In King County, Washington, ballots from service members and Americans living abroad are already being processed for the midterms. Some arrive by mail, some by email. The envelopes came from voters thousands of miles away, including as far as Antarctica.
The ballots were sent out in mid-September to service members and Americans abroad. King County has 1.4 million registered voters, including 32,000 living overseas. Voters overseas can get their ballot by mail, mark it online and print/send it back, or email it in Washington state.
All mail ballots require a voter declaration and signature match. The electronic ballot return is a “relatively small amount” of voters, according to Julie Wise, King County’s elections director. It is an attached PDF, not online voting in Washington state.
Fraud Claims vs. the Evidence
President Trump has called mail-in voting “cheating” and “horrible.” The story notes the evidence does not support his claims. Trump has also claimed election machines are prone to hacking without backing it up.
Julie Wise responded directly to the criticism: “I think we really got to stop the narrative that our elections here in America are not accurate and secure. They are, and they have been for a long time.”
A Brookings Institution analysis of the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 general elections found about four cases of mail voting fraud per 10 million votes cast.
Email Ballots and the Access Trade-Off
Trump has said there are no mail-in ballots except for disability, illness, and military. Nationally, more than one million such ballots went out in the last presidential election; most went to civilians living abroad, not troops.
Email is the riskiest way to send a ballot back, according to federal agencies. About 30 states allow it anyway.
Wise defended the practice: “We do have to balance that risk over access. They still have the right to be able to have their voices heard and to vote in each election.”
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, framed the trade-off: “The choice is, do we let them return it electronically in some way, often with a paper backup as well, or do we disenfranchise them?”
Becker previously worked in the voting section of the Justice Department. He described a balancing act: “We could have a very, very secure voting system that involves every single person voting at one location during a five-minute window and having to give a blood test and a DNA sample. That would not enfranchise people. We could also have a really accessible system where everyone just put their ballot on a Google sheet and we counted it that way. But that would not be secure.”
How Email Ballots Are Verified
Vote tabulation machines never go online, though emailed ballots do. Election officials print out emailed ballots to create a physical paper trail for ballot accuracy.
Becker noted the security benefit: “It’s secure enough, particularly when secrecy is waived, because you can go back to the voter and say, hey, we want to confirm you voted this way. That’s not the way it is for most ballots.”
| Voting Method | Risk Level | Verification Step |
|---|---|---|
| Mail ballot | Medium | Signature match |
| Email ballot | Highest | Printed paper trail |
| Online marking | Medium | Attached PDF |
The Stand Down Order
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed military commanders to have a one-day “stand down” this month so service members have time to vote in the midterms.
The Supreme Court decided this summer that states can keep counting ballots cast on or before Election Day.
The System in Action
The county is processing ballots from Antarctica. Its director is responding to a president who calls the whole system “horrible” without offering proof. The county keeps counting, and the election rolls forward.
The fraud rate is measured in cases per 10 million votes.
The evidence is on the side of the system. Four cases of fraud per 10 million votes is not a crisis.
The midterms are coming. The ballots are arriving. And the people counting them know what they are doing.
Source material: “A look at how overseas ballots are verified and counted in the midterms,” PBS.
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