Florida's primary rejected 31K mail ballots; non-white voters' rejected twice as often

After the 2018 election debacle in Broward County, which saw backlogs in processing mail ballots, Collin Stephens had no interest in voting by mail again.

But as the August primary approached, Stephens, who had moved to Duval County, was enticed by a voter-registration group's offer: if he agreed to register to vote by mail, he would get a free political sign of his choosing.

With a Donald Trump sign at his home, Stephens mailed in his ballot for the August primary on Election Day. That ballot, like some 31,000 others, did not count, according to the state's most recent voter file.

While about 61 percent of voters cast their ballot by mail, one in 77 voters who did so had their ballots uncounted for any number of reasons: a bad signature, no signature or arriving after Election Day.

Florida requires ballots arrive by Election Day. It's not enough to be postmarked by Election Day, which meant voters like Stephens never had their mail ballots counted.

More:Florida polls: UNF poll finds Biden up 6 against Trump, USA Today poll finds a tie

Non-white voters were twice as likely to have their ballots go uncounted as white voters, and elections supervisors were twice as likely to reject Millenials and Gen-Z voters' mail ballots.

In 2016, 21,973 Florida mail ballots were rejected.

If similar rates of people were to vote in November as they did in 2016 (75 percent of registered voters), and if people were to vote by mail and have their ballots rejected at the same rate as they did in August (1.3 percent), then some 90,000 mail ballots would be rejected.

That includes one in 42 Hispanic votes, one in 44 Asian votes, one in 57 Black votes, and one in 105 white votes.

"I see this as a tidal wave of voters who will be disenfranchised because of the rules of the game," said Dan Smith, a University of Florida political scientist who has extensively studied mail ballot rejections.

Even though Democrats and Republicans were about equally likely to have their mail ballots uncounted, the rejection rate impacts Democrats more since they are more likely to vote by mail. There were about 15,000 rejected Democratic mail ballots versus about 9,400 rejected Republican ballots.

In 2016, more Republicans voted by mail than Democrats, but how voters cast ballots became extremely partisan in the August primaries.

President Trump, who votes by mail in Florida, has cast doubts on the security of mail voting, saying it would allow for fraud despite overwhelming evidence that voter fraud is extremely rare. As Democrats have gained an advantage in mail voting, Trump has, at times, reversed his messaging, endorsing mail voting at least in Florida.

In August, 374,000 more Democrats cast mail ballots than Republicans, while 259,000 more Republicans cast ballots on Election Day. Palm Beach, Orange, Franklin, Calhoun and Desoto counties did not report their Election Day voting in the most recent voter file, so it's likely the Republican vote advantage on Election Day was lower.

Still, many of the anti-fraud efforts in Florida, including signature verification, lead to many mail ballots going uncounted.

This isn't true in every county, however.

Pinellas County, which has pushed mail voting longer than other counties, saw 84 percent of voters cast mail ballots, and just one in 700 was rejected.

Duval County, however, saw just 36 percent of voters send mail ballots in, with one in 49 rejected.

Duval had the sixth-highest rejection rate, after Lake, Seminole, Miami-Dade, Volusia and Okaloosa counties. However, Duval also had the lowest mail-voting participation of the state's top 20 counties.

Robert Phillips, Duval's chief elections officer, said voters in Jacksonville have long prioritized in-person early voting over mail ballots.

He said Duval has the most early-voting sites per capita.

Pinellas had three early-voting sites in August, with none open during an optional extra week of early voting. Duval, which has a slightly smaller population, had 18 sites, with all open during the extra week. There will be two more in the November election.

Duval saw six percent of mail ballots from Hispanic and Asian younger voters go uncounted. Smith, the elections expert, said that's an extremely high rate.

"That's ridiculously unacceptable," he said. "A six percent rejection rate is unacceptable because almost every one of those voters would have their ballots accepted if they voted in-person early."

Smith said that high rejection rates can indicate elections supervisors aren't doing enough to educate voters about how mail voting works.

Phillips said Duval had more than 500 voters "cure" their mail ballots in August.

He said there were 948 more that came late, 176 had no signature and 44 had invalid signatures. "Out of 58,000+ votes cast by VBM that’s a pretty good percentage," Phillips said in an email. "Pinellas has always been an outlier on VBM because for years the previous supervisor did not want to open lots of EV sites and instead focused on VBM."

He continued, "The only supposition I could make is that older voters have more experience with vote by mail as most of them have been voting that way for a long time.  I know from my own experience as a parent that younger people, post-millennial or whatever that generation is called, do not learn cursive or even to sign until late teen years. So their signature may not come into its own until later."

Millenial and Gen-Z voters in Duval were 2.3 times as likely as older voters to have their mail ballots not count in the August primary, even though they were about as likely to vote by mail as other voters.

While some voters use mail balloting out of convenience, the need to cure bad signatures requires they fill out an affidavit and deliver it to the elections supervisor's main office within two days of Election Day.

Smith said the process benefits supervoters who are particularly well-informed and have experience voting, but new voters may not know their ballots go uncounted or may not know how to ensure their ballot is filled correctly and mailed in time to arrive by Election Day.

Voters can update their signature at the supervisor's office by Oct. 20. Voters who requested and received mail ballots can still vote in person as if they'd never requested the mail ballot.

Voters can check their mail ballot status on county elections supervisor's websites.

Maria De Los Angeles Cruz, another Duval voter whose mail ballot went uncounted, said she mailed her ballot four or five days before Election Day because she knew she had to be out of town on Election Day.

She said she tracked her ballot and was disappointed when she saw it wasn't received by Election Day. Now, she said, she'll either vote early in person or on Election Day.

Jacksonville's Rev. R.L. Gundy, who had been urging Black voters to vote by mail in the August primary, said after seeing the rejection rates, he's switched to encouraging in-person early voting.

"We’ve got to go back with our messaging," he said. "I’m concerned about it because there’s a lot of people doing that absentee ballots."

Black voters were the least likely in August to vote by mail (54 percent of ballots cast) and the most likely to vote early in person. Asian voters were the most likely (75 percent of ballots).

One other effect that mail voting will have in November is that the early results will most likely lean heavily Democratic.

In Florida, elections supervisors count mail ballots and early ballots first. About 83 percent of Democratic votes were cast early or by mail in August, compared to 67 percent of Republican votes.

It's likely a number of races, particularly down-ballot, will have a Democrat winning until the Election Day votes are tabulated.