Thread by @mattblaze

This is the best summary I've seen so far of the PA "discarded ballots" story. Appears plausibly at least partly a consequence of PA's strict court-imposed rules requiring "naked ballots" to be discarded. washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

Whatever happened, an important lesson of this story for voters is to read and follow the instructions for returning ballots very carefully. There's more to it than just sticking the ballot in an envelope and mailing it!

Also, it appears that the ballots in question were all from military voters, in which case they might have been on a national "generic" all-write-in ballot called the FWAB. FWAB ballots are a different format from county-printed mail-in ballots, increasing chances for confusion.

FWABs speed up getting ballots to overseas voters (since they don't have to be mailed from the home county). But they require different processing on receipt. So it's a tradeoff intended to solve a difficult problem that's historically disenfranchised military voters..

Here's a link to the FWAB form. Note that the same form can be used as either or both a ballot or an absentee ballot request form. It's a rather confusing document for both voters and the officials who receive them. fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/F…

Since the DoJ and admin officials are describing the ballots in question as “military ballots” that had Trump “written in” I think it’s safe to conclude that these were FWAB ballots. (There’s no other special ID'd military ballot and Trump isn’t a write-in candidate anywhere.)

In any case, any allegation of mishandled ballots absolutely should be investigated, but the facts that have emerged so far in this case suggest either improperly sealed ballots or a fairly routine processing error rather than deliberate malice.

Note by the way that the FWAB is a completely uncontrolled document. Anyone can download it off the Internet. The validity checks occur when completed ballots are received. It's another example of how, despite what the president says, blank ballots aren't particularly sensitive.