Registered voters should automatically receive mail-in ballots for next election, senator says

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is suggesting that states should automatically mail ballots to eligible voters for the November elections, calling it a "better approach" than requiring them to request mail-in ballots.

The New York Democrat made the suggestion amid the highly contagious coronavirus in the U.S. and around the world, which has sparked health-safety concerns about voters crowding polling stations.

Right now, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington automatically mail ballots to voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Despite her personal support for the automatic mailing of ballots, Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, does not think Congress will set national standards for voting by mail in the next coronavirus package.

Gillibrand and other Democratic lawmakers have called for $4 billion or more in funding for expanding vote by mail in any future coronavirus relief package. Gillibrand was asked if Congress should require states to automatically send ballots to registered voters in the mail as a result of coronavirus.

“When we can write legislation. It will be a mandatory requirement that everyone is allowed to vote by mail and that the states will get to decide how to do it. I think a one-step process is better than a two-step process,” Gillibrand said on a virtual conference with journalists earlier this week.

She pointed out that states decide and that everyone gets a request mailed to them that they can return if they want to vote by mail.

"It would be better to just mail the ballot and the envelope already stamped – that would be a better approach,” she added.

Critics of universal vote by mail have raised concerns about fraud. According to Federal Election Assistance Commission data, 28.3 million mail-in ballots are still unaccounted for 2012 to 2018.

In addition to increased vote by mail funding, Gillibrand has also called for the Senate to pass her Postal Banking Act, which would setup “essential banking services” for individuals in low-income and rural communities.

According to her office, the bill would also “create approximately $9 billion in revenue for the Postal Service and safeguard democracy by ensuring Americans across the country have access to vote by mail.”