As Postal Service Controversy Rages, 223,000 Mail-in Ballots in Nevada Primary Rejected as ‘Undeliverable’

On Tuesday, November 3, the American people will decide who they want to serve as their president for the next four years. This year, unlike any other, it is expected that more Americans will cast their ballot by mail than in any previous election in history.

This has led to significant concerns that the USPS may not be up to the task of processing hundreds of millions of pieces of additional mail in the month leading up to the election.

Additionally, it is generally accepted that increased voting-by-mail makes elections more open to fraud, and can increase the number of ballots that are rejected.

Case in point: Nevada’s primary election on June 9, 2020.

According to recent data obtained by Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) from the Clark County Election Department, the most populous county in Nevada and home to Las Vegas, 223,469 mail-in ballots that were sent out to voters were rejected as “undeliverable.”

Of those ballots, 129,884 were sent to “inactive” voters (58%) while 93,585 of them were sent to “active” voters (42%).

The 223,469 rejected ballots comprise 17% of the 1,325,934 that were mailed out in Clark County.

Following a lawsuit from the Democrat Party, all registered voters were mailed a ballot in Clark County, the Associated Press notes. This included both “active” and “inactive” voters. Additionally, AP writes that over 6,700 ballots in the Nevada primary were rejected after the voter’s signature could not be matched to the one the state had on file.

“These numbers show how vote by mail fails,” PILF President J. Christian Adams argued in a statement. “New proponents of mail balloting don’t often understand how it actually works. States like Oregon and Washington spent many years building their mail voting systems and are notably aggressive with voter list maintenance efforts. Pride in their own systems does not somehow transfer across state lines. Nevada, New York, and others are not and will not be ready for November.”

According to Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation, expecting the United States Postal Service to suddenly, quickly and accurately process 260 million additional pieces of mail “is asking for chaos and mass disenfranchisement.”

The primary election in Nevada isn’t the only recent case where mail-in-voting has been imbued with controversy. In New Jersey, nearly 20% of ballots were rejected in a recent election for City Council.

In the election, 16,747 vote-by-mail ballots were received by the elections department, but only 13,557 votes were counted. This means 19% of all votes cast were disqualified.

To register to vote or learn more about voting in the upcoming general election, visit The Daily Citizen’s Election 2020 webpage.

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