Claims of US election fraud: the low rejection rate controversy.
The rejection rate of a mail-in ballot is the percentage of such ballots that are declared invalid. Reasons for rejection vary: lateness of arrival, a signature that does not match, a form filled out incorrectly, a vote that is not clear. Mail-in rejection rates tend to be higher than the rejection rates for in-person votes, since the signature verification problems are far easier to resolve in-person than over mail: it requires the ballot to be mailed back to the voter with a request to ‘cure’ the application — that is to say, correct it so it becomes valid.
Already before the election there were reports claiming that the rejection rate has fallen and this was seemingly confirmed afterwards. It was also used by the Republicans to claim that ‘corrupt Democrat officials loosened the criteria to enable more mail-in votes to count’. Since mail-in votes were expected to heavily favour the democrats — following President Trump’s repeated denunciations of this method of voting — Democrat officials were accused of allowing more mail-in votes to stand in order to help Joe Biden’s chances. Trump claimed this personally in his 45-minute December 2nd speech regarding signature verification in Nevada’s Clark County.
Not all statistics are in, but the claimed changes have indeed been spectacular. The swing state of Georgia, for instance, reports a rejection rate of just 0.2% — down from 6% in 2016. Other states — both battleground and ‘safe’ states of both colours — reported the same, massively reduced, rates. Donald Trump pointed this out in his usual gentle, understated manner:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1329424134166687744
However, it is not all it seems. The main objection is that the comparison is between the total rejection rate from previous elections to the rejection rate arising from signature matching failures alone. Brad Raffensperger confirmed this to be the case in Georgia.
The total rejection rates are not yet known and will not be known for some time. This is further explained here. The rejection rates for signatures alone have not changed.
But, a sceptic might ask, should the signature rejection rates have risen, what with people voting who have never voted before plus a lot of people voting by mail for the first time? (Indeed, pro-Democrat sources warned of a massive number of rejections, which, on current evidence, did not materialise — but might become apparent with fuller data). This can be attributed to three factors: firstly Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting convinced many trying to vote by mail that any excuse would be used to disqualify their ballot. They therefore took extra care filling it out and putting it in the mail earlier.
The second factor is a simplification of the rules for mail-in voting in many states, as well as an increase in the amount of help a voter gets. For instance, a Georgia state law made ballot curation much easier, mandating a prompt notification of voters by the election officials in case of problems with the ballot.
The final factor is the tireless work of Democrat activists and local election officials to ensure people were able to vote by mail and that they followed the correct process. Wisconsin’s ‘democracy in the park’ events allowed people to register to vote, drop off completed and sealed ballots and, crucially, have officials witness and sign off on their application — as well as, presumably, ensuring it was filled in accordance with the rules. Stacey Abrams in Georgia staged a possibly unprecedented registration drive in the formerly deeply Red state and quite conceivably help and advice for filling out mail-in ballots was provided.