Welcome to the latest partisan flash point in the U.S. presidential election: the ballot drop box.
FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease casts his ballot for Maryland's primary election at a drop box in Rockville, Maryland, U.S., June 2, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
In Missouri, Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft decided not to distribute 80 drop boxes he had purchased because state law requires those ballots to be returned by mail.Drop boxes have taken on new urgency after cost-cutting measures at the U.S. Postal Service slowed mail delivery nationwide and Trump has repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of mail ballots.
“I do not understand why people think they’re such a problem,” Merrill said. “They’re more secure than mailboxes.” Bruce Marks, a former Republican state senator in Pennsylvania, said drop boxes do not provide a clear chain of custody for the ballots deposited inside.Proponents say stuffing a ballot into a locked drop box is no different from dropping one into a Postal Service letter box.
“You can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach with our counties,” said Kathleen Clyde, a senior adviser for the Biden campaign in Ohio. “One drop box doesn’t cut it.” The whole process can take up to three minutes, the Democratic Party said in a letter to local election officials seeking to allow voters to drop their ballots quickly without the processing requirements.
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