Some GOP officials and even candidates are in disagreement over whether their base is best off voting in person or using the convenience of mail-in or drop-off voting options. Starting to wonder if Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot or if they just like chaos in the aftermath of election day.
When the polls close and voting-day results are tallied, the counting of mailed-in or dropped-off absentee ballots must still continue according to whatever the state's laws say about those votes. So the final results of an election are not known on Election Night, and sometimes there are enough votes cast by mail or drop-box to make a difference in the outcome.
Apparently the GOP has mixed views on which approach to voting will make them look better on Election Night, voting early or voting in person on the day. But that mixed messaging apparently has some voters confused and party honchos dismayed about possible effect on overall turnout.
The Tampa Bay Times rounded up some of the array of opinions on voting methods, and reasons for preferring one or another, whether pratical, cosmetic, strategic or.. well, allegedly nefarious.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.tampabay.com/news/2022/10/22/gop-voters-told-hold-onto-mail-ballots-until-election-day/[/URL]
Some of the GOP suggestions are playing into Trump's unfounded assertion of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. But even some Democrats have urged people to vote in person, so it's not just the Rs having mixed views (and for assorted reasons) on absentee or on-the-day votes.
Some Democrats have advocated voting in person or else submitting ballots at the last minute for them to be counted after polls have closed and before those absentee ballots must be received. Sadly, it sounds like the conspiracy theories about election fraud have started to filter into Democrats' thinking, turning what had for Dems been just a question of personal choice into a strategy to make it harder for Rs who intend to cheat to know how much to try to cheat by.
Seems to me that all this waffling about "how to make your vote count!" may do in the end is to make people less likely to bother voting at all, if both sides think the other side is bound to cheat. Low turnout is of course what Republicans figure favors them, as their traditional demographic constituency dwindles. But low turnout can be catastrophic if it comes from their own base.
Spontaneous movements to boycott an election have been more often a popular reaction when rigged elections have been a fact on the ground (verified by international observers) for at least several rounds, rather than an early response to assertions by one party that the other has stolen a recent election or is setting up to steal the next one.
So far there does not seem any such movement afoot in the USA, but apathy about elections has been a feature here for a long time already, and the hassling of voters of either major party about which method of voting to use may further reduce turnout.
What's really astounding about this cooked-up GOP controversy over election integrity is that in a number of states and with bipartisan support, mail-in and drop-off balloting have been in use without problems for years on end already, and the in-person voting has been watched and supervised in bipartisan fashion for decades at the polls and counting stations. I think it has dismayed moderate Republican voters, especially those with families and busy schedules who have grown to assume they can fill out their mailed ballot and just drop it back in the mail. Why we don't hear more about it is beyond me. I don't think all those voters are under the sway of Trump's conspiracy theories.
