Welcome to the hottest partisan flash point in the U.S. presidential election: the ballot drop box.
Since U.S. election officials gird for a dramatic expansion of mail voting in the Nov. 3 election, Democrats across the country are promoting fall boxes as a convenient and reliable solution for voters who do not want to entrust their ballots into the U.S. Postal Service.
President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, meanwhile, has sued to stop 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 advised a U.S. Senate committee in July that drop boxes could empower 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'd purchased because state legislation requires those ballots to be returned by email.
"We didn't need to cause confusion with Republicans," spokeswoman Maura Browning said.
Drop boxes also have taken on new urgency after cost-cutting steps at the U.S. Postal Service slowed email delivery nationally and Trump has attacked the legitimacy of mail ballots. Polls reveal the Republican president trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden at a race that some experts say can find half of all votes cast absentee.
Some state the drop box combat is a lot of fuss over a piece of civic furniture -- typically a heavily constructed metal box put in a public place, often tracked by video.
In Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill is recommending that voters return their ballots through drop box instead of through the email for the November election, even after receiving reports that a ballots mailed a week before the state's Aug. 11 nominating contests arrived too late to be counted.
Three-quarters of all ballots because August chief were cast absentee, she stated, up from roughly 4% in prior decades. Merrill, a Democrat, said the state's 200 recently installed drop boxes had proven a safe and popular option.
"I do not understand why people think they're such a problem," Merrill said. "They are more protected than mailboxes."
Republicans in Pennsylvania don't share that opinion. Trump won that aggressive state by less than one percent point in 2016. Winning there again could prove pivotal in his quest to secure another term in office.
The Trump effort is suing to force the state to pull all drop boxes used in the June primary. It asserts that individuals could drop off multiple ballots in boxes which are unstaffed, which is an illegal practice in Pennsylvania. State officials"have exponentially enhanced the threat that fraudulent or otherwise ineligible ballots will be cast and counted," the lawsuit states. That evidence hasn't been made public. Trump lawyers didn't respond to a request by Reuters to view it.
Bruce Marks, a former Republican state senator in Pennsylvania, said drop boxes don't provide a clear chain of custody for the ballots deposited indoors.
"There's no one seeing or tracking," he explained.
Proponents say stuffing a ballot into a locked drop box is not any different from dropping into a Postal Service letter box. Pennsylvania Republicans oppose drop boxes because Democrats have had much more success in getting their voters to sign up for email ballots this year, even greater than a two-to-on margin,'' said Brendan Welch, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
"(Republicans) know the easier it's for everyday people to vote, the more likely it is that they'll lose," Welch explained. "Perhaps they should spend their energy trying to match Pennsylvania Democrats' organizing attempts in the Keystone State rather."
Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has defended Pennsylvania's use of drop boxes, arguing they are lawful and essential, particularly in the age of the coronavirus.
In neighboring Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose stated last week that he didn't need to risk an identical lawsuit as he announced that he would authorize one drop box for each of the state's 88 counties. He explained the Republican-controlled legislature hadn't given him the authority to supply more.
Democrats are pressing LaRose to revise his decision, pointing out that it leaves the 864,000 registered voters of Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold, using exactly the identical number of drop boxes as the 8,400 registered Republicans of Republican Vinton County.
"You can't have a one-size-fits-all approach with all our counties," stated Kathleen Clyde, a senior adviser for the Biden campaign in Ohio. "One drop box does not cut it."
LaRose in the meantime is attempting to procure prepaid postage for mail ballots,'' spokeswoman Maggie Sheehan stated,"effectively creating every mailbox its drop box"
In hotly contested Florida, Democrats in Miami-Dade County, the nation's biggest, are seeking to eliminate several procedural hurdles to make it easier for Republicans to use drop boxes.
Unlike other counties in the state, Miami-Dade voters must provide election officials with legal identification when dropping off a ballot in a drop box. Election employees also manually record a 14-digit amount printed on the voter's envelope into a log.
The whole procedure can take up to three minutes, the Democratic Party said in a letter to local election officials seeking to allow voters to drop their ballots quickly without the processing requirements.
"Trump has sabotaged the post office deliberately and we must find ways around that. We think making it easier to use a drop box, and avoid the post office, is part of the solution," explained Steve Simeonidis, chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.
The White House has said Trump never advised the Postal Service to alter its operations.
Security measures required for ballot drop boxes vary by state. Back in Montana, these receptacles have to be staffed by at least two election officials, whereas in New Mexico they have to be monitored by video, as stated by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Returning ballots this manner proved popular: In Colorado, Oregon and Washington, more than half of mail ballots were returned to a drop box to an election office at the 2016 presidential election, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology survey.
Drop boxes have not been contentious in those states.
"Both parties utilize it in a very substantial rate, therefore a lot of those worries don't exist here," explained Murphy Bannerman of Election Protection Arizona, a nonpartisan voting-rights group.
