Many Americans will be voting by mail in the upcoming election due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the mail ballots have recently been the subject of much controversy. With Election Day just over a month away, here are the facts about mail ballots, as well as information on where, when and how you can register to vote.
If I live out of state, where should I register to vote?
Students can register to vote here in Rhode Island or in your home state, according to Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea. However, registering here would mean you could not vote back home.
“I would encourage you to just make sure that that’s what you want to do because you’re going to give up our voting back home, and there may or may not be scholarship implications for that,” Gorbea said. “It depends on what your situation is.” These could potentially impact scholarships awarded by residency.
If you’re from Rhode Island and are living in a dorm or off-campus Narragansett or South Kingstown for the school year, you’re eligible to update your registration to be able to vote here, but would not be able to vote in your hometown.
When do I have to register to vote?
Voter registration deadlines vary from state to state. For Rhode Island, the deadline to register to vote is Oct. 4, and the mail ballot application deadline is Oct. 13.
Gorbea and her team are sending out mail ballot applications to every registered Rhode Island voter. They must be returned by Oct. 13.
For information on your state deadlines, you can go to www.vote.org.
It’s election day and I want to vote, but I’m not registered. What can I do?
Did your mail ballot not come? Did you forget to register? Did you decide last-minute that you wanted to vote? Fear not.
Because this is a presidential election year, Rhode Island is also offering same-day voter registration at the polls. You don’t have to be an in-state student to do this, but those who get these ballots will only be able to vote for president and vice president.
I want/need to vote by mail. Is it safe?
Emily Lynch, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, said that while there are always concerns about voter fraud, there are very few cases of it.
Lynch explained that there were concerns about voter fraud in the elections of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, but investigations after both elections found only a “handful” of cases.
“You tend to see the high-profile cases in the media, but when you look at it systematically, there have been very few cases,” said Lynch.
When there are instances of voter fraud, it often isn’t intentional.
“It’s not widespread,” Lynch said. “And if you do a further investigation into it, it tends to be, like, clerical errors, or there’s also been people who have the same name and birthdate so it looks like they voted twice but it’s two different people.”
Gorbea noted that while mail ballots are now being used on a greater scale than they have in the past, the process is not new.
“What we’re doing this year has pre-existed this election, so we’re not inventing a whole new system from scratch,” Gorbea said. “That’s important because it should give voters comfort that this is not an entirely new process.
Rhode Island residents shouldn’t worry about voting by mail, according to Gorbea.
“Mail ballots are safe and secure, especially in Rhode Island,” Gorbea said, “[but] I do encourage people, though, to research their own state’s track record with it.”