Postal Service, mail it right away, regardless of your state’s deadline for postmarks and receiving ballots. ( Check if your state requires ballots to be returned by mail or to find the nearest drop box.) If you must return your ballot by U.S. The best way to return your mail-in ballot is to drop it off at your local election official’s office, an official, monitored drop box, or a polling place. Sign the envelope with your “official signature,” not your “grocery store signature.” If the ballot says to “fill in an oval,” then completely fill it in do not use a check mark or X or circle a name. But even a few votes can change the outcome of a close race. Every election, a small percentage of ballots aren’t counted because of avoidable voter errors. ( Check your state’s excuse policy.)Ĭomplete your ballot carefully. The vast majority of states provide no-excuse mail-in ballots or allow Covid-19 as a reason to request one.

Voting on an absentee or vote-by-mail ballot is a good way to hand-mark a paper ballot. If your state or jurisdiction does not provide paper ballots at polling places, you can instead request a provisional ballot (most states offer them) or request a vote-by-mail ballot. If you plan to vote in person, don’t assume your state provides hand-markable paper ballots. Check this easy-to-read map to make sure. This first step prevents fraud at the front-end of the election process. Whenever possible, we recommend voting by hand on paper ballots. This means generating a dependable record of votes on paper ballots, keeping that paper trail physically secure, and auditing the reported results against that paper. In this op-ed, we discuss three simple but essential tools that will produce strong, verifiable evidence that the reported winner really won, despite any fraud or malfunction. Our nation can have an evidence-based presidential election if voters and election officials act now. Meanwhile, all electronic voting machines, whether directly connected to the internet or not, remain vulnerable to hacking and fraud.ĭespite these serious challenges, there is a way to make America’s 2020 election results trustworthy.

And a power grab is still unfolding, marked by legal games, voter suppression, a crippled postal system and a politicized Supreme Court, which may decide a disputed election. Regardless of what the polls suggest, they understand that our elections and democracy are under attack. Bush and Leanne Watt, a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, CaliforniaĪmericans are scared. Co-authored by Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former chief ethics lawyer for George W.

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