Thread by @WIRED

In 2016, 33 million people voted by mail. This fall, that figure could exceed 80 million. The pandemic presents a historic challenge for the American voting system, but the risk of mass voter fraud is still extremely low.

Pay attention, Mr. President 1/ wired.trib.al/EsE2DXB

Stealing a presidential election would require an enormous conspiracy—a coordinated mailbox-to-mailbox operation with access to the perfect database of stolen voter signatures and Social Security numbers. It's an impractical attack and the chances of it happening are VERY low 2/

A mail-in ballot’s journey to the voter and back is tightly choreographed and controlled. Most states use special US Postal Inspection Service barcodes to monitor ballots in transit. Once they're returned, they're validated with personal info like Social Security numbers 3/

If a vote seems accidental or suspicious, officials pull it for detailed human review. Most states offer a digital portal that voters can use to check the status of their ballot. If something goes wrong, every state allows you to cast a provisional ballot in person 4/

Election officials can also ferret out irregularities by spot-checking the results before they're officially certified. Sometimes this amounts to simply recounting a fixed percentage of ballots by hand to ensure the voting equipment didn't make any mistakes 5/

Then there are “risk-limiting audits,” which use statistics to minimize the chance of the loser being declared the winner. Officials pull a random, representative sample of ballots from across a county or state, checking as many as needed to satisfy the “risk limit” 6/

If the risk limit is set at 8%, the audit catches an incorrect result 92% of the time. The scale of the audit is directly tied to the victory margin: If a candidate wins big, the sample can be small. If the race is close, the sample must be larger and auditing may take longer 7/

This year, several states—including Michigan—will use mandatory risk-limiting audits statewide. Many others have set up pilot programs or will allow individual counties to run their own. In 2016, exactly zero states conducted risk-limiting audits 8/

While Americans expect to know who is president by the morning after Election Day, that almost certainly won't be possible this year. Depending on the state, some mailed ballots won't be counted until a week or more after Election Day 9/

Despite what President Trump says, a delayed result is not synonymous with fraud. There will be snafus, but the goal for election officials around the country remains the same: Produce an accurate result—one that will convince the loser he lost 10/ wired.trib.al/EsE2DXB