South Carolina Absentee Ballots Found in Maryland as Democrats Push for Vote-by-Mail Increases

Election workers Jessica Fleming, left, and Amanda White count ballots while collecting th
Julio Cortez/AP Photo
Hannah Knudsen

About 20 Charleston County absentee ballots were found in Maryland this week as the Democrat Party’s effort to gradually move all states to vote-by-mail continues, while the GOP warns that such moves will lead to voter fraud, inaccuracy, and abuse.

According to Charleston’s Post and Courier, the ballots “have since made their way to Charleston-area voters, state and county election officials said, but it is just the latest problem with SeaChange Print Innovations, which prints and mails absentee ballots for 13 S.C. counties.”

South Carolina election officials are viewing the latest mistake as a final straw, as some Greenville County voters previously received the wrong ballots this year, and “some Charleston County voters received ballots that were folded in a way that could make them tougher to read by scanning machines,” South Carolina Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said, according to the outlet:

Per the Post and Courier:

The latest mishap has left the state election agency with little confidence that SeaChange can handle the surge in absentee voting this year as people practice social distancing to avoid contracting the coronavirus, Whitmire said.

The state’s primary is just weeks away, June 9, and has already seen 20 percent more absentee ballots compared to the 2018 election, leading to mounting concerns among local election officials.

“We’re not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling that they can handle this,” Whitmire said. “We are actively seeking sustainable solutions.”

The incident speaks to a broader national issue, as Democrats use fears surrounding the Chinese coronavirus to urge state leaders to adopt vote-by-mail options for the upcoming elections — a move Republicans warn is fraught with the potential for error and abuse.

Federal data revealed that 16.4 million mail-in ballots went missing in the 2016 and 2018 elections, as detailed by Breitbart News:

The data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Election Administration and Voting Surveys for 2016 and 2018, provided by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), shows that between the 2016 and 2018 elections, roughly 16.4 million ballots mailed to registered voters went missing.

In the 2018 election, about 42.4 million ballots were mailed to registered voters. Of those mailed, more than one million were undeliverable, more than 430,000 were rejected, and nearly 10.5 million went missing.

The 2016 election showed similar discrepancies. That year, about 41.6 million ballots were mailed to registered voters. Of those mailed, more than 568,000 were undeliverable, nearly 320,000 were rejected, and close to six million went missing.

Despite that, Democrats are continuing in their efforts to encourage voters to push for and utilize vote-by-mail. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) took that step this month, signing an executive order allowing every registered voter in California to receive a mail-in ballot.

“I hope other governors around the country follow @GavinNewsom’s lead. No voter should be forced to choose between their safety and exercising their civic duty this fall,” Hillary Clinton said of Newsom’s decision:

Many Democrats, including failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D), have attempted to use the in-person election in Wisconsin as a basis for their demands for vote-by-mail.

The state charged forward in April, holding its in-person election with 413,000 showing up to the polls. Only 52 of those who either worked at the polls or showed up to vote April 7 tested positive for the virus following the election. However, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services noted that several of those individuals indicated other ways they could have contracted the virus.

Even so, the infection rate amounts to about 0.013 percent among those who showed up to the polls.

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