Ballot drop boxes seen as a way to bypass the post office

Such boxes have been used with success for several years in states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado that rely largely or entirely on ballots that must be sent in.

With the Trump administration openly trying to undermine mail-in voting this fall, some election officials around the country are hoping to bypass the Postal Service by installing lots of ballot drop boxes in libraries, community centers and other public places.

State or local authorities in places such as Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are pressing for more boxes or drop-off sites that would enable ballots to reach election officials without going through the mail.(AP Photo)

Such boxes have been used with success for several years in states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado that rely largely or entirely on ballots that must be sent in. But their use is being expanded because of the coronavirus outbreak and, more recently, concerns about the post office’s ability to do its job.

State or local authorities in places such as Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are pressing for more boxes or drop-off sites that would enable ballots to reach election officials without going through the mail.

“Donald Trump continues to undermine the legitimacy of mail-in absentee ballots by attacking the US Postal Service,” said New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat who is sponsoring legislation to set up drop boxes beyond the usual confines of voting sites and local election offices. “New York can hit back on this anti-democratic fearmongering by establishing absentee ballot drop boxes across the state to help ensure the integrity of these ballots.” In the potential battleground state of Wisconsin, the five biggest cities won a USD 6.3 million grant from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life to help administer the November election, including installation of drop boxes. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said his city will use some of its USD 2.1 million share to buy more than a dozen to install at libraries and other locations.

Arizona’s secretary of state is ordering about 70 more for the mostly rural areas that have requested them, and a spokeswoman said some counties are also purchasing extra ones. Washington state election officials said that there are 450 drop boxes statewide, and there are discussions about adding more.

Last week, the Postal Service, having cut overtime and late deliveries, began warning states that it can’t guarantee all mail ballots will be received in time to be counted. President Donald Trump, who has been sowing unfounded fears of vote-by-mail fraud for months, last week admitted blocking Postal Service funding so it would be harder to process the expected surge of millions of ballots.

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin said concerns over post office delays are a big factor in communities looking to install drop boxes for the November election.

“It’s another way to be completely assured your ballot is getting dropped off as if you’re going to the polls,” the congressman said. “I think you’re going to see a lot more of this happening.” Election officials in some states — mainly Republican-led ones — have come out against adding drop boxes, saying doing so would be too costly, raises security concerns or would violate state laws.

In a tweet Monday, Trump sought to cast doubt on the security of such boxes, saying: “So who is going to ‘collect’ the Ballots, and what might be done to them prior to tabulation? A Rigged Election? So bad for our Country.” Typical security measures for drop boxes include video surveillance, locks, tamper-resistant seals and chain-of-custody logs that are completed each time ballots are collected.

Local officials, at a minimum, should have a drop box at their main county or city office building, and it is recommended that they have one box for every 15,000 to 20,000 registered voters, according to a memo issued by federal authorities in response to the viral outbreak.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute at New York University Law School, has estimated that nearly 11,700 ballot drop-off boxes will be needed for November, at a cost of USD 82 million to USD 117 million for purchase and installation.

Washington state has boxes in churches, fire stations, libraries, colleges, city halls, shopping centers and courthouses. In Oregon, they are not only inside libraries and government buildings but on the street outside high-traffic businesses such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and movie theaters.

“The whole idea really is to meet people where they are in their everyday lives,” Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute and a former elections official.

In Pennsylvania, a federal lawsuit by the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee has cast drop boxes into a legal gray area.

That was after Philadelphia and its suburbs used them — to great success, according to officials there — in the June 2 primary, when a record-smashing 1.4 million ballots arrived by mail.