Last-minute effort to change mail-in voting creates confusion, distrust

When it comes to the security and accuracy of elections, there’s a time and a place to discuss whether the current system works or needs to be adjusted.

Less than 60 days before a general election isn’t the right time, and the Oval Office and local post offices aren’t the right place. Yet that’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in while we wait for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive order related to mail-in ballots.

For those who aren’t familiar with the controversy, a quick overview:

In March, the president signed an executive order that, in part, calls on the U.S. Postal Service to only send mail-in ballots to people on a federal list of registered voters. Almost immediately, lawsuits were filed to challenge his authority to issue such an order, and the question has been moving through the federal court system ever since.

As of this writing, the country is awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court on whether the executive order is constitutional. At the same time, several states have started sending out mail-in ballots and others are on the verge of doing so. Most local election officials say there simply isn’t enough time to comply with a new, complex and untested system that involves new types of envelopes and a database that is known to be incomplete.

There are two major concerns at this point that the high court must address. The first is whether President Trump is violating the separation of powers built into the U.S. system of government and stepping on states’ rights.

The U.S. Constitution seems clear that it’s Congress, not the president, that can impose changes on state election processes. If there really is a large-scale problem with voter fraud — as President Trump has repeatedly alleged, without proof, since 2016 — it’s our elected lawmakers who need to address the problem.

The second, and, some would argue, bigger concern is the very real potential for disenfranchising voters who are legally registered, but unable to cast a ballot in person.

At the risk of offending the organization this newspaper depends on to deliver its printed product, the U.S. Postal Service often struggles to get mail to people’s homes and places of business accurately and in a (somewhat) timely manner. Why would we expect it to decide who’s qualified to receive a ballot and who’s not, and to do it completely error-free in such a short timeframe?

Both concerns are strong reasons the Supreme Court should quash this executive order as quickly as possible. With about a third of the qualified voters in our country voting by mail, and eight states voting almost exclusively that way, to do otherwise is to jeopardize the validity of the entire election and control of Congress for the next two years.

National media outlets have been reporting that citizens from coast to coast have shared they’re confused by all of this uncertainty. It also causes some people to distrust a system that has worked effectively — with very few valid examples of illegal voting — for generations.

It’s both ironic and disappointing to see our nation’s chief executive — who has voted by mail twice this year himself — cause so much last-minute upheaval in a foundational part of our representative democracy.

A separate issue in Wyoming

Here in Wyoming, there’s been a separate election-related issue involving the federal government. On Aug. 18, the day of the state’s primary election, the U.S.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sent two staff members to Laramie County to serve as “election monitors.”

On Aug. 26, at the end of the State Canvassing Board meeting, Gov. Mark Gordon voiced his concern about the conduct of these two people and the lack of communication with Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee prior to their arrival in Cheyenne.

To be clear, the DOJ has a legitimate role in enforcing federal voting-rights laws, and federal law authorizes election observation and monitoring in certain circumstances. The question raised by what happened in Laramie County isn’t whether the DOJ has any role in elections. It’s whether these officials exceeded that role.

First, the decision to send monitors to Wyoming was apparently made shortly before the election (a notification email from DOJ to Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s office was dated Aug. 14, though it appears no one from his office thought to inform Ms. Lee), and an email from DOJ to Ms. Lee may have been sent to the wrong address (in fact, the one to Mr. Gray was also mistakenly sent to the Wisconsin Elections Commission).

Next, Ms. Lee said in a prepared statement that the monitors told her they intended to interview voters, which isn’t allowed here. She said the DOJ's questions also “appeared to me to be outside the scope of federal voting rights laws,” and they included questions that could have been answered by her or her staff well in advance of Election Day.

Overall, she said, “This was a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections.”

Combined with the current attempt to interfere with already existing mail-in ballot processes, it’s clear this administration’s attempts to interfere with the constitutional authority granted to states over their elections has gone too far.

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