What Are the US Voting System’s Vulnerabilities?

There is a Russian joke that goes, “American elections are less than a month away, but they still don’t know who their president will be. What a mess!”

Of course, this joke was not intended to ridicule the U.S. voting system. But if you look closely, there are more than enough reasons for some irony. Remember the words of Napoleon III, echoed by Joseph Stalin: “I care not who casts the votes of a nation, provided I can count them.” As such, in the United States, no one yet knows how the votes will be counted.

Nowadays, there is a struggle over mail-in voting in the overseas superpower. Much is also said about the unprecedented scale of the early voting. Donald Trump and his supporters argue that the increase in the number of mail-in ballots will lead to mass errors and fraud. In response, the Democrats claim that any restrictions on use of these ballots are a direct violation of citizens’ voting rights or, as they say in the United States, “voter suppression.”

In addition to mail-in and early voting, absentee voting is also being discussed. The latter is often confused with the old absentee voting practice in Russia, in which voting as an “absentee” meant applying for an “absentee certificate” in advance, which allowed a person to cast a vote at any polling station regardless of the individual’s permanent residence. But in fact, according to most U.S. state laws, an absentee vote is any ballot not filled out at the polling place. Including mail-in ballots. And in most cases, mail-in voting takes place earlier. No wonder it gets confusing! Well, let’s try to figure it all out.

To begin with, a U.S. citizen is not automatically included on voter registration lists. Anyone with the right to vote must be properly registered in the county in which the voter resides. Not that it is a very difficult task, but, like any bureaucratic procedure anywhere in the world, registering as a voter in the United States requires some effort.

Hence, the number of citizens who have reached the age of 18 is not the same as the number of registered voters. As such, at the time of the 2018 midterm elections, there were 153 million registered voters in the United States, while there were more than 230 million potentially eligible voters. Usually, 125 million to 130 million people vote in a presidential election.

It should be noted that the number of registered voters is constantly changing, and does not always increase, as one might expect. So, in 2016, there were 157.6 million registered voters in the United States, and in 2018 — only 153.1 million. Registration is regularly updated, but the condition of the lists leaves much to be desired. Very often, citizens who have moved to another state or who have died remain on the rolls for a while. In most states, registration is not even digitized, but kept as hard copies, which makes it almost impossible to put them in proper order.

Today, in the U.S., thousands of citizens over the age of 110 are registered as voters, 2,214 of them in North Carolina alone. Obviously, 99% of these people died a long time ago. In addition, there are more people on the voting rolls in 462 counties than there are residents. That is, on average, there are more citizens in the country than voters, but in hundreds of U.S. counties the situation is exactly the opposite — which, of course, cannot be. There are about 3.5 million such “dead souls” in total.

This would not be a big problem if it were not for mail-in voting. However, in-person voting in the United States is not a completely transparent process either. In only 18 states out of 50, a voter must present some form of ID (usually a driver’s license) at a polling place. Another 17 states allow people to vote with a document that does not contain a photograph, such as a bank statement or a lease. And in another 15 states, you do not need to present any form of ID to fill out a ballot. You just need to state your first and last name. Of course, this applies to those who appear on the registration lists.

But that’s not all. Yes, 35 states require a specific document from voters in order to vote. (Sometimes the number 34 is mentioned — in North Carolina the issue is still being decided in court; or 36 — taking into account Washington, D.C.) However, in 26 of these states, the rules for confirming identity are not strict. If the voter does not have an ID, he or she can sign an affidavit in lieu of an ID, or polling place workers can vouch for a voter.

The above situation applies to in-person voting as well, and things get even more confusing when it comes to other forms of casting a vote. Strictly speaking, until 2020, there was only one such form — absentee voting. It was introduced for those voters who are physically unable to appear at a polling place, such as members of the military and diplomats. In recent decades, all voters who were registered at U.S. consulates in other countries have enjoyed the right to vote in absentia. Absentee voting is also possible for medical reasons.

Most of these absentee voters receive a ballot by mail, which they also return by mail. But at military bases and at U.S. consulates abroad, ballots are produced strictly in targeted quantities and filled out in person at the designated areas. The only document that is usually returned is the vote count protocol. Sometimes the ballots themselves are sent after that. However, the difficulty here is that every American voter or serviceperson abroad remains a registered voter of the county and state where that voter was originally registered. Nevertheless, American authorities and nongovernmental organizations say that this process has been restored to relative order.

