WHAT A MESS: Judge orders New York state to count previously invalidated mail-in ballots

The New York Post is out an article this morning conveying a judge’s ruling that previously invalidated ballots must be counted, and it really just shows how much of a mess mail-in balloting will be in November if allowed to happen:

NY POST – A federal judge ordered election officials to count thousands of mail-in ballots throughout New York State that were declared invalid for not having a post-mark or arriving at offices shortly after the June 23 primary.

In granting the preliminary injunction Monday, Manhattan Judge Analisa Torres said the plaintiffs who brought the suit…had proved that voters were disenfranchised and denied their constitutional rights after being encouraged to vote by absentee ballot during the coronavirus pandemic.

A major problem: Thousands of ballots that had stamps pre-paid by New York State were not post-marked by the Postal Service, particularly those coming from Brooklyn voters. But most other ballots were post-marked.

If such a post-marked ballot was not received by election officials by June 23, it was not counted.

Many ballots arrived at the elections board a day or two after the primary election because voters did not receive them in the mail from the Postal Service until Election Day.

The judge’s order requires the New York City Board of Elections and all other local election agencies count “all otherwise valid” absentee ballots cast in the June 23 Primary which were received by June 24, 2020 — without regard to whether such ballots were postmarked by June 23 — or received by June 25, so long as such ballots are not postmarked later than June 23.

I’m not really interested in the details of these races, per se. What I think is more important is seeing just how disastrous voting by mail has been in this New York state election.

First, the ballots were supposed to be returned by June 23rd in order to be counted. If they came later, they were invalid. But some voters didn’t get their mail-in ballots until the 23rd, the day of the election. Which meant that even if they mailed them out immediately they would be a day late. And they were.

Secondly, the post office didn’t postmark some of the envelopes for whatever reason. Therefore when they arrived without a postmark, they were considered invalid.

So in the end a judge has to intervene because of all the problems created by using mail-in voting. The entire affair is madness and states pushing for it are just asking for big problems, not to mention the potential for fraud from bad actors trying to exploit the system. This vote was held on June 23rd and it’s now going on two months and they are still trying to sort this out. Can you imagine a presidential election being undecided for this long? Trump is absolutely not wrong in trying to keep the country from going down this terrible road.


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