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Rumors vs. reality: 6 facts about voting by mail for folks worried about election integrity

Worried about mail-in voting? Don't be.

voting elections mail-in ballots
Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash, @Mynorthwest/Twitter

Myths and facts about voting by mail.

As we head toward midterm elections in early November, there's a lot of misinformation floating around about how voting is conducted and how votes are processed. Sadly, we're reaping what widespread misinformation has sown in the form of continued election result denial, legislation that makes it harder to vote and even vigilante voter intimidation at ballot drop boxes.

Convincing someone their preferred candidate didn't win because the other side cheated is an easy political win, especially in a hyperpartisan atmosphere. But the reality is that the vast majority of Americans want elections to be as fair and accurate as possible, so sorting out truth from fiction and understanding how our election processes actually work—as opposed to how partisan sources tell us they work—is important.

Voting by mail comes up a lot in discussions of election integrity, so let's take a look at how mail-in ballots work and clear up some misunderstandings that might cause people concern.

Frequently, people will share things they've heard from a friend or a cable news host or a social media post without verifying whether those things are true. Every state handles mail-in ballots a little differently in terms of how people receive ballots and when they get counted, but the safeguards to prevent fraud and ensure eligible votes are counted are fairly standard.

Rumor: Mail-in voting is too new to be safe and secure.

Reality: Americans have been voting by mail since the 19th century. Those early mail-in votes came from soldiers in the Civil War and since then, members of the military who are deployed outside of their home states have long been voting by mail.

Widespread mail-in voting for civilians is newer, but not new. Oregon has been conducting all mail-in elections since 2000, so has had more than two decades to perfect its system. Washington state has done the same since 2012 and Colorado since 2014. In the past three years, Utah, Hawaii, Vermont and California have gone to all-mail-in voting. (Incidentally, Vermont and Washington took the No. 1 and No. 2 spots for electoral integrity in the 2018 midterm rankings in Harvard's Electoral Integrity Project, and all of the other states named here ranked in the top 20.)

Rumor: Mail-in voting gives Democrats an unfair advantage.

Reality: Studies have shown that there appears to be no statistically significant advantage for either party when mail-in voting is implemented. So there's that.

But as an anecdotal example as well, Washington state (where I live) elected a Republican secretary of state—the person in charge of elections at the state level—multiple times with our mail-in voting system until she resigned last year to work on election security at the federal level. And that's in a Democratic-leaning state overall. And the district I live in has elected a Republican representative to the House for years with all mail-in voting. Mail-in ballots are equally available to everyone and make voting very simple, so it doesn't make sense that it would give either party an advantage.

Rumor: Mail-in voting makes it easier to commit voter fraud.

Reality: The Brookings Institution shared data from the conservative Heritage Foundation that analyzed voter fraud over many years in different states. Here are the number of voter fraud cases Heritage found for states that had mail-in voting during most of the time period they analyzed and the total number of ballots cast during that time.

Colorado: 14 cases over 13 years out of 15,955,704 votes cast.

Oregon: 15 cases over 19 years out of 15,476,519 votes cast

Washington: 12 cases over 6 years out of 10,605,749 votes cast

This is what people mean when they say voter fraud isn't a concern. It's not that it never ever happens. It's just that it doesn't even come close to being anywhere near significant enough to approach making a dent in election results.

And false fraud allegations can have tragic real-world results. Everyone needs to make sure they triple-fact-check fraud claims before passing them along.

Rumor: I know of people who received more than one ballot in the mail, which means they'll be able to vote twice.

Reality: Nope, they can't vote twice even if they have two ballots. It doesn't really matter how many ballots a person receives since only one can be submitted and processed for each voter. Election officials try to avoid voters receiving more than one ballot since it causes confusion, but if it happens, it's not an indication that anything fishy is going on. Once one ballot is processed, another ballot for the same voter can't be. Multiple safeguards are in place to ensure that only one ballot is processed for each registered voter and to ensure that the person's signature on the ballot envelope is legitimate.

Rumor: Mail-in voting opens up the possibility of voter coercion.