The same cannot be said about mail-in voting. Let me emphasize that in this case, we are talking about the traditional mail-in vote, before pandemic-induced changes were implemented in 2020. A voter has the right to send a written request for a mail-in ballot to the state board of elections, stating why the voter cannot vote in person. If this request is granted and the ballot is sent, then the person fills it in and sends it back in one of three ways. The first is the U.S. Postal Service. The second is through ballot drop boxes that are specifically installed for early voting by local authorities. The third is through ballot harvesting.

Ballot boxes have proven to be extremely ineffective and are not widely used anymore. Ballot harvesting is legal in 24 states and in Washington, D.C. An individual chosen by the voter can deliver the ballot (usually together with the ballots of a number of others) to the polling place or directly to the voter registrar’s office. In 12 states, the law determines who can return ballots (such as family members or guardians). Another 11 states have restrictions on the number of ballots a harvester can deliver. However, there are no checks on, or supervision of, harvesters’ work.

Either way, mail-in ballots are a huge black hole in the voting process.

During the 2016 election, registrar offices mailed out 41.6 million ballots, according to the U.S. Federal Election Commission. Of these, more than 568,000 could not be delivered to the addressees (there was an official postal service mark indicating that the person was not at the address), almost 320,000 were rejected (it is a voter’s right to refuse to take a ballot), but most importantly, almost 6 million ballots simply disappeared on the way back. Two years later, in the 2018 midterm elections, the situation was even worse. About 42.4 million ballots were mailed to voters. More than 1 million of them turned out to be impossible to deliver to the addressee, while more than 430,000 were rejected and almost 10.5 million disappeared on the way back. That is, up to a quarter of the ballots went missing.

In 2020, mail-in voting will become even more widespread. In 10 states, this form of absentee voting will become “all-mail-in voting” — ballots will be sent to all registered voters. There will be few polling places for in-person voting — one per county. Only five states will still require a specific reason to request a mail-in ballot. In another seven, the fear of contracting COVID-19 will count as a valid reason. In the remaining 28 states and in Washington, D.C., one will not not need to provide any reason at all when requesting a mail-in ballot.

The Postal Service has previously failed to cope well with ballot turnaround. Many blank forms were found in garbage cans and in the entrance halls of apartment buildings. This year’s voter turnout promises to be at a record high, as 145 million to 150 million Americans could vote. (In contrast, in 2016, 128.8 million Americans voted). Almost half are eligible for mail-in voting. How many ballots will be lost in this case, one can only guess.

A few words about early voting. It is carried out both in person and by mail. Generally speaking, until 2020, all absentee voting was considered to be early voting because by Election Day, all relevant ballots had been collected. Due to the pandemic, some states are opening polling places for early in-person voting to reduce pressure on polling places on Nov. 3.

As of today, about 4 million Americans have already voted. In contrast, in 2016, about 120,000 votes were cast by this date. But this does not mean that the ballots will be counted faster. Just the opposite. Many state authorities have already admitted that this year, the count might take longer than one night which is usual, but five to seven days. This means that there will be no traditional concession speech from the loser on election night. And, until now, it was only this call that firmly confirmed the election’s legitimacy. Today, both sides are determined not to fully recognize the results of the votes in the swing states. There are good reasons for this.

Such reasons have existed before. The American voting system is archaic, opaque, highly convoluted and vulnerable to error and fraud. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the rare overwhelming victory, no one in the last 70 years has known the actual winner of an election for certain. But the political elite would not have dared disclose this terrible secret of the “greatest democracy in the world.” Only in rare cases (for example, in 1876 or 2000) did post-election conflicts liift the curtain on this American secret.

Today the stakes in the preelection struggle are so high that no one keeps the secret of the “City Upon a Hill” any longer. Those who were observant saw everything they needed to see. Including Americans themselves.

The establishment can still try to pretend that nothing catastrophic will happen. To do this, it will either have to recognize Trump’s reelection (without waiting for a vote count), or rig the election in favor of Biden to such an extent that it would seem like an indisputable victory.

Neither option, of course, will ever fly or resolve the civil conflict in the U.S. It will take more than the current version of American democracy to resolve it.