Block the vote?

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Sean Rameswaram: We are two weeks to the day away from the 2020 election in the United States, but something like 30 million Americans have already voted by mail, according to a CNN survey. That represents about a fifth of the total vote in the 2016 presidential election. It's impressive, it's inspiring, and people are out there doing everything they can to impede it. Just last night, the Supreme Court had to get involved to weigh in on Pennsylvania's voting deadlines, a question about whether mail-in ballots should still be counted after Election Day. The justices were deadlocked 4-4, which means the lower court's ruling will stand, which means, yes, they will continue to count ballots in Pennsylvania for three days after the election, which is somehow a political controversy.

Sean Rameswaram: My name is Holly Otterbein. I'm a reporter for Politico covering the 2020 election, and I'm here based in Philadelphia in the great battleground state of Pennsylvania. Yeah, and how's the battle going right now? It's a battleground. We have, you know, Biden and Trump visiting every other day, surrogates flying in here all the time. It's very hotly contested. It's considered the tipping point state in the entire electoral college. And people are already voting this time around, yeah? Yeah, that's absolutely right. This is actually the first time, the first year that Pennsylvania has no excuse mail voting. So people are already requesting their mail ballots. They're turning them in. And they're also going to what is informally known as early voting sites or satellite election offices where they can cast their mail ballots there.

Holly Otterbein: So since people are already voting and this is irregular for the state of Pennsylvania, what are the major issues regarding voting thus far? So briefly, one issue is concern that mail-in votes are not going to be counted until Election Day. By law in Pennsylvania, you cannot start counting those votes until the morning of Election Day. In other states, you can start days in advance. Here, you can't. And that's going to cause potentially some issues. Another potential problem is mail ballots being rejected. Usually with machine votes, you know, very few of those are ever rejected. But mail ballots are rejected at higher rates, and that could affect Democrats more than Republicans, for reasons we can get into later. And then lastly, a pretty high number of mail-in ballot applications are being denied as well, and that's also causing some concern here.

Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, understandably. Okay, so people are concerned that no one's going to start counting all these mail-in ballots until Election Day. People are concerned that votes are being rejected outright. And then thirdly, we have mail-in ballot requests being denied. Let's go through each of those one by one. First of all, why not start counting the votes until Election Day when there's going to be a lot of really important battleground state votes to count? So Democrats would like to do that. Governor Wolf wanted to get the count started three weeks in advance. And the governor is a Democrat, just to be clear. He is. Yep. Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. Republicans say that they actually want to count early as well, although by only a few days. The problem is that Republicans have introduced this package of voting reforms. And Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature say it's very unlikely that they're going to be able to come to an agreement on all of these voting reforms, including being able to count the ballots before election day. So it appears as though we're stuck with the law the way it is.

Sean Rameswaram: Okay, well, let's move on to this potentially more troubling second issue that you mentioned, that votes could get rejected. I know that sometimes votes are rejected because ballots are filled out incorrectly. Is that what this is or is this something else? That's basically what this is. But the problem is that Democrats are planning to vote much more by mail than Republicans This is largely because President Trump has engaged in this campaign against mail voting You could be talking about large percentages of these ballots are going to be missing. There's going to be fraud. It's a disaster. He's raised a lot of concerns, again, baselessly, including among Republican voters. And so Republican voters are planning overwhelmingly to vote in person and Democrats are planning mostly to vote by mail. And so any rejection of mail ballots is likely to affect Democrats much more than Republicans. In a normal year, these kinds of rejection rates probably wouldn't change the actual result much. But in this year, it could.

Sean Rameswaram: And one major piece of this that is concerning to Democrats is there was a ruling by the state Supreme Court recently that was mostly good for Democrats. But one thing that Republicans wanted was for naked ballots to be tossed out. Naked ballots. Yes, I know. It's a silly name. In Pennsylvania, by law, when you mail in a mail-in ballot, it needs to be in two envelopes. So your ballot goes in one envelope called the secrecy envelope, and then that goes in a more general envelope. If your mail ballot doesn't have a secrecy envelope that's considered a naked ballot, And per the state Supreme Court, you got to toss that ballot out. It doesn't count. You know, before this ruling, many municipalities, including Philadelphia, counted ballots that were, quote unquote, naked ballots. There was guidance to do so. Now, because of this state Supreme Court ruling, you can't. And so one election official in Philadelphia, actually the top election official here, estimated that as many as 100,000 ballots could be tossed because of this rule alone.

Sean Rameswaram: So that is obviously very concerning to Democrats because so many of their voters are planning to vote by mail. There's a concern that because this is the first year in Pennsylvania that we've had no excuse mail voting. There's a lot of voters who don't know exactly how it works. Democrats also tend to have younger voters that oftentimes maybe don't know what the rules are in the same way that older voters do who have been doing this forever. And one thing that Democrats, though, have done is really tried to build an education campaign to prevent, you know, 100,000 ballots from getting tossed out. And so we've seen a massive campaign from, you know, the Department of State here in Pennsylvania has a campaign online trying to educate voters about what they need to do in terms of their secrecy ballots. You have the Biden campaign. You have the DNC putting stuff out. There were PSAs from celebrities on social media.