Reality: This could be true. At a polling place, each individual votes privately so no one else can see who they vote for. People can still feel coerced into voting a certain way, but there's no way for anyone else to really know how they voted. When ballots are mailed to homes, it is possible for one person in the home to force another person to vote a certain way, but: 1) If there are really enough controlling and abusive households that coercion could sway an election, we have bigger problems on our hands than mail-in voting, and 2) Voter intimidation and coercion is a crime, whether it's someone sitting next to a drop box with a gun or someone sitting next to their spouse with a threat.

Rumor: Mail-in voting offers more opportunities for mistakes in the election process.

Reality: There's no evidence for a claim like this. Every voting system can run into problems. Polling places have power outages and voting machines break. Tens of thousands of voters in Virginia were recently given the wrong information about which polling place they are supposed to go to to vote in person. Mail-in voting systems aren't any more prone to things going wrong than any other voting system.

The full reality is that mail-in voting is a convenient, secure way to run an election, which has been proven by bipartisan and nonpartisan sources over and over again. Claims to the contrary are simply political games designed to sow fear and distrust, which is unfortunately an easy way to sway voters.

However you decide to vote, just vote. Democracy only works as intended if we all participate.

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Millennial history teacher explains the 3 phases of Gen X and why they were ‘forgotten’

"They just want to be left alone."

via Canva/Photos

A cassette tape from the '80s.

Generation X occupies an interesting time in history, for those who care to recognize that they actually exist. They were born between 1965 and 1980 and came into this world at an interesting inflection point: women were becoming a larger part of the workplace and divorce was at the highest point in history. This left Gen X to be the least parented generation in recent history.

Gen X was overlooked in their domestic lives and culturally were overshadowed by Baby Boomers with their overpowering nostalgia for Woodstock, The Beatles, and every cultural moment celebrated in Forest Gump. Once Boomer navel-gazing nostalgia began to wane, a much larger and over-parented generation, the Millennials, came on the scene.

“Whereas Boomers were the ‘me generation’ and millennials were the ‘me me me generation,’ Gen X has become the ‘meh’ generation,” Emily Stewart writes at Business Insider. But even if Gen X is a little aloof, that doesn’t mean they aren’t totally rad, awesome, trippindicular, and that it’d be bogus to define them any other way. To explain the unique history of Gen X and why they’re often overlooked, history teacher Lauren Cella created a timeline on TikTok to explain them to her Gen Z students..

@laurencella92

A love letter to Gen X from your millennial cousin🫶 Gen X didn’t start the fire, so after this I will just leave them alone because they do not care 🤣 But seriously for a generation that sometimes gets “forgotten” and stuck between the larger boomer or millennial cohorts, the genres they created paved the way for pop culture as we know it. I’m still not sure who let kids watch “The Day After” on TV or play on those hot metal playgrounds, but Gen X survived to tell the tale. Today, the so called “latchkey” kids, born 1965-1980 are actually super involved as parents, aunts, uncles, teachers (or maybe even grandparents)😉. Kids today want to say they are “built different” but I think Gen X is the one holding down that title because they grew up tough, they saw too much, they made it out, and they know exactly who they are and wouldn’t have it any other way.✌️ #g#genx

In Cella’s video, she divides Gen X into three distinct phases.

Phase 1: 1970s stagflation and changing families

“Gas shortages meant stagflation. So parents either both had to work or maybe they were divorced. So that meant microwave TV dinners and kids that sort of raised themselves,” Cella explains. “There was no parenting blogs, there was no after-school travel sports, emailing. Like, none of that existed. Bored? Go outside."


Phase 2: The neon ‘80s

“But then came the 1980s, where everything was big and loud. The hair, the bangs, the Reaganomics, mass consumerism (because now we can trade with China). The whole media just exploded,” Cella says. “But now we have TV, we have movies, we have TV, movies, home movies, TV movies, favorite TV movies, music, music, Videos, music, video, television. All these different genres and all these different cliques and all these different ways that you can express yourself.”


Phase 3: 1990s post-Cold War Skepticism

“Gen X sort of comes into the 1990s more sarcastic and skeptical,” Cella continues. “The Cold War ending meant that they rejected the excess of the eighties. And there's the shift. Grunge, indie, alternative, flannels, Docs [Doc Martins]. At this point, the technology is also exploding, but not like fun home media, but like corporate media. So there's this resistance to sell-out culture.”


