● "45% of hopes to vote by mail"... A

few days before the elections that Corona changed , I asked vote-by-mail voters on the streets to produce 8 News. However, I was surprised that none of them said negative opinions. "It's safe and reliable for a pandemic," and "It's a perfect choice because it's scary to touch people." Even if a negative reaction came out, I tried to write it in the news, but even if I interviewed 8 people, none of them said that, so I gave up. In a poll on CBS in the US, 45% of all registered voters said they would choose to vote by mail.

Although we are somewhat new to the concept of voting by mail, it has already been widely practiced in the United States. The New York Times compiled the data and wrote an article, which states that vote-by-mail ballots are sent to all 44 million voters in nine states and Washington, DC. Voters account for 21% of all voters (California, New Jersey, Nevada, Vermont, and Washington DC are the states that start full-by-mail voting from the presidential election). Voters take their ballot out of their mailbox, mark the candidates they want, sign, and mail. You will vote by sending it back to you. There's no better way to pick a candidate you like at home and send it by mail.

115 million people living in 33 states can vote absenteeism for no specific reason. If you say you can't go to the polls because you're afraid of the coronavirus, you can choose to vote absenteeism, which is 55% of all voters. Absentee voting is also a way of voting back and forth by mail. The only difference is whether you apply for an absentee ballot and a full mail ballot, or whether you get it automatically from scratch, but essentially the same. In the remaining eight states, 50 million people, or 24% of all voters, require absentee voting for special reasons, such as soldiers and the elderly.

In summary, 160 million people, or 76% of American voters, can vote by mail if they want to. It's difficult to estimate the exact number yet, but the New York Times estimates that roughly 80 million people will vote by mail. More than 33 million people voted by mail in the last presidential election, this time more than twice as likely to choose to vote by mail.


● Vote-by-mail denial, which is less likely to be struck.

President Trump repeats the same words dozens or hundreds of times once it is struck. These days, he repeats the formula of “mail-by-mail vote = negative election” whenever possible. They say the same logic and content so often that they are almost brainwashed. Yesterday (15th), although it was a Saturday that usually does not hold a press conference, we talked about voting by mail for a while while announcing that China had bought us agricultural products. It was the same saying that if you voted by mail, there would be a lot of fraudulent elections.

To sum up what President Trump is saying about mail-by-mail voting, the claim is that there will be a large-scale fraudulent election where the ballot will be delivered to anyone, intercepted by anyone, and just filmed a specific candidate. President Trump, who loves dramatic exaggeration, has said many times that "the ballot will go to the dead, even to the dogs," and "everyone will steal the ballot and just stamp it." In addition, he argued that "foreign countries such as Russia, China and North Korea will intervene in the vote by mail." This is President Trump's conventional way of injecting extremely distorted simple images into the public. (I have been pointing out the problem of mail-by-mail voting in this way, but President Trump himself, addressed to Florida, is going to vote absenteeism, a kind of mail-by-mail ballot.)

Listening to President Trump, I think,'Is that really so?' It costs, but in fact, the likelihood of a fraudulent election due to a vote-by-mail is less than the chance of being struck by lightning. In Oregon, which has already voted by mail since 2000, election fraud, such as double voting or voting for the dead, was only 0.0000001% of the total. The Heritage Foundation also announced that it was 0.00006% of the total number of votes after analyzing absentee voting crime cases over 20 years. It can't be said at all, but President Trump is inflating a negligible case as a massive election denial without any grounds.


In Washington, DC, I personally covered the work of a postman collecting mail from a mailbox, and I could see them scan each mailbox they opened with an electronic device to check. Vehicles carrying mail were organized in order to systematically classify them by mailbox in the area they were assigned to. Vote-by-mail voting was processed in the same manner as other mail collected from the mailbox, except that mail-voting is supported by delivery tracking services for expensive mail. There is little room for infidelity to intervene, as it is said that the signatures are checked individually. Of course, someone can commit the crime of robbing the mailbox. But no matter how much the mailbox is robbed, it is virtually impossible, as President Trump says, leading to a massive election denial, where millions of votes are lost. Rather, it is likely that some extremists, motivated by President Trump's saying that tickets are lost in the mailbox, will commit sporadic crimes by practicing those words.


● "I won't let you vote by mail because I didn't give you money"… Trump paralyzes the post office

President Trump, who recently interviewed Maria Batilomo of the Fox Business, who is known as one of the leading pro-Trump broadcasters, has been too frank about his feelings about vote-by-mail. In the broadcast, President Trump said, "If you don't apply for the budget, you won't be able to vote by mail." If you can't vote properly, it's normal for leaders to support the budget and solve it, but it's hard to expect that from President Trump. It is a well-known fact that President Trump has been acting thoroughly based on his liking. Underneath this, there is a judgment that only Democratic supporters will do more by expanding the vote by mail. Because of this, he made it clear his intention to stop it as much as possible. The American media are beeping that democracy is in crisis, and I don't think it's unreasonable to feel this sense of crisis.


It's a big problem that the post office is rapidly collapsing when Trump's longtime political backer, Louise DeJoy, takes office as the post office manager. When he took office, he eliminated overtime pay, which prevented postmen from working properly overtime. In addition, even mail sorters are said to be disappearing without sound rumors. In addition, the workload was so heavy that many places where mail delivery increased more than 10 times due to Corona. Work has increased, but it becomes difficult to work, and when working hours are reduced, the only answer is that the mail goes late. Already, the Federal Post Office has warned 46 states that vote-by-mail delivery could be delayed.

It is not negligible that the ballots sent during the primary process of the US primary election became invalid when they arrived late at the counting office. NPR reported that in the primary process, 5.63% of Virginia and 3.02% of Arkansas were invalidated. In many states, at least 1% of votes by mail are not even counted as late arrivals. Even now, there are so many votes disappearing in the air, and if a huge number of people vote by mail at the same time like this presidential election, the possibility of a catastrophe cannot be ruled out.

● Declaration of victory except for vote-by-mail by neglecting catastrophe?

Right now, former Vice President Biden appears to be quite ahead of the polls, but the gap is likely to close when elections imminent. Even now, the overall trend of opinion polls is gradually narrowing. Trump's supporters are also expected to rally as elections nearer. If the election is unfolded, even the slightest problem in the mail ballot can be a sign of dissent. President Trump has already said that even if he loses, he may not obey cleanly. President Trump is already prepared for a mess after the election.

For President Trump, the later the delivery of vote-by-mail, the better. Republican supporters overwhelmingly answered that they would go to the polling place in person, but since the vote is on the spot,
it is highly likely that this will be counted first. If it turns out that President Trump is ahead of the initial count, he may declare victory. The results of the vote-by-mail vote will come up later, but it seems likely that it was a fraudulent election. A bottleneck caused by too many vote-by-mail voting can lead to the inability to arrive at the check-in, and the votes may stay somewhere in the post office delivery chain and all become invalid. Depending on the situation, there is a possibility that the ruling lawsuit will come true and President Trump's prophecy, which cannot distinguish between a winner and a loser, will come true. If this happens, Biden, who is actively encouraging vote-by-mail, has no choice but to think that the vote has been stolen.

It's a very extreme and gloomy prospect, but the American media are actually worried about this situation. I wonder if the president of a democratic country is drawing this picture, but there have been so many times that President Trump has shown different actions than the previous president. The United States, which is the suspicion of democracy, is now facing a great crisis that raises fundamental questions about whether voters can vote properly. 

▶'Mail Voting' Preferred by American Voters… Reasons for the presidential election issue