EnviroPolitics Blog

USPS processed 150,000 ballots after Election Day, jeopardizing thousands of votes

The number of mailed ballots not delivered by Nov. 3 is expected to grow as more postal data is released in the coming days.

Demonstrators marched Wednesday in New York to demand that every ballot be counted in the 2020 presidential election. (Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

By Jacob Bogage and Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post

More than 150,000 ballots were caught in U.S. Postal Service processing facilities and not delivered by Election Day, agency data shows, including more than 12,000 in five of the states that have yet to be called for either President Trump or Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

Despite assurances from Postal Service leaders that agency officials were conducting daily sweeps for misplaced ballots, the mail service acknowledged in a court filing Thursday that thousands of ballots had not been processed in time, and that more ballots were processed Wednesday than on Election Day.

The number of mailed ballots the Postal Service did not deliver by Election Day is expected to grow as more data is released in the coming days. Some election experts worry such delays could run up against even more generous ballot acceptance windows that some states have granted.

In several swing states, late ballots will still be counted as long as they were postmarked by Election Day and received by Friday, according to state law. They include Nevada, where 4,518 ballots arrived after Election Day, as well as North Carolina (2,958) and Pennsylvania (3,439). But in other states — such as Arizona, where 864 ballots were delayed, and Georgia, where 853 were delayed — votes that did not reach election officials by Nov. 3 will be disqualified.

USPS data shows thousands of mailed ballots missed Election Day deadlines

Because the counts are not done in those states, it is unclear whether undelivered ballots would have made a difference in deciding the presidential election. But the delivery failures highlight the risks in relying on the mail service to deliver ballots close to Election Day.

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Facebook bans ‘Stop the Steal’ group that was organizing pro-Trump protests

The group, which had attracted more than 360,000 members, was among widespread efforts by conservative activists to spark protests challenging the legitimacy of the election.

By Tony Romm and Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post

President Trump’s allies have turned to Facebook and other social-media sites in an effort to spark nationwide protests against the 2020 election, thrusting some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful organizing tools into a contest over the legitimacy of American democracy.

The campaign and its aides have relied on a network of new and existing Facebook pages, groups and events — some of which have garnered hundreds of thousands of members — to rally people in public this week around a baseless conspiracy theory that Democratic candidate Joe Biden is attempting to “steal” the election. Some of the efforts promoted in places like Pennsylvania and Arizona specifically target vote-counting centers, threatening disruptions while ballot tallying is still underway.

The online efforts have unfolded not on the Republican Party’s fringes but well within its mainstream. Among the most vocal leaders is Amy Kremer, a former congressional candidate in Georgia and a co-founder and co-chair of Women for Trump. She used a Facebook page called Women for America First, which boasts more than 100,000 followers, to drive users to a newly launched Facebook group called “STOP THE STEAL,” which garnered more than 360,000 members before Facebook removed it midday Thursday for violating the platform’s rules.

“We need boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote,” the Facebook page said before it disappeared from view, encouraging people to donate to help pay for “flights and hotels to send people” to battleground states including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The “STOP THE STEAL” group also had been listed as a co-host on 12 different Facebook protest events, including a new car “caravan” planned in California, though some of the events say the goal is to be peaceful.

Some of the commentary that spilled forth in the “STOP THE STEAL” group veered into planning for armed conflict. “We are on the verge of civil war due to those types of people,” one user wrote. “You cannot reason with them or convince them to stop and reunite as they are dead set on total destruction of our nation. So I ask you, what are you prepared to do?” Another asked, “how do we go about overthrowing the government?” Hundreds of users replied, with one proclaiming, “Civil war!”

The anti-democratic resentment ultimately resulted in disciplinary action from Facebook, where spokesman Andy Stone pointed to the “exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension.” Anticipating a crackdown, some of the group’s members preemptively shifted their discussions to MeWe, a messaging app favored by militia groups who previously had been banned by Facebook.

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#BILLYPENNGRAM OF THE DAY

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Swamped by votes still to count, NJ election staff want changes

A flawed state system, they said, hampered mail-in voting

JEFF PILLETS | NOVEMBER 5, 2020 | NJ DECIDES 2020

A worker scans mail-in ballots through a counting machine before they are counted.

Editor’s Note: This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan reporting project covering local election integrity and voting access. The article is available for reprint under the terms of Votebeat’s republishing policy.

Frontline workers in New Jersey’s almost all-mail election issued a collective “no mas” Wednesday as waves of late ballots and provisional votes piled up around the state, while anxious voters continued to press concerns about mail-in voting.

Officials said they spent much of the day gathering up tens of thousands of late-arriving mail ballots that had been collected from more than 300 drop boxes scattered across the state’s 21 counties.