Cella has a theory on why Gen X seems forgotten, and it’s not just because CBS News famously denied its existence. She believes that it comes down to Gen X’s inability to call attention to itself. “So Gen X is a bridge between these two larger, more storied generations. So it's not necessarily that they get forgotten. They don't really want the attention. They're kind of fine to just like, fly under the radar like they always have, because honestly, it's whatever.”

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Grandparents share their 'no-buy' things to do while spending time with grandkids

"I just want to do stuff with him that is not centered around buying stuff."

Image via Canva/lisegagne

Grandparents share free activity ideas to do with grandkids.

Spending quality time with grandkids is one of the best things about being grandparents, but it can also be costly. And with many grandparents living on fixed incomes or receiving federal aid (87% of the population aged 65 and over receive benefits from the Social Security Administration), it can be a financial burden.

But grandparents are getting creative with "no-buy" activities to do with their grandkids, and sharing with their fellow grandparents (as well as a few ideas from parents) on Reddit. As one grandparent noted, "Please don’t think I’m cheap. He is the only grandchild in my daughter-in-law’s family and he has toys and games for miles. I just want to do stuff with him that is not centered around buying stuff."

These are 45 of the best free activities grandparents like to do while spending time and making memories with their grandkids.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"'Cook' dinner with me for his folks. (Cook is probably a stretch since what I have planned is more mixing than cooking .) Have a picnic at the park. Go to the library. He loves games so I’m hoping he will teach me his favorite game. Work a puzzle together. I embroidered animals on some plastic canvas I had. I’m going to bring enough yarn for him to sew the background of each and then we are going to sew the panels together to make a box for his allowance. I am bring his dad’s favorite childhood books with me to read together. We are going to the children’s museum." - KeyGovernment4188

"A backyard cookout with s'mores for dessert." - wise_hampster

granpdarents, grandkids, smores, making smores, smores fire Grandparents make smores with grandkids.Image via Canva/Monkey Business Images

"Some parks have (free) nature centers too, my kids used to love those. A couple of parks near me have bird feeders set up near the nature centers too and you’ll see a bunch of different birds coming and going." - Nervous-Internet-926

"Scavenger hunts are fun and there are hundreds you can find online." - mummymunt

"Geocaching would be fun as well." - Jim0621

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"Make a fort. And then have a movie night in it with popcorn and snacks!" - LocalUnit1007 & sapphirebit0

"Find a cool local playground. Bring a couple of his toys (e.g. trucks or a ball). Play hide and seek. Splash pad if they're still open (might not be after Labor Day). Open swim at the local pool. 5 year olds can usually hike up to 2 miles before they start complaining, so any local nature hikes would be fun. Bring snacks. Bake something. If it rains, it can be fun to go on a worm/snail hunt." - glyptodontown

"Also adding to if it rains: Go on a puddle jump about while looking for snails and worms. Some of my best memories with my grandpa were us getting wet and muddy after a rain storm." - Usual-Bag-3605

"Bake! My grandmother couldn't handle helping me bake cookies as a kid, but she bought premade cookie dough and we had a good time. Hide and seek. Card games for older kids. Board games- candy land and other quick stuff is best. My grandparents had a box of toys and books for us at their house- nothing fancy, but different than our stuff at home. Go to yard sales (or other cheap places), let kids pick something for less than a few dollars. Could let them fill up toy box at their house. Bubbles. Music (freeze dance is great to get kids tired and grandparents can sit!). Special movie/tv shows. Putt-putt, walk around neighborhood, bowling (even toddlers can participate- make sure alley has small balls and gutter rails)." - Doththecrocodile

"Walks. Walks are never ‘just’ walks. They are opportunities to connect, for him to learn more about you and vice versa. Spotting nature signs, collecting stuff or taking photos of interesting things, or just walk and chat. You’ll both remember these lovely times 😊." - Cool-Strawberry-9853

grandparents, grandma, grandpa, grandkids, walk Grandparents go on a walk with grandkids.Image via Canva/Monkey Business Images

"Make a family photo album. Or do a family tree. Or recycle Christmas cards into gift tags." - SnowblindAlbino