Sean Rameswaram: Oh, I saw that video. I'm naked. I'm completely butt ass naked. I'm naked. I'm like naked. There isn't a man behind me. These are my hands. Why you want me to be naked? And then, like, Sacha Baron Cohen was in there as Borat, but not naked. But he was, like, totally dressed, yes. I'm here to talk to you about voting. Did you know that ballots could be naked? And if you don't do exactly what I tell you, your ballot could get thrown out. America needs you. And then, actually, elected officials did a similar sort of skit. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. Did they get naked, too? They did. Yeah. I know. And just to take the fun and laughter and games out of this, Holly, 100,000 ballots might be thrown out. How many votes did Donald Trump win Pennsylvania by in 2016? That's a great question. Only 44,000. That was less than one percentage point. And so 100,000 votes, that's more than twice that amount. It could definitely swing an election.

Sean Rameswaram: And there's still one issue left, which is that some mail-in ballot requests have just been straight up denied? Yeah, so I'm going to tell you a scary statistic and then I'm going to dial it back. Okay. One out of every five requests for a mail-in ballot are being rejected in Pennsylvania. 20% right now are being rejected. Yeah, 370,000 mail ballot applications that have been rejected. Okay, that sounds really terrible. Here's the thing that makes it less scary. More than 90% of those are duplicates. So there are people asking for mail ballots twice or three times or four times. So the real problem here, though, is that that's just putting a ton of stress on the system that is trying to implement widespread mail voting for the first time ever in a general election. These election offices are already super bogged down. and they're getting calls all the time. You know, this is leading to things like busy lines, right? When voters already have tons of questions. It's just overwhelming the system at a time that it really doesn't need that.

Sean Rameswaram: Do people feel like Pennsylvania in 2020 might end up looking something like Florida in 2000? Unfortunately, that's a comparison that I've heard more times than I would have ever liked to in my entire life. You hear that from elected officials, from election officials, and from voters. So what should Pennsylvania voters keep in mind with all of these issues as they head to the ballots be it this week next week or on election day itself I would say that election officials say that your vote is secure And don panic As long as you follow the rules, whether you're voting by mail or in person, your vote will be counted. Holly, thank you. All the best in the next two weeks, and maybe we'll be in touch come election day. Thanks so much for having me on. That was Holly Otterbein. She's with Politico. You can find her reporting at politico.com.

Sean Rameswaram: Quick break, then we'll talk about the efforts to block the vote everywhere else in the country. I'm Sean Rameswaram for him. It's Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime. And Chime gets that, says Chime. Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts. So when you set up direct deposit through Chime, they say you get access to fee-free features, such as free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, so much more. Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals. Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees. You can work on your financial goals through Chime today. You can open an account in two minutes at chime.com slash explained. That's chime.com slash explained. Chime feels like progress. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA. Members FDIC. Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file. These apply at out-of-network ATMs. Bank ranking and number of ATMs according to U.S. News and World Report 2023. Chime checking account required.

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Sean Rameswaram: Jen Kirby, you're covering elections for Vox. We just spoke to Holly about some of the challenges Pennsylvania's facing, But what does this look like across the rest of the country? Well, there are battles around the entire country. There are about 300 lawsuits regarding voting elections that are going on right now. 300. Yeah, 300. I think more than 300, actually. It's everything you can possibly imagine about, you know, when ballots can be received by to be counted, whether you can cure your ballot if there's a mistake, whether you can use drop off locations or drop boxes. It is pretty much across the board when it comes to elections that people are battling out in court right now.

Sean Rameswaram: I imagine if we tried to talk about all 300-odd lawsuits, we'd be here until after the election. But is there some through line? Does the sort of broad view of these lawsuits tell us anything about this election? Yeah. And I think the pandemic has really made us as a country think about the ways that we vote, the mechanics of voting in a way that maybe we haven't in the past before. And a lot of states, in order to accommodate, you know, safety considerations and health considerations with the pandemic, changed or tweaked those rules. And so those are facing a lot of court challenges as well.

Sean Rameswaram: Okay. Well, let's go through some of the bigger challenges or lawsuits. Are there more happening in battleground states like Pennsylvania? There's about 46 states that are facing challenges. So that's pretty much everywhere. But of course, people are paying attention to the battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, because those are the states where the election could hinge on. And so depending on what happens in the lawsuit, that could make a big difference.

