| > How do we have a higher mail in ballot rejection rate in non-pandemic times than we do in pandemic times? I mean, here's an explanation for a specific case > According to the nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation Ballotpedia, Georgia rejected 6.42% of mail-in ballots in total in the 2016 general election and 3.10% in total in the 2018 midterm (here). These totals include rejections because of signatures, but also include, for example, ballots received late or past deadlines, problems with return materials or a voter having already voted in person. > It may be that Trump was referring to the 0.15% of ballots specifically rejected for "missing or non-matching signatures" when saying that ballots rejected in 2020 were "almost zero", but this percentage is consistent with past years. The higher percentage he mentions for past years is likely based off the total rejected ballots (here) which can not be compared with 2020, as this information is not available. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-georgia-rejecte... https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/number_of_absentee_ba... Edit: And just for fun, I pulled data for 2020 and 2018 statewide, November elections from https://elections.sos.ga.gov/Elections/voterabsenteefile.do I looked at a largeish file (didnt want to deal with the 1gig state wide file), ended up being CHATHAM county. (file name 025). In 2018, there were 351 rejections for 40683 mail in ballots. In 2020, there were 321 rejections for 110831 mail in ballots. The interesting thing to me was that in 2018, 286 ballots were rejected for being late, but in 2020, only 191 were rejected for being late. Which tells me at least some of the higher acceptance rates can be attributed simply to people being more diligent about mailing their ballots in. |
This is also the same style of reasoning that helps people explain away the abnormally high voter turnout in WI. Please understand I mean no disrespect in this - I just think changing definitions to cure the abnormalities isn’t necessarily correct (and is frighteningly Orwellian in the bad way).
If I had ever turned out 90% of voters measured as (votes/total registered voters) I would have more money than Elon. The way these shocking statistics get diluted is by placating to people with no experience in the process. The goal is to make them feel better by offering an alternative (however misguided) representation, that will stop the line of questioning.
So when confronted with an extremely implausible voter turnout, people say the real turnout is votes/total eligible voters... which is very different than every other time I’ve experienced voter turn out