The Midterm Elections X-Factor: Industrialized Mail-in Voting

A revelation that the youngest voters heavily favor Democrats is not a revelation. But, making it effortless post-COVID for these low-propensity voters to vote has made a difference.

At some point my friend Chauncey Gardiner will have to weigh in with a guest essay about the mid-term elections, but, for now, here are a few quick points.

Every bi-annual federal election provides an opportunity for the major parties to partially re-invent themselves. One party’s performance exceeds expectations; the leadership is likely to remain in place. Another party fails to meet expectations; the finger-pointing begins; rumblings about failed leadership resonate.

Finger-pointing has implicated Donald Trump, with opportunistic anti-Trump people blaming Trump, the argument being … ? The data are that selected candidates endorsed by Trump failed. “Dr. Oz” lost to a vegetable in the Senate race in Pennsylvania. The formidable Tudor Dixon failed in her bid to unseat the incumbent governor of Michigan. Some other Trump-endorsed candidate here and there failed. Because Trump!

Absent compelling arguments and compelling data analysis, it’s hard (for me) not to dismiss anti-Trump opportunism as anti-Trump opportunism. Not that Trump himself has been helping his case. He seems concerned about noises we are now hearing about how the successful election outcomes in Florida have boosted enthusiasm for a Presidential bid on the part of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump had already gone out of his way to insult or threaten the governor. It is not obvious how threats and insults—especially threats and insults directed at a public official who has been building a well-deserved brand as a high performer—suit his own purposes. The governor might have better things to do in 2024 rather than run for President. He is a young, capable fellow. Trump, meanwhile, does not come off as the avuncular Godfather.

Trump distractions aside, What Happened?

Reading between the lines of the partially-digested and half-baked commentaries, one may discern a few interesting ideas:

Industrialized mail-in voting post-2020 was pivotal in some states

Some states have moved to tighten up voting processes post 2020. Others have moved to further entrench voting infrastructure they had installed in 2020. That infrastructure includes liberalized mail-in voting processes and liberalized “ballot harvesting.”

The Epoch Times has a nice piece on “The States That Changed Mail-In Voting Rules for 2022” (November 4, 2022). https://www.theepochtimes.com/infographic-the-states-that-changed-mail-in-voting-rules-for-2022_4842124.html

That piece makes plain that states like Florida and Georgia have gone far toward cleaning up voting processes whereas others (notably Pennsylvania and California) have moved to further entrench loosey-goosey processes they had implemented in 2020 under the cover of COVID. In Pennsylvania, Oz crushed the game-day vote. But, the vegetable Fetterman crushed the mail-in vote. So, there really was a red wave on voting day, but young people, who tend to be “low-propensity” voters, crushed the mail-in vote. Fetterman won, and it is not obvious that anyone had to manufacture votes in Philadelphia or Pittsburg to carry Fetterman over the line. We are not hearing much, if anything, about cheating, because it is not obvious that anyone had to cheat to win.

What to make of this? The “youth vote” has always heavily favored Democrats. Nothing new there. But these same people have been much, much less likely than their elders to bear the modest cost of actually going to the polls. But, mail-in voting taps into that vast reserve of low-propensity, pro-Democrat voters.

The early indications are that Democrats performed better than expected in states in which mail-in voting has been entrenched. Republicans have performed better where mail-in voting is less accessible. Basically, making people show up to vote tends to screen out pro-Democrat votes. Making it easy to vote by mail screens those votes in. If you screen those votes in, you don’t need to cheat.

Industrialized Ballot Harvesting

States like California and Minnesota have industrialized “ballot harvesting”. People can turn in absentee ballots and mail-in on the behalf of other people. There may be restrictions on how many ballots any one person can “harvest,” but these things are impossible to monitor and enforce. They are impossible to monitor and enforce by design.

So, what do we get?: In California, we get this arms-race by all candidates, Democratic or Republican. All of them have to invest resources in ballot harvesting. This is a tragedy. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a virtual Somali mafia harvests ballots on an industrial scale on behalf of its agent, Ilhan Omar. Project Veritas had a nice piece about this back in the 2020 election. The establishment media had a fit.

If there is any systematic cheating in the voting process, it may not involve mail-in voting per se, but it may involve ballot harvesters procuring the ballots mailed out to ineligible voters—to people who may have moved out or died, say, or to people who simply are not citizens. Then there is the business of simply absconding with other people’s ballots. It is a business susceptible to obvious manipulation.

Was Abortion on the ballot?

Not in all states. I did monitor a polling site on Tuesday, and one could not help but notice that a small number of people made a sartorial point of indicating that abortion had motivated them to vote, notwithstanding the fact that nothing on ballot pertained to abortion.

Of 240 people who showed up at the site between 6 am and noon, three made a point of wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “Planned Parenthood.” One of these people was a young, pear-shaped man with pink hair. The other two were women, one of whom sported pink hair. Another pink-haired woman showed up in a pink jump suit.

Surely other voters were also (partially) motivated to vote, Because Abortion Rights. The election provided an opportunity for them to express their anger. They did. They ended up taking it out on the Republican candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 4th congressional district. That candidate was a black pastor who was all about God and prayer. He was as good a target as any, surely.

So, was the abortion matter pivotal? Some states did feature ballot initiatives that related to abortion. Most did not. That said, “abortion rights”—read: the entitlement to unlimited abortion paid for by the state—does motivate some people. That’s what pre-election polling has consistently indicated. But, maybe the decisive factor was not abortion itself but things like mail-in voting. I’d be willing to guess that mail-in voting makes it easier to harvest the pink-haired vote.

Bad candidates?

Ex post rationalizations always identify winning candidates as good candidates and losing candidates as bad candidates. Pennsylvania elected a vegetable to the Senate. Was Fetterman a good candidate? Was Oz really so bad? Pennsylvania also re-elected a dead person to the state’s House of Representatives. “No joke,” as Biden might exclaim! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/midterm-elections-2022/tony-deluca-dead-elected-pennsylvania-state-office-b2221511.html

As of right now, the Republican candidate Kari Lake is poised to crush the Democratic candidate for governor of Arizona. Why it takes days for electronic voting systems to generate this result is a question. Understatement. That same, sclerotic voting process will likely yield a positive result for, Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Senate. Then we can look forward to the “run-off” election in Georgia on December 6. That election will determine control of the Senate.

A “red wave” did appear manifest in some states. Even in New York state, Republicans flipped quite a number of seats in the House, and the Republican candidate for governor spooked the Democratic establishment. Elsewhere, Democrats managed to contain losses. Two Congressional seats in Virginia looked like coin flips for the Republicans. They did win one of those seats.

So, the Republicans will not secure something like a 30-plus swing in the House of Representatives, but they will secure a slim majority, and they might, might even secure control of the Senate.

In 2024, the Democrats will have to defend about twice as many seats as the Republicans. The Republicans, for their part, have to decide how to finesse the Trump phenomenon. Some observers, like Jeffery Tucker, worry that “Trump is a [Democratic National Committee] asset.” We get it. At the same time, someone like a Ron DeSantis or Christi Noem (governor of South Dakota) may have better things to do in 2024, like run successful states. Who knows who will lead the Republican ticket. And then there’s the Democratic ticket. Would a Gavin Newsom (governor of California) or J.D. Pritzker (governor of Illinois) make compelling candidates? Remaking America into insolvent states (California and Illinois) that middle-class people are fleeing makes for a sobering prospect.