Sean Rameswaram: What's going on in Wisconsin and Michigan? In Michigan and Wisconsin, there were both court cases over how long ballots could be counted for if they were postmarked by Election Day but received later. We are moving full steam ahead to the 2020 presidential election. Right now, your absentee ballot is still due by 8 p.m. on November 3rd, as a federal appeals court temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin. But at least in the Wisconsin case, there is an appeal to the Supreme Court. Which, of course, weighed in in Pennsylvania last night.

Sean Rameswaram: What's going on in the rest of the country? There was big news in California about fake ballot boxes? Yeah. So this, I guess, is less of a court case than just like a really weird thing. Apparently, the California Republican Party had put out these basically drop off or drop boxes that said they were sort of official ballot drop offs. But they weren't. They weren't authorized by the state. And so, you know, California officials, the secretary of state and the attorney general basically like tampering with the vote is illegal. And anyone who engages knowingly engages in the tampering or misuse of a vote is subject to prosecution

Sean Rameswaram: And they were only in a few counties but the Republican Party kind of pushed back a little bit and said State law allows organizations volunteers or campaign workers to collect completed ballots and drop them off at polling places or election offices. As of last week, they kind of came to an agreement that the Republican Party would make sure that the labeling was clear, that these weren't authorized drop boxes and would be manned by a Republican official if they wanted to collect ballots. And, you know, told voters to make sure that they, you know, track their ballots, to make sure that their ballot was counted if they happened to put their ballot in one of these things.

Sean Rameswaram: But really, the California government was afraid that these would confuse, you know, folks who wanted to turn in their ballots because the labeling wasn't clear. And in a lot of ways, it's sort of ironic because, you know, The Republican Party has been fighting drop-off locations and drop boxes across the country, saying that they are a tool of fraud, which they really aren't because most drop boxes, you know, states have different rules, but, you know, they have to be monitored or, you know, surveilled by a camera 24 hours a day. So the Republican Party in California kind of created the fraud that it claims exists.

Sean Rameswaram: So it was sort of just a weird, strange case that somewhat seems to have been resolved. And Texas had some of its own drop box issues. Is this what you're referring to as saying this was kind of happening across the country on some level? So in Texas, the battle was over the actual drop off locations that some counties had set up where people in Texas could drop off their absentee ballots if they didn't want to put them in the mail. But the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, in that case basically asked the court to intervene and shut down the drop off location, saying counties could only have one. And he cited sort of election security concerns as well in that case.

Sean Rameswaram: The governor said he did this to enhance security and that this would help prevent any attempts of illegal voting. And we might be dancing around this, but I wonder, you know, for people listening to this abroad who might be looking at this election and wondering why so many parties would be invested in suppressing the vote and encouraging people to to doubt our election. Why is that happening? Why does it seem to be one party doing this more than the other? How much time do you have, Sean? We've got about two weeks. I mean, the history of voter suppression in the United States is long and deep. And, you know, at different points in history, you know, different parties were responsible for the majority of it. But I think what it comes down to right now is that Republicans kind of broadly think that if they can prevent the electorate from expanding, that that will benefit them. And Democrats think the more people that vote, the more people will get involved. That might benefit them. That's sort of where the lines are drawn right now.

Sean Rameswaram: It's really hard to say if that's the actual case, because you would think in a democracy, we should all sort of be committed to having as many people vote as possible. And, you know, voter suppression tends to suppress votes of all people. In states like Utah, where you have Republicans in power, they're happy with expanding the vote. They also have universal vote by mail because, you know, they're not really worried about, you know, changing of the guards. But in Texas, where it's purple turning blue, Republicans in power want to sort of keep it that way. And if you think of it in that sense, I think it's sort of helpful to understand a little bit about the debates and the fights that we're having right now.

Sean Rameswaram: You've been talking to people who study elections, whose expertise is in American elections. Do they think this is going to get worse in the next two weeks or even beyond then? If you want to think on a little bit of a positive note, a lot of, you know, folks that I've talked to who study voting and election law actually say it's a little bit better that we're litigating all of these election rules now rather than after the fact. Even though people are voting and things are unsettled and that can be confusing, it's much better to be doing this before November 3rd than after November 3rd. It may, in the long run, make it less likely that we have some major court challenge that people are worried about. It doesn't rule it out. It doesn't mean it's impossible. But I think most people I talk to say better to battle it out now than after. Fingers crossed.

Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. Early voting has started in a lot of states. You should go if you can and vote early. If you want to vote by mail, if you haven't requested your ballot, you do it immediately. like literally pause the podcast, go request your ballot. And as soon as you get it, make sure you read it very, very carefully and then either send it back in or drop it off. But the goal is we won't really have to worry so much about, you know, if the ballots received after November 3rd count or not, if everybody gets their ballot in early, that's not something we need to worry about. And so that will make the system run smoother and that will be good for everyone.

Sean Rameswaram: Jen Kirby, she's writing all about the election at Vox.com and at Vox.com slash vote. You can find all the good information you need about how to vote all over these United States. Again, that is Vox.com slash vote. Bye.