OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Almost 15 million mail-in ballots went unaccounted for in the 2020 presidential election, according to a government accountability group that specialized in electoral integrity.
Public Interest Legal Foundation filed a research brief that alleges because of the coronavirus pandemic last year, various U.S. states “hastily pushed traditionally in-person voters to mail ballots while, at the same time, trying to learn how to even administer such a scenario.”
“A ballot can be put in the wrong mailbox and land in an unfriendly neighbor’s trash. It can be thrown out with your unpaid bills. It can be left outside for the wind to carry the last mile (like seen in Nevada in 2020). Election officials simply do not know what happened. Unknown ballots are the greatest blind spot in the American electoral system,” the brief states.
PILF President J. Christian Adams, who previously served as a U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney, said the results of their research should put an end to mail-in voting.
“These figures detail how the 2020 push to mail voting needs to be a one-year experiment,” Adams said in a statement.
Adams argued that legislation such as the Democrats’ “For The People Act” would “risk inflating these numbers even further, pushing our election system toward error, disenfranchisement, and ultimately widespread doubt about election outcomes.”
“Some of the counties with the least experience in administering mail voting rejected the most ballots nationwide. If continued, 2020-style chaos will become the norm,” he added.
The Epoch Times summarizes some of the findings from PILF:
–PILF says it had warned that lost ballots would be an even bigger problem in 2020 compared to previous years. In total, elections in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 saw more than 43.1 million unaccounted for mail-in ballots.
–Federal data compilations show that during the 2020 election, there were 14.7 million ballots whose whereabouts were deemed “unknown” by election officials, according to the brief.
–In the 2020 election, there were 14.7 million “unknown” ballots, along with 1.1 million undeliverable ballots, and 560,814 rejected ballots.
–PILF put these figures in perspective by noting that President Joe Biden carried Arizona by 10,457 votes, yet Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, reportedly sent ballots to 110,092 outdated or wrong addresses.
–The scenario roughly repeated itself in Nevada, a state where Biden prevailed by 33,596 votes, even though Clark County “bounced” 93,279 ballots.
The report notes that many counties across the country had large numbers of “unknown” ballots.
–In California, Los Angeles County had 1,491,459 such ballots, followed by Orange County (482,940), Riverside County (454,911), San Diego County (317,614), San Bernardino County (274,937), Santa Clara County (251,840), and Sacramento County (241,367).
–Clark County, Nevada, had 724,708 such ballots. Essex County, New Jersey, had 248,290 unknown ballots, and Maricopa County had 229,123 ballots in the unknown category.
“The lesson is clear: increased reliance on mass mail voting must correlate with aggressive voter registration list maintenance,” the brief concludes.
