Early and mail-in voting begins 2 months before Election Day amid lawsuits, integrity concerns

Absentee voting for the presidential election will begin this week, two months before Election Day, as early in-person voting starts nationwide later this month amid lawsuits over election administration and election integrity concerns.

The presidential election begins this week as absentee ballots are mailed to voters in one state, with others to follow in the coming weeks. However, election integrity concerns from the last presidential election remain as various courts determine how mail-in ballots and voter rolls are to be handled with only two months before the next president will be elected.

North Carolina is the first state to send out absentee ballots, which begins Friday, followed by Alabama on Sept. 11. Pennsylvania is the first state to begin early voting, which starts on Sept. 16, with Minnesota and Virginia both following on Sept. 20.

Taking a page from the Democratic Party's playbook, in June, former President Donald Trump announced the start of the Republican National Committee's "Swamp the Vote" campaign to encourage early voting, as well as the use of mail-in and absentee ballots.

"Republicans must win and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country. Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on election day, we are going to protect the vote," Trump said in a press release.

"We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard. We must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout. The way to win is to swamp them, if we swamp them with votes they can’t cheat. You need to make a plan, register, and vote any way possible. We have got to get your vote."

The program is the successor the RNC’s "Bank Your Vote" initiative under then-chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Trump had previously criticized those practices, contending that they present opportunities for voter fraud. Now he contends that Republicans must embrace the practices where states permit them.

Mail-in voting and early voting have historically been a weakness for the GOP, with Republican voters predominantly opting to vote in person on Election Day. Furthermore, while Democrats continued to use such methods to help their candidates win elections, Republicans instead sounded the alarm that mail-in voting and ballot harvesting were ripe for voter fraud – at least until recently.

Phill Kline, the director of election integrity watchdog The Amistad Project, told Just the News on Tuesday that there are still “concerns about who is managing” the absentee ballots sent in the mail.

“Many of those ballots are oftentimes damaged, without sufficient information required by law” when they are sent back to election offices, he added, noting that there needs to be a “bipartisan presence” during the process of handling ballots, and that all ballots should receive “uniform treatment.” However, he said that there is “no guarantee of either” the presence of workers from both political parties or uniform treatment of the ballots.

Kline also said that in the urban core, there is “disparate hiring of one party over another to work as election workers.” This was especially true in Detroit, where about 2,000 more Democratic poll workers than Republicans were hired in last month’s primary election.

“If a ballot is to be cured in Philadelphia,” Kline said, then “similar ballots” should be cured across the entire state, “and we haven't fixed that issue.” There are “a lot of the same problems” this year as there were in the 2020 election, he added. While some have been “partially fixed,” many remain.

In the meantime, just nine weeks out from Election Day, lawsuits are ongoing regarding the general election.

On Friday, a Pennsylvania court ruled that the commonwealth cannot throw out mail-in ballots just because they have incorrect handwritten dates on the envelopes. The 4-1 decision will likely stop thousands of Pennsylvania votes from being tossed out for the November election.

“The refusal to count undated or incorrectly dated but timely mail ballots submitted by otherwise eligible voters because of meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors violates the fundamental right to vote in the Pennsylvania Constitution," Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote in her ruling, according to ABC News.

Tom King, an attorney representing the state and national Republican Party groups in the lawsuit, said the decision was a disappointment and his clients “absolutely will appeal.”

This ruling follows a decision in March by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which found that Pennsylvania may enforce state law requiring envelopes for mail-in ballots to be dated and include the voter's signature.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) has been sued five times over 40 days, with the latest lawsuit from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The Center Square reported.

On Aug. 23, when Kennedy announced that he was suspending his independent campaign for president, he requested the board remove his name from the presidential ballot. However, six days later, NCSBE voted to keep his name on the ballot as ballot printing had already started for absentee voting. As a result, Kennedy sued the board on Friday to take his name off.

The RNC and North Carolina GOP sued NCSBE on Aug. 26 for allegedly violating the Help America Vote Act by not requiring identification information for approximately 225,000 voters who registered to vote.

On Aug. 22, both the national and state GOP sued NCSBE for allegedly not removing voters from voter rolls who have identified themselves as non-citizens on jury questionnaires.

The North Carolina Democratic Party on July 26 sued the board to have the body reverse its decision that allowed Kennedy, the "We The People Party" candidate, to appear on the ballot.

On July 22, supporters of independent presidential candidate Cornel West sued NCSBE for not allowing his name to be placed on the ballot. Last month, a federal judge reversed the board’s decision, ensuring West would be on the presidential ballot.