Mail In Voting, Ballots and the Truth About Voting Transparency in America

I already voted. Millions of Americans have too. In Virginia, you can register to vote by absentee ballot and just mail in your vote early. The majority of states have similar mail-in options for voters. I do that in every election. No standing in line. No awkward conversations with pollsters asking how I voted. Just fill in the ballot and mail it. Yet, some people are afraid to vote this way, and this fear is being manipulated by stories about how showing up in person is the “safest” way to make sure your vote is counted. That is simply not true.

Manipulative politicians are stoking fears that ballots can be lost or recorded incorrectly. The truth is, in every state in America transparency is built into the system. While I still can't vote online, I can log into my account at any time using my voter registration and see if my ballot was received, how my vote was recorded and confirm my vote was recorded properly. This is particularly important given the concerns about how the US Postal Service will deal with all the mail in ballots likely to be cast.

In addition, multiple research reports and non-partisan groups studying voter fraud have concluded that this is a myth. While fraud can always happen, in American elections it happens rarely, is relatively quickly identified and corrected and definitely does not occur at a volume that would impact the outcome of a national election.

This is an important message to share as we are just weeks away from the U.S. election. The voting system in America certainly isn’t perfect and the problem remains that all votes are not equal because of the electoral college system. But the system does have transparency built into it, and that’s a fact all Americans should know and share.