Early voting in the US presidential elections was marked by unprecedented excitement, but because of this, the US Postal Service will not have time to deliver ballots to election commissions before the vote count begins.
As News Front previously reported, taking advantage of the spread of the coronavirus, the US Democratic Party initiated widespread remote voting, although the expert community warned of the negative consequences of such a decision.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in particular, studied the situation in the 2008 elections. Then some of the Americans also voted remotely, and 3.9 million voters did not receive their ballots; 2.9 million ballots sent out simply disappeared without being returned to election officials; another 800 thousand ballots were not accepted for various reasons.
This year, 92 million citizens took advantage of remote voting, but 42 million ballots never returned, according to the US Election Project. With the deadline behind us, there is growing concern in election administrations.
Damon Chircost, the Democratic chairman of the North Carolina Board of Elections, said that in the state, out of 1.4 million requested ballots, about 600,000 never returned. A similar situation is observed in Georgia. At the same time, the US Postal Service admits that in the week before the elections, the speed of services fell to depressingly low levels.
An internal memo, obtained by The Washington Post, says post offices are taking “emergency measures” amid the current crisis.