How You Can Test the Mail-In Ballot System

Democrats are up in arms over President Trump’s comments urging supporters to test the mail-in ballot system by voting twice; some are even claiming he wants Americans to commit a felony.

What Trump is really doing is intentionally pissing off the media so that people start talking about ballot fraud.

“[Trump] knows from long experience that when he crosses the line, goes over the top…the media and political world [will start] chattering about the very issue he wants to spotlight,” explains Fox News contributor Howard Kurtz. “If he takes the heat, if he has to backtrack, so be it. That still means lots of cable segments and front-page stories about the possibility of mail fraud as opposed to, say, a thousand Americans dying each day from COVID-19.”

Trump wasn’t telling his supporters to “vote twice.” He was telling them to test the system by voting in the mail and then showing up on Election Day to see if they are still eligible to vote. 

Here’s the direct quote:

“Well they’ll go out and they’ll vote, and they’re going to have to go and check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way, because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that,” said Trump. “So, let them send it in and let them go vote, and if the system is as good as they say it is, obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote so that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do.”

Based on Trump’s comments, this is what we should do to test the system: 

1. Request a mail-in ballot and use it to vote.
2. When in-person voting is available, check with officials to see if you are still eligible to vote.
3. If you are still eligible to vote, this means your mail-in ballot wasn’t registered/hasn’t been counted.

If #3 is true, you can’t be sure what happened to your mail-in ballot and should feel comfortable voting in person. Furthermore, all votes become anonymous once they are registered. This means that any mail-in ballots that are not registered by Election Day will not appear on voting rolls. And if the system is as accurate as Democrats claim, any mail-in ballots matching the names of people who voted in person will be thrown out. 

Maybe we should all go to the polls wearing stickers that read “I already voted and cannot vote again” and have our phones ready to record just in case officials tell us we are still eligible to vote.