"My 6 year old is being taught how to play chess by his grandad at the moment. He's getting really good at it! Granny plays playdoh with him and does all the artsy craftsy stuff with him. He goes to stay with them every fortnight and gets to do lots of fun things, they go for walks and to garden centers. He loves it! :)" - ThermiteMillie

"Things that are easy to do at the table, or while sitting, like: Dominoes, either playing the game or standing them up to topple over. Age appropriate board games, likes chutes & ladders, Chinese checkers, candy land, etc. Play doh...my son asks for help rolling the doh out then uses cookie cutters. Books, books, books! For added interest get some lift the flaps or seek & find...a drive or walk to the library. Painting, drawing, coloring. Pipe cleaners! What shapes, letters, numbers, etc can you make. Legos. Magnets on cookie sheets, you can usually find letter & number magnets at the dollar store. Throw to gather a bunch of random craft items from the dollar store and let them have at it! Grandparents can help younger kids with scissors or using glue. Check Pinterest, you can find tons of free worksheets to print, from mazes to connect the dots, practice writing, etc. If you want them to be re-useable, slip them in plastic sheet protectors and use dry erase markers so they can be wiped off and used again. Puppets, make your own or buy some. Games that aren't too physical, like Simon Says or I Spy. A few ideas, anyway..." - I_dont_like_pickles

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'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either. "I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."


@justusmoms29

Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.



The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

This article originally appeared last year.

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In 1984, a reporter gave a heart-stopping tutorial for how to cross a deadly intersection

And we think America isn't pedestrian-friendly.

Canva Photos

A brave reporter showed how to cross one of the busiest streets in the world.

Have you ever seen those videos of the world's craziest intersections? If you've never driven abroad before, it can be hard to imagine driving in them. It's even harder to imagine yourself as a pedestrian trying to cross the road.

In 1984, legendary German TV reporter Ulrich Wickert performed a heart-stopping demonstration of exactly how to do it: His challenge? Crossing Place de la Concorde.

For the uninitiated, Place de la Concorde is one of the busiest squares in Paris. It was completed in 1772, making it nearly 300 years old. In the 1980s, vehicle traffic around the Place was extremely thick and not friendly at all to pedestrians looking to cross the road.

place de la concorde, busy streets, pedestrians, roads, streets, traffic, walkable, ulrich wickert, safety, cities, cars Place de la Concorde seen at night.Esteban Chiner/Flickr

Wickert calmly explains that to successfully cross the busy road without stop lights or crosswalks, the trick was to just...walk directly into traffic.

Narrating as he does so, Wickert advises visitors to walk at a steady pace and not look at the drivers. Any pause, hesitation, or eye contact could put you at risk for being run over.

The resulting video is harrowing, to say the least. At one point, he looks like he'll certainly be clobbered by an oncoming van. But Wickert lived to tell the tale and his report grew his already large profile around the globe as amazed viewers couldn't believe their eyes.

People can't get enough of the demonstration. Ever since the advent of social media, Wickert's video has gone viral every couple of years like clockwork.

Luckily for residents and tourists in Paris, Place de la Concorde gave over traffic lanes to pedestrians in 1994. which made the square far safer and more friendly—if a little less thrilling.

The traffic seen in Wickert's report pales in comparison to road conditions in many parts of the world, particularly Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam and Thailand, as well as India. Pedestrians in these countries have to be extremely bold when dealing with traffic.

In these congested roadways cars (and scooters and other motorbikes) simply do not yield to pedestrians. The only way to cross the street is to simply go and allow drivers to adjust to your presence by driving around you. The trick is to not ever stop, hesitate, or look at the drivers.

The videos of locals and tourists alike pulling this off are absolutely stunning.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

In some countries, it's common for pedestrians to stick a hand out to signal their intent.

In other places, the traffic is so unimaginably thick that pedestrians just have to bob and weave and hope for the best.

@shev_n_dev

Road crossing in Delhi, India 🇮🇳 #indiatiktok #tiktokindia #tiktokindia🇮🇳 #india #indiantiktok #indiantiktok🇮🇳🇮🇳

Crossing the street in Southeast Asian looks like the adrenaline rush of a lifetime, but it's clearly not the safest activity in the world. Neither is being a pedestrian in America.

