IOPList.Org

Nearly 15 Million Mail-in-Ballots Unaccounted
for in 2020 Election, Report Says







BY MATTHEW VADUM August 18, 2021
Updated: August 18, 2021



In the November 2020 general election, whose chaotic results have been
vigorously disputed, almost 15 million mail-in ballots went unaccounted for,
according to a good-government group that focuses on electoral integrity.

The research brief by the Indianapolis-based Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF)
notes that as the nation dealt last year with the CCP virus (which causes COVID-19),
various U.S. states “hastily pushed traditionally in-person voters to mail ballots
while, at the same time, trying to learn how to even administer such a scenario.”

PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly
to election integrity,” existing “to assist states and others to aid the cause of election
integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”

Former Justice Department civil rights attorney J. Christian Adams, now president
of PILF, said the results don’t bode well for mail-in voting.

“These figures detail how the 2020 push to mail voting needs to be a one-year
experiment,” Adams said in a statement.

Bills pending in Congress such as H.R. 1, the proposed “For The People Act,”
“risk inflating these numbers even further, pushing our election system toward error,
disenfranchisement, and ultimately widespread doubt about election outcomes,”
Adams said.

“Some of the counties with the least experience in administering mail voting rejected
the most ballots nationwide. If continued, 2020-style chaos will become the norm.”

PILF says it had warned that lost ballots would be an even bigger problem in
2020 compared to previous years. In total, elections in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018,
and 2020 saw more than 43.1 million unaccounted for mail-in ballots.

Federal data compilations show that during the 2020 election, there were 14.7 million
ballots whose whereabouts were deemed “unknown” by election officials, according
to the brief.

To gather the data, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission asked local officials
how many ballots were not returned as voted, were undeliverable, or were otherwise
“unable to be tracked.”

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) inspector general most recently reported that only
13 percent of mail ballots in the 2018 general election used the official tracking system,
which means there is a wide variety of things that can happen to a ballot in the
“unknown” column.

“A ballot can be put in the wrong mailbox and land in an unfriendly neighbor’s trash.
It can be thrown out with your unpaid bills. It can be left outside for the wind to carry
the last mile (like seen in Nevada in 2020). Election officials simply do not know what
happened. Unknown ballots are the greatest blind spot in the American electoral system,”
the brief states.

In the 2020 election, there were 14.7 million “unknown” ballots, along with 1.1 million
undeliverable ballots, and 560,814 rejected ballots.

PILF put these figures in perspective by noting that President Joe Biden carried Arizona
by 10,457 votes, yet Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, reportedly sent ballots
to 110,092 outdated or wrong addresses. The post-voting audit process in Maricopa is still in progress.

The scenario roughly repeated itself in Nevada, a state where Biden prevailed by 33,596
votes, even though Clark County “bounced” 93,279 ballots.

“The lesson is clear: increased reliance on mass mail voting must correlate with
aggressive voter registration list maintenance,” the brief concludes.

The report notes that many counties across the country had large numbers of
“unknown” ballots.

In California, Los Angeles County had 1,491,459 such ballots, followed by
Orange County (482,940), Riverside County (454,911), San Diego County (317,614),
San Bernardino County (274,937), Santa Clara County (251,840), and
Sacramento County (241,367).

Clark County, Nevada, had 724,708 such ballots. Essex County, New Jersey, had
248,290 unknown ballots, and Maricopa County had 229,123 ballots in the
unknown category.




Matthew Vadum
CONTRIBUTOR
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist
and a recognized expert in left-wing activism.