Thread by @RachelBitecofer

1. Update: we know for sure that 1st time mail voters are much more likely to have their ballots flagged for issues.

We also have a distinct pattern in mail data this cycle. Rs "invented" use of absentee ballots to ⬆️R turnout. Its how they dominated FL elections. Ds got wise

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1313088594718806020

2. to this system over the past couple of cycles & started to up their focus on absentee voting. Where they could, they changed voting laws to allow more mail voting (CA, CO, more recently VA) & once the GOP figured out they'd no longer hold the advantage on this technique THEN

3. they started to try to frame it as risky to fraud. Still, this attack on mail/absentee voting is/was controversial in the party bc the operatives understand how much a role its played to their dominance (bc again, they've been winning by focusing on partisan turnout). When

4. Trump suddenly turned an AK-47 against it a few months ago- GOP operatives all across the country, but esp in places like FL shit a brick bc the president was not only undermining his own reelection effort, he was threatening their state-specific efforts in senate, house, gov,

5. and state leg races too. But you can't reason w Trump- he's his own worse enemy. And his attacks were so vocal and so prominent and played so much on right-wing media that polling data began to pick up a massive effect- GOP voters, even w the pandemic, were turning away from

6. mail voting in BIG numbers- which is what @WinWithJMC & I also show in our poll of rural voters in PA. But w every crisis- opportunity. If Rs were going to bail, en masse, from mail voting, & Ds are going to turn to it en masse bc of the pandemic, perhaps it could be leveraged

7. to the GOP's/Trump's adv. So enter the appointment of Dejoy into USPS, the effort to slow down deliveries, and w the RNC's legal effort, in conjunction WITH the Justice Dept, which historically protects the right to vote but in 2020 Barr is turning its power to undermine it,

8. having D ballots "sorted" into one pile, mail ballots, in some swing states could be an asset. So hatched their great plan, which we are watching play out in real-time & which Trump, who is indeed, the worst criminal in the history of the world, admits to literally every time

9. he's asked about it ("the real fight begins Nov. 4th!"). So the goal is since D ballots will be sequestered in mail-in ballots, DOJ & RNC can use the courts to gum up the count, challenge mail ballots as fraudulent, & try to head fake everyone into thinking Trump actually won.

10. Don't believe me? Fine- here's Bill Barr, champion of democracy (for Republicans). The thing that has him spitting mad- btw- are votes. Regular votes from Americans. From you! thehill.com/homenews/admin…

11. So Ds, wanting to make it safer for people to vote in a deadly pandemic and also push up turnout, have been really pushing mail ballots. But they do have other downsides. One of these is, as @BowTiePolitics points out, is the well-documented fact that they are confusing.

12. They have many requirements, any one of which can cause a ballot to get rejected. That rejection might get caught and corrected, but it isn't going to be bc the state informs you that your vote was disqualified. These include signature matching, secrecy envelope missing,

13. witness issues, and signature missing. Ballots cast at polling locations can also be rejected for issues like poorly marked choices or failure to follow the directions. The people most likely to make mistakes like this are people doing remote voting for the 1st time. Data has

14. also shown that younger voters are more likely to have their ballots rejected- w signature matching and lateness cited as the two dominant issues. So in order to determine whether voters of color/Dems are having ballots rejected in NC counties at atypical rates, we're going

15. to need to analyze data, controlling for 1st time voters. And we''re likely also going to need to consider age. But yeah- we do want to look and make sure no atypical rejection rates are occurring. This will be easier in party reg states, like NC, but can still be done in non

16. party reg states, like GA. I would be surprised if people aren't already tracking this. But as @BowTiePolitics hypothesized, we will have a ton of 1st time mail balloters this cycle, AND these will be disproportionately Dems and bc of this voters will be disproportionately

17. voters of color, so we are going to need good analysis on this. But we do need the analysis