Political parties enthusiastically encourage you to fill out your vote by mail (VBM) ballot the moment you receive it, seal it into the return envelope, sign it and put it immediately back into the U.S. mail.

This advice benefits THEM (or so they believe). This is their rationale:

• The sooner you return your vote, the sooner they can remove you from their outreach list, thus saving them Get Out the Vote expenditures and volunteer time.
   
• The sooner you return your vote the less likely it is that you will “forget” to vote. They assume (perhaps correctly) that voter turnout will thus be greater.

But does following this advice benefit you? Does it promote election integrity?

• The sooner you return your vote, the more likely it is that you will vote early and emotionally, without being fully informed.
   
• When you return your ballot in an envelope with your name and address clearly visible, you are, in effect, waiving your right to a secret ballot, as you, the voter, are clearly identifiable. You are also subjecting your ballot to innumerable opportunities for potential manipulation as it passes through hundreds of hands of postal workers, seasonal elections officials, ballot traffickers and signature verifiers.
   
• Because of California’s woefully maintained voter rolls, somewhere between half a million and one million ballots will be mailed to individuals who are deceased or moved out of state. All ballots in transit, especially those with intended recipients who are no longer at the indicated address, are vulnerable to fraudulent use, and the new signature verification regulations are so liberal that most all ballots will be counted.
   
  • This is why you MUST sign up to track your ballot. https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/ If it does not arrive promptly on time, you must politely insist on being mailed a new ballot. Each day that goes by increases the likelihood your ballot had fallen into the wrong hands and will be used to steal your vote.
     
• Anyone who wants to can get real-time information on who has already voted, including their party affiliation and geographic location. When voters send in their ballots early, they provide would-be bad actors with the information they need to determine which and how many fraudulent ballots to inject into the system to swing the election without raising suspicion.
  
  Early voting also allows any hackers who have gained access to voting systems to adjust algorithms “just enough” as ballots come in.
  
  If would-be bad actors don’t know who votes or in what number until Election Day, their schemes are overwhelmed and thus foiled. Why hand them the intel to make your vote irrelevant?
  Even after the ballot is removed from the identifying envelope, it is subjected to intense inspection and potential duplication or adjudication before it finally can be tabulated. It takes DAYS before your ballot—potentially transformed in some way—is finally fully “processed”.

You have another, safer choice-- one that assures your ballot is secure and protected, one that assures it passes through the fewest possible hands, one that counts your ballot (with no processing) on the day you cast it. That choice is to be a VIP—Voter In Person, without the envelope.

Regardless of what candidates, party officials, elections officials or even the governor himself tell you, California is NOT an “All Vote by Mail State”!!

That bears repeating: California is NOT an “All Vote by Mail State”!! With very few exceptions, all California voters STILL have the right and ample opportunity to VOTE IN PERSON.

California is NOT an “All Vote by Mail State”!! With very few exceptions, all California voters STILL have the right and ample opportunity to VOTE IN PERSON.

Granted, sending your ballot off with the flick of a wrist may be more “convenient”, but we ask that you weigh the cost-benefit of the choice.

Find the details of how, when and where to Vote in Person in future parts of the Vote Smart 2022 series.

download pdf of article

EIPCa is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity. Contributions are tax deductible.
https://www.eip-ca.com/donate/