There are times when it seems as though elections would be cleaner, quicker and more honest without absentee voting.
Leflore County is about to have another couple of contests go to court largely because of issues with absentee ballots.
Debra Hibbler and Wayne Self are expected to file lawsuits this coming week in hopes of getting the results in their Democratic primary races overturned. Hibbler lost by 15 votes to incumbent Chancery Clerk Johnny Gary Jr. Self lost by 64 to Eric Mitchell for District 4 supervisor.
Based on the similar complaints that the losing candidates filed with the Democratic Executive Committee, the absentee ballots were replete with technical problems and possibly chicanery.
In the chancery clerk’s race alone, Hibbler’s attorneys contend, about a fourth of the absentee ballots that were counted by election officials should not have been.
If Hibbler is successful in persuading a judge to throw out some or all of these votes, it could reverse the outcome or at least result in a redo of the election. There’s no way to determine to which candidate most of these contested ballots went, but since Gary received more than 60% of the absentee ballots overall, the presumption would be that a majority of the 125-plus contested votes also went to him.
The nature of this dispute is nothing new. Every time there is a close election in this county, the loser can reasonably challenge it solely based on issues with the absentee ballots. Always there are issues. Always.
Four years ago, Self tried to get his initial loss to Mitchell reversed by showing that more than a third of the absentee ballots cast were tainted. The judge agreed with that finding but his unusual remedy — throwing out all the absentee ballots, the good with the bad — still left Self vacating the seat he had held for 20 years.
Absentee balloting has a twofold problem. It is susceptible to fraud, and the layers of nit-picking rules designed to deter such fraud have greatly increased the odds that an absentee ballot will be disqualified for an innocent mistake.
America’s adoption of absentee voting began initially as a way to enable those who were away from home for military service to participate.
The first wholesale use of absentee ballots occurred during the Civil War, when 19 Union states, at the encouragement of President Abraham Lincoln, changed their laws to allow soldiers to vote absentee in the 1864 election. According to the History channel, about 150,000 Union soldiers voted in that election, and Lincoln carried 78% of them, helping him turn back the challenge of George McClellan.
During World Wars I and II, again the laws were changed to allow soldiers to vote who were overseas.
Starting in the late 1800s, the right to vote in ways other than showing up at a physical precinct on Election Day was gradually expanded to the civilian population. Until the 1980s, though, those who requested absentee ballots were required to provide an accepted excuse, most commonly that they would be out of town or too ill to vote in person.
Over time, the list of acceptable excuses was expanded and in some states dropped altogether. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the trend as policymakers worried that if voters had to show up at the polls, many of them would just not vote in order to avoid contracting the virus.
Presently, eight states conduct their elections entirely by mail. Another 27 and Washington, D.C., allow anyone who wishes to vote absentee to do so, no reason necessary. The remaining 15 states require an excuse.
Mississippi is one of the most restrictive, allowing just three acceptable excuses: out of the county on Election Day; disability or illness; or being 65 years of age or older. Still, absentee ballot problems are as bad here as anywhere. Maybe worse.
One relaxation of the rules that was a mistake occurred in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when the Mississippi Legislature voted to give mailed absentee ballots up to five working days after the polls closed to arrive at the circuit clerk’s office as long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day. Prior to that, the mailed ballots had to arrive by Election Day.
That extra time has created another invitation to fraud. It doesn’t take much imagination to conceive of a campaign, whose candidate is trailing by a narrow margin in the initial unofficial count, to try to sneak more absentee ballots into the mix during that five-day window.
This is not to say that happened in the Hibbler-Gary race, but it is curious that a number of absentee ballots, according to her attorneys, arrived in envelopes with postage but no postmark and yet they were counted.
Absentee ballots are here to stay, but Mississippi could take some constitutionally permissible steps to reduce their quantity and thus their potential impact on elections.
First would be to adopt no-excuse, in-person early voting, as 46 states have done, and be generous with how long in advance voters can cast their ballots.
Next would be to streamline the technical requirements on completing absentee ballots, dropping those rules that create more problems than they solve.
Then, go back to requiring mailed-in ballots to arrive by Election Day and further tighten up who can vote absentee. Limit the distance excuse to those serving in the military, attending college out of state or living overseas.
And stop letting able-bodied adults 65 and older vote absentee. There’s no good rationale for that excuse, or a similar one that excuses them wholesale from jury duty.
Senior citizens don’t need to be coddled. Take it from a recent inductee to that age group.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