Since U.S. election officials gird for a dramatic expansion of mail voting in the Nov. 3 election, Democrats across the country are promoting fall boxes as a convenient and reliable solution for voters who do not want to entrust their ballots into the U.S. Postal Service.
President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, meanwhile, has sued to stop 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 advised a U.S. Senate committee in July that drop boxes could empower 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'd purchased because state legislation requires those ballots to be returned by email.
"We didn't need to cause confusion with Republicans," spokeswoman Maura Browning said.
Drop boxes also have taken on new urgency after cost-cutting steps at the U.S. Postal Service slowed email delivery nationally and Trump has attacked the legitimacy of mail ballots. Polls reveal the Republican president trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden at a race that some experts say can find half of all votes cast absentee.
Some state the drop box combat is a lot of fuss over a piece of civic furniture -- typically a heavily constructed metal box put in a public place, often tracked by video.
In Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill is recommending that voters return their ballots through drop box instead of through the email for the November election, even after receiving reports that a ballots mailed a week before the state's Aug. 11 nominating contests arrived too late to be counted.
Three-quarters of all ballots because August chief were cast absentee, she stated, up from roughly 4% in prior decades. Merrill, a Democrat, said the state's 200 recently installed drop boxes had proven a safe and popular option.
"I do not understand why people think they're such a problem," Merrill said. "They are more protected than mailboxes."
Republicans in Pennsylvania don't share that opinion. Trump won that aggressive state by less than one percent point in 2016. Winning there again could prove pivotal in his quest to secure another term in office.
The Trump effort is suing to force the state to pull all drop boxes used in the June primary. It asserts that individuals could drop off multiple ballots in boxes which are unstaffed, which is an illegal practice in Pennsylvania. State officials"have exponentially enhanced the threat that fraudulent or otherwise ineligible ballots will be cast and counted," the lawsuit states. That evidence hasn't been made public. Trump lawyers didn't respond to a request by Reuters to view it.
Bruce Marks, a former Republican state senator in Pennsylvania, said drop boxes don't provide a clear chain of custody for the ballots deposited indoors.
"There's no one seeing or tracking," he explained.
Proponents say stuffing a ballot into a locked drop box is not any different from dropping into a Postal Service letter box. Pennsylvania Republicans oppose drop boxes because Democrats have had much more success in getting their voters to sign up for email ballots this year, even greater than a two-to-on margin,'' said Brendan Welch, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
"(Republicans) know the easier it's for everyday people to vote, the more likely it is that they'll lose," Welch explained. "Perhaps they should spend their energy trying to match Pennsylvania Democrats' organizing attempts in the Keystone State rather."
Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has defended Pennsylvania's use of drop boxes, arguing they are lawful and essential, particularly in the age of the coronavirus.
In neighboring Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose stated last week that he didn't need to risk an identical lawsuit as he announced that he would authorize one drop box for each of the state's 88 counties. He explained the Republican-controlled legislature hadn't given him the authority to supply more.
Democrats are pressing LaRose to revise his decision, pointing out that it leaves the 864,000 registered voters of Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold, using exactly the identical number of drop boxes as the 8,400 registered Republicans of Republican Vinton County.
"You can't have a one-size-fits-all approach with all our counties," stated Kathleen Clyde, a senior adviser for the Biden campaign in Ohio. "One drop box does not cut it."
LaRose in the meantime is attempting to procure prepaid postage for mail ballots,'' spokeswoman Maggie Sheehan stated,"effectively creating every mailbox its drop box"
In hotly contested Florida, Democrats in Miami-Dade County, the nation's biggest, are seeking to eliminate several procedural hurdles to make it easier for Republicans to use drop boxes.
Unlike other counties in the state, Miami-Dade voters must provide election officials with legal identification when dropping off a ballot in a drop box. Election employees also manually record a 14-digit amount printed on the voter's envelope into a log.
The whole procedure can take up to three minutes, the Democratic Party said in a letter to local election officials seeking to allow voters to drop their ballots quickly without the processing requirements.
"Trump has sabotaged the post office deliberately and we must find ways around that. We think making it easier to use a drop box, and avoid the post office, is part of the solution," explained Steve Simeonidis, chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.
The White House has said Trump never advised the Postal Service to alter its operations.
Security measures required for ballot drop boxes vary by state. Back in Montana, these receptacles have to be staffed by at least two election officials, whereas in New Mexico they have to be monitored by video, as stated by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Returning ballots this manner proved popular: In Colorado, Oregon and Washington, more than half of mail ballots were returned to a drop box to an election office at the 2016 presidential election, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology survey.
Drop boxes have not been contentious in those states.
"Both parties utilize it in a very substantial rate, therefore a lot of those worries don't exist here," explained Murphy Bannerman of Election Protection Arizona, a nonpartisan voting-rights group.