Thousands more, they said, poured in, becoming a tsunami of people who chose to drop mail ballots at the limited polling places on Election Day.

“We’ve dedicated 30 phone lines and taken 29,000 phone calls from people asking how to do mail-in voting,” said Patti DiConstanzo, the Superintendent of Elections in Bergen County. “And after all that they still want to come into the polls and drop off their ballots!”

DiCostanzo and other election officials around the state surveyed by NJ Spotlight News described a variety of bureaucratic and technical flaws that continue to flummox workers awash in a record 4 million-plus ballots cast.

Among the workers’ deepest frustration is with the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission, which some residents used to register to vote. The computerized system blinked in and out of operation Tuesday, they said, so workers attempting to upload batches of votes to state computers found the system frozen or gummed up to the point of exasperation.

At other times, votes loaded into the system appeared to disappear, or were never registered, forcing workers to backtrack as ballots piled up. The state’s “Track My Vote” website also proved buggy and confusing to voters who reported trouble signing on and following the progress of their ballots.

“The state voter registration system is a complete mess,” said Richard Ambrosino, a Camden County election official. “We’ve had nothing but trouble with it.”

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Three things the election has revealed

By Caroline Mimbs Nyce, Senior associate editor, The Atlantic

1. This country remains deeply divided.
“The clearest message of this week’s complicated election results is that the trench is deepening between red and blue America,” Ronald Brownstein writes. Meanwhile, George Packer argues that it’s time to face a bitter truth: “We are two countries.”

2. The South has already changed.
Jaime Harrison lost to Lindsey Graham. “But his campaign allowed Democrats to imagine what was possible in his home state; it reminded national leaders why they should not write off the region,” Adam Harris writes.

3. Polling is in crisis.
“After two huge presidential flops, pollsters have lost the confidence of the press and public,” David A. Graham writes.

When Will We Know?

The race is still close, but Joe Biden’s path to victory looks a little clearer.

When should you expect results from the remaining states? Our staff writer Derek Thompson offers a useful breakdown.

Arizona: Expect two batches of results: one around 9 p.m. ET tonight and another just after midnight.

Biden currently leads by about 90,000 votes, but networks are torn on whether to call the state, given uncertainty about the partisan lean of the outstanding ballots.

Georgia: We could get a complete answer tonight.

Key counties say they aim to wrap up their counts around 9 p.m. ET. Trump leads here by about 80,000 votes, but the remaining ballots are mostly in heavily Democratic areas, giving Biden narrow odds to flip the state.

Nevada: Check back tomorrow.

We should get a big update. Biden currently leads by only 7,000 votes, but the remaining ballots are expected to lean Democratic.

Pennsylvania: Check back tomorrow.

The secretary of the commonwealth said today that she expects full results “significantly sooner” than Friday. Well, today’s Wednesday, and we don’t seem to be particularly close to a full count in the state. Temporally speaking, that leaves Thursday as the only day sooner than Friday. Trump’s big lead in the state could be endangered as hundreds of thousands of outstanding mail ballots from cities such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are likely to go overwhelmingly to Biden.

North Carolina: Check back next week.

Mail-in ballots in North Carolina have until November 12 to arrive, and we might not know the winner of this state until mid-November.

Three things the election has revealed Read More »

[Update] Murphy signs ban on plastic bags in NJ

By Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight

Gov. Phil Murphy today signed a bill that many call the nation’s toughest ban on single-use plastic and paper bags, a step advocates call the most important way to end plastic pollution in the environment.

The Legislature approved the bill (S-864) after a long battle, including a veto of a previous measure two years ago by the governor who considered it too weak. It had been a top priority of environmental groups for the past few years.

The legislation had faced opposition from various business groups, but the move by more than 50 local communities to enact their own plastic bag bans, often differing in scope and intent, led some organizations to back a single, statewide standard instead. Eight other states have enacted statewide bans on single-use plastic bags, but none have included single-use paper bag prohibitions.

Polystyrene-foam products also banned

Beyond the bans on single-use bags, which are largely confined to larger grocery stores, the law also prohibits polystyrene foam food-service products, typically used for carry-out food items, as well as limits on single-use plastic straws.

The bill includes many exemptions, among them for uncooked meat, poultry and fish wrapped in bags, prescription drugs from pharmacies and dry-cleaner plastic bags.

It establishes various times for the legislation to take effect, but generally the ban will not be effective for at least 18 months. The bill also allows for certain polystyrene manufacturers to obtain a waiver under certain conditions.

Plastic pollution

Plastic bags emerged as one of the leading causes of pollution in the ocean and other environments in recent years, according to numerous global studies, as well as a local one addressing the Raritan River. The bags break down and cause harm to wildlife and marine fisheries

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