This isn’t something you see often on network television. CBS on Sunday did an experiment to determine just how safe mail-in ballots will be in November. CBS Weekend News journalist Tony Dokoupil set up a campaign “headquarters” and mailed 100 “ballots” to himself through the U.S. Post Office. The results were not encouraging. They also refute the dismissive tone of other journalists when covering Donald Trump’s concerns about mail-in voting.
Dokoupil set up a P.O. box and mailed his ballots. Here’s how it all played out:
TONY DOKOUPIL: In the following week, we checked our PO box for the results.... When we went to collect everything, though —
POSTAL EMPLOYEE: I don’t see anything back there for you.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Nothing?
WOMAN: No.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Most of our votes seem to be lost.
WOMAN: That’s all I have back there right now. There’s nothing--
TONY DOKOUPIL: Are you sure? Are you totally sure?
The early results were, indeed, disastrous: “Twenty-one percent of our votes hadn’t materialized after four days.” That number eventually improved, but concluded with a shocking three percent failure rate. Dokoupil explained how bad that number really is in a close election:
So of our one hundred ballots, 97 arrived, which sounds pretty good unless you consider the fact that that means three people who tried to vote by mail in our mock election were, in fact, disenfranchised by mail. In a close election, three percent could be pivotal, especially in what’s expected to be a record year for mail-in voting.
Former Arizona election official Tammy Patrick concluded that mail in voting is “setting up the voters with false expectations and you’re setting them up to fail.”
Yet, journalists constantly mock this idea. On July 26, This Week host George Stephanopoulos lectured White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows: “The President continues to warn that it's gonna be rigged, that his word, by mail-in ballots, even though there's no compelling evidence that mail-in ballots are tied to widespread voter fraud.”
On July 19, ABC’s Martha Raddatz derided, “President Trump again this week repeating claims without evidence that widespread mail-in voting this November would lead to rampant fraud.” Talking to Raddatz, former New York Times journalist Nate Silver dismissed, “Republican voters listen to President Trump when he expresses concern, usually without any evidence, we should note, about the integrity of mail ballots.”
On the July 24 Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie at least allowed for the possibility of problems: "Election Week? With up to half of all ballots now expected to be mailed in this fall, the new concern the result may not be known for days."
Maybe these reporters simply need to talk to their colleagues at CBS and look at their experiment. Surely CBS journalists are trustworthy, right?
The propaganda on the ABC This Week segment was sponsored by Gold Bond and Nature’s Bounty. Click on the links to let them know what you think.
A transcript of the CBS Weekend News segment is below.
CBS Weekend News
7/26/2020
6:21 PM ETAMIE YACCUS: A record number of Americans are expected to mail-in their votes this November because of the pandemic. But when you send in your ballot, what are the odds it will actually count? CBS This Morning’s Tony Dokoupil put the Postal Service to the test.
TONY DOKOUPIL: If you know how to mail a letter, you already know how to mail-in your vote. How are you doing?
MAN #1: Good.
TONY DOKOUPIL: But how long might it take for that vote to actually arrive and be counted?
Have a good afternoon.MAN #2: You, too.
DOKOUPIL: We decided to test it, sending a hundred mock ballots simulating a hundred voters from locations all across Philadelphia to a PO box we set up to represent a local election office. In the following week, we checked our PO box for the results. [To camera.] Mail pickup notice, there’s more. When we went to collect everything, though —
POSTAL EMPLOYEE: I don’t see anything back there for you.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Nothing?
WOMAN: No.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Most of our votes seem to be lost.
WOMAN: That’s all I have back there right now. There’s nothing--
TONY DOKOUPIL: Are you sure? Are you totally sure? I believe you. I just--
WOMAN: All right then, have a good day.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Okay. Take care. We had asked for a manager. [To manager.] We’re trying to do something about mail-in ballots. And explain ourselves before someone finally found our votes.
WOMAN: They had them somewhere else.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Okay. Thank you. One, two. Twenty-one percent of our votes hadn’t materialized after four days. So of our one hundred ballots, 97 arrived, which sounds pretty good unless you consider the fact that that means three people who tried to vote by mail in our mock election were, in fact, disenfranchised by mail. In a close election, three percent could be pivotal, especially in what’s expected to be a record year for mail-in voting. Tammy Patrick is a former Arizona election official who says many states have policies that just don’t take into account the postal system.
TAMMY PATRICK: You are setting up the voters with false expectations, and you’re setting them up to fail.
DOKOUPIL: Tony Dokoupil, CBS News, Philadelphia.
JAMIE YUCCAS: Really interesting.
