CLEVELAND — The U.S. Postal Service and and the longstanding practice of voting by mail are at the center of campaign politics in part because of President Trump's false attacks on the integrity of the process and the postal service’s ability to manage it.
"Everyone knows mail-in-ballots are a disaster," Trump said this week.
The president also claimed without evidence foreign governments could easily interfere with such voting.
"These countries can grab those ballots; make forgeries of those ballots and they would go out and have a field day," he said.
Election officials in Ohio and across the country, including those from both parties, are encouraging people to cast their ballots in the November election by mail to help keep themselves and poll workers safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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“My preference is to have as many people as possible take advantage by vote by process and vote from home,” Anthony Perlatti, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said. “There are a few reasons for that. One is this pandemic is unpredictable and we don’t know what it will look like three months from now.”
Ohioans have voted by mail for more than decade without problems and some states conduct elections entirely by mail. Checks-and-balances in distributing and verifying the ballots have made fraud virtually non-existent, something independent studies of vote-by-mail elections continue to show.
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But Ohio’s Republican-led legislature has ignored calls to make it easier to vote by mail. Many election officials want to add secure drop boxes for mail-in ballots around their counties to let voters skip the postal service, which is already facing staffing and financial pressures and could be slowed by a surge by balloting by mail.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is promoting vote-by mail options, said this week each county can only have one box, a decision that drew criticism from voting advocates and Democrats. They say LaRose is misinterpreting the law. He says the law is unclear and elections officials can't wait any longer for clarity.
Some election officials say they are prepared for all scenarios and stress that voting by mail is still the best option.
“It’s not a fraudulent process in our county and its not fraudulent process in our state,” Perlatti said. “We have been doing absentee balling for over a decade and we’ve done it without fraud.”
Despite President Trump’s criticism of voting by mail, he and the First Lady have requested absentee ballots in Florida, their official residence, and they are expected to return through the postal service.
In Ohio, mail-in ballots must be postmarked the day before the Nov. 3 election to be counted arrive at the elections boards within 10 days after the election. Absentee ballots can be dropped off at the board until polls close on election day.