Friday, 21 August 2020_Welcome to the latest partisan flash point in the US presidential election: the ballot drop box.
As US election officials gird for a dramatic expansion of mail voting in the Nov. 3 election, Democrats across the country are promoting drop boxes as a convenient and reliable option for voters who don’t want to entrust their ballots to the US Postal Service.
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, meanwhile, has sued to prevent their use in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, alleging that the receptacles could enable voting fraud.
Republican officials in other states have prevented their use. Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett told a US Senate committee in July that drop boxes could enable people to violate a state law against collecting ballots.
In Missouri, Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft decided not to distribute 80 drop boxes he had purchased because state law requires those ballots to be returned by mail.
“We didn’t want to cause confusion with voters,” spokeswoman Maura Browning said.
Drop boxes have taken on new urgency after cost-cutting measures at the US Postal Service slowed mail delivery nationwide and Trump has repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of mail ballots. Polls show the Republican president trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden in a race that some experts say could see half of all votes cast absentee.
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