2016, 33 million Americans voted by mail.
That was 24% of all Americans who voted.
Afterward, President Donald Trump appointed a commission to look into voter fraud because
he believed millions had voted illegally.
Trump: People would come up to me and express their concerns about voter inconsistencies and irregularities which they saw.
However, the commission found little evidence of voter fraud.
Still, for the upcoming 2020 elections, Trump has been undermining mail-in voting.
Wait, hold up.
It’s almost like mail-in voting is a POLITICAL issue.
How is something as benign as the postal service be so political?
Hey Cypher, has it always been this way?
Cypher: Definitely!
Mr. Beat: Oh
Cypher: Well, it’s been used for all sorts of stuff, from highways and railroads; fostering
industries like telegraphs, cars, and airlines; It even had a hand in the early development
of the internet.
Yet it’s also been a way for politicians to give kick-backs to their cronies, breaking
free-speech, and push failed economic policies through conniving means.
So the US postal system has both been used and abused by politicians throughout its history,
which I’m talking about over on my channel.
Mr. Beat: Is it ok if they watch the rest of my video before they watch yours?
Cypher: Ok, I suppose so
Thanks Cypher.
Ok, before I wrap this up I probably should mention one more thing.
There is this phenomenon known as the Blue Shift.
Basically, typically more mail-in votes are for the Democratic Party, a party currently
symbolized by the color blue.
Get it?
Blue shift?
Anyway, this Blue shift happens because those who benefit the most from mail-in voting-which
apparently is younger voters, low-income voters, and voters who move often-typically vote more
for Democratic candidates.
That said, a Stanford University study found no partisan advantage to mail-in voting.
Because of the current COVID-19 pandemic, voting by mail has dramatically expanded nearly
everywhere in the world.
In fact, around 84% of Americans will be able to vote by mail in the 2020 election.
According to one poll, 1 out of 3 Americans will be doing just that.
So if you are one of the millions of Americans voting by mail for the first time this election, know that your ballot will be safe, that your ballot will be counted….eventually…,
and most importantly, that, we have a long history of doing this.
This video is once again sponsored by Newsvoice.
Newsvoice is my favorite place to look at the news. It's a free app that is breaking people out of those news bubbles and is revolutionizing the news landscape.
Newsvoice gives you a personalized newsfeed by aggregating major news sites, including international and independent media.
The best part about it? It shows multiple sources for the same stories, and tags the bias and perspective of each source.
You can upvote stories you find interesting and add stories or links that are missing.
So dig deeper and try Newsvoice by clicking the link to download it in the description and pinned comment. Thanks to Newsvoice for sponsoring this video.
A reminder to check out the Cynical Historian’s video he just released about the use and abuse
of the postal service throughout American history.
I already watched it, actually, and I learned a lot.
What do you think?
Should every state allow vote by mail, or is it too much trouble?
Let me know in the those comments below.
Also, here is my monthly shout out to all my Patreon supporters who donate at least $10 or more
a month to my channel.
Starting with my biggest donors, Bradley Pool, Matt Standish, Alicia Solberg, Andrew B.,
Austin Rudolph, Elcaspar, Nik Everett, Sean Conant, Jacob Velasquez, Dr. Paul J. Lilly,
Andrew Schneider, CJkavy, James, John Johnson, Kit Walker, Leigh Fortier, Zachary F. Parker,
Victor Martinez, Southside Mitch, Quentin Choy, Pat Randolph, and Cal Stephens.
Thank you all, and thank YOU for watching.