You probably wouldn't be surprised to hear that pedestrians are struck by cars quite a bit in countries where there are no crosswalks and few traffic lights.

What might surprise you is that America, for all of its infrastructure and intentional city design, is also pretty bad in this area. And it's getting worse. Roads in the USA usually have stoplights, speed limits, and crosswalks, but vehicles are getting so outrageously big that pedestrian fatalities are getting frighteningly common. That's a uniquely American problem that most other developed countries don't have, and, even in America, the problem of safe walkability is worse in low-income areas.

We can all agree that whether you're running for your life to cross a busy street in Dehli, or playing Frogger with a 6,000 pound pickup truck in the USA, pedestrian safety is something that matters. We should all be able to walk places in our communities without getting run down.

Luckily, there are global initiatives underway to try to make the world safer and more friendly to pedestrians, like Vision Zero. It's a system that's been used to great effect to reduce pedestrian deaths across Europe and is making headway in some US cities. Vision Zero involves interventions like lowering speed limits, making crosswalks bigger and more visible, creating connected sidewalks, and enlarging bike lanes.

The world should be designed for people first, not vehicles. Making roads safer all over the globe might cost us these fascinating videos, but the benefits for pedestrians will be well worth it.

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My rideshare driver asks passengers to share 'Lyfting Advice' and it restores faith in humanity

"You haven't had a perfect day until you do something for someone who will never be able to repay you."

Photo Credit: Canva

A woman gets into a rideshare. A journal full of wisdom.

"Your driver is arriving in 2 minutes. Look for Armand in a Kia Sorento." This message popped up on my iPhone as I was furiously looking for my keys to go enjoy a night of tacos and margaritas. Frazzled, I got into my Lyft, and the weird sense of dread I'd had all day immediately dissipated.

We said our hellos as I glanced down to see a yellow spiral notebook and pen in the back seat. On the front, someone had written, "Lyfting Advice." I asked what it was and for the next ten minutes, en route to my destination, I was reminded that even in these challenging (for some, even harrowing) times, the goodness of humanity has the ability to prevail.

Armand explained that he has been asking passengers to write down any words of wisdom (or frankly whatever is on their minds) in the notebook. (He named it "Lyfting Advice," because the idea is, quite perfectly, that people give "uplifting advice in a Lyft.") At the end of every day, he reads these passages/quotes/snippets as he reflects on his life and his place in this world. "Go ahead, take a look," he encouraged. I flipped to the first page and was instantly moved by what I saw. Different handwriting across different days—people in the back of this rideshare had beautiful messages to share.

lyft, uber, rideshare, wisdom, community Lyft passengers share words if wisdom in a journal.Photo Credit: Cecily Knobler

The first to catch my eye was this seemingly familiar idea: "Never regret a day in your life. Good days give happiness. Bad days give experiences. Worst days give lessons and best days give memories."

One simply writes, "You are enough. You are loved." And this passenger quoted UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: "You haven't had a perfect day until you do something for someone who will never be able to repay you." Another shares, "The best things in life are simple."

John Wooden, UCLA, lyft, Uber, rideshare, wisdom Wisdom from Lyft passengers in a journal.Photo Credit: Cecily Knobler

I read the latter out loud and we began discussing the little special moments in life that make it easier. Friendships, sunshine, and yes—tacos.

Some people talked about the importance of listening to health cues, both physical and mental. "Do not put your job over your health." Another writes, "Be strong enough to hold yourself accountable. Own up to mistakes, challenges, anything that makes life seem tough. It'll help you grow." And another, "Take care of yourself in health. Otherwise, you'll need to take care of yourself in sickness."

Many focused on overcoming the not-so-good days. "One day at a time. This too shall pass. Time heals all." "Stop worrying about what other people think about you and then you'll experience true freedom and happiness." "No one will save you but yourself. Life passes away quickly, don't wait to live your best life!"

Lyft, rideshare, Uber, wisdom. community Words of wisdom in a journal in a LyftPhoto Credit: Cecily Knobler

Armand shared his personal favorite: "Be led by your dreams versus being pushed by your problems." When he asked me to share mine, I gave him some verbal encouragement and wrote, "Check the Upworthy website in about a week."

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