As Trump Sows Doubts on Mail, Democrats Push More In-Person Voting - The New York Times - 1 views
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Democrats in Philadelphia will push supporters to vote in person if they have not already requested a ballot.
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The sudden shift in tactics in the biggest city in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, reveals unease over President Trump’s war on mail-in voting and a rash of court rulings that are still altering the regulations that will govern how ballots are cast and counted in November.
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The events gather groups of voters to drop off their absentee ballots in person at elections offices or drop boxes.
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Many state parties and officials continue to view voting by mail as essential amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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As the president falsely claims that mail balloting is rife with fraud, and as the election system has been overtaxed by the vote-by-mail surge, voters across the country have been left to navigate a confusing process.
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In Madison, Wis., by far the state’s most Democratic stronghold, the city clerk’s office received so many phone calls from voters worried about the Postal Service that on Saturday it dispatched 1,000 poll workers to more than 200 city parks. Their job was to collect ballots in an event the city called “Democracy in the Park.”
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Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in absentee ballot requests in key battleground states; in Pennsylvania, nearly 1.5 million Democrats have requested a mail-in ballot, three times the requests from Republicans.
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“I think Trump and the Republicans in general are trying to screw up mail-in voting,” said Mr. Velchoff,
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“Our thought has always been that if we get 1,000 Democrats to vote by mail that wouldn’t have voted otherwise, and we lose 10 percent due to mistakes, we still gained 900 votes,” Mr. Bright said.
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Officials there recently warned that a decision from the State Supreme Court instructing officials to discard so-called “naked ballots” — those that arrive without a secrecy envelope — could risk up to 40,000 votes in the city. That’s a significant amount in a Democratic city where Mr. Biden needs to run up the margins to have a chance at winning back Pennsylvania.
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In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation on Thursday restricting counties to just one ballot drop-off site each, requiring some of the state’s largest and most Democratic counties to close facilities on Friday.