How do you prove that a ballot was mailed on time?

Here’s hoping the results won’t be close enough that such things matter. I hope Biden runs away with it.

Maybe it is illegible only to outsiders, like doctor’s handwriting.

The question isn’t “why”. I don’t believe the op is asking about fraudulent postmarks, but rather what it is we are to do about those which are illegible, the percentage of which let’s hope will be too small to matter.

And since mail sorting is mostly automatic, I am assuming that their machines have little trouble with it anyway.

This is so rare. Plus, USPS will know a ballot was late, maybe they hold aside ballots that came into any mailboxes too late, or not hold aside, but segregate them so when they are delivered it is known they are too late. I would think elections is working closely with USPS local offices.

Why are Republicans intent on causing mistrust?

Why did Republicans bring a challenge in Minnesota to change the requirement right before the election, and the courts actually went along with it?! That’s ridiculous. That will not hold up in a higher court. You can’t change the rules 5 days before an election. I would think the average Republicans agrees that is unfair. I would hope.

This is all worrying about nothing. Just sowing more division in our country.

@JLeslie I personally think that counting a ballot received after Election Day without absolute proof that it was mailed on time is unfair. In fact, I think there has been plenty of time already to get the ballots in. If somebody were still undecided by last Sunday, we should just make do without that person’s vote.

@ragingloli As you probably know there are instances of mail delays. Whether sorting is automatic or not. Therefore, when a ballot is received late, the election officials have three choices:

1. Count it.
2. Discard it.
3. Set it aside in case the election is too close to call. Then wait for the legalities to play out.

@stanleybmanly That is exactly what I am asking about. If any state allows late ballots with illegible postmarks, then you wonder about the possibility of submitting late ballots with fraudulent postmarks.

@ragingloli Would an impartial judge be considered an outsider?

@crazyguy The people at the post office know the date it was received. Anything that comes in late can be separated.

@JLeslie You may have heard that some people at UPS and USPS are Democratic sympathizers.

@JLeslie Also, we are talking of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ballots being processed. We are going to take somebody’s word about a few of them being late?

@crazyguy My post office worker in my post office and who collects my mail at my mailbox, knows if a ballot is late.

@JLeslie Do you think some post office workers could be bribed?

You would need the person collecting the mail and the people at the mail center receiving the mail and doing the postmark in on it. On the last day to mail in vote you can be sure more than one person will be working at the post office doing the postmark also. I think it’s extremely unlikely.

Did anyone question is when everyone filed their taxes by mail?

Do you think there can be fraud at in person voting? Someone checking people in could have all their friends come in at night voting under names who haven’t voted yet?

I believe all the anxiety being churned up over fraudulent or illegible postmarks, late ballots, etc.—all of it — they’re phony excuses not worth bothering with. All this hubub over mail in ballots is about the fact that heavy turnout favors Democrats. @crazyguy is correct. Postal workers like most unionized workers and blue collar folks in general are going to vote Democrat. Which means that postal workers are incentivized to process as many ballots as quickly as possible. Since there is no way of knowing the party affiliation from the external envelope, postal workers cannot determine which ballots to destroy, divert, delay, etc. As a practical matter, voter fraud at any level sufficient to tilt an election has to be carried out in the tallying process. The great fraud this time around is in the nation wide push at creative voter suppression, and THAT is almost EXCLUSIVELY a Republican affair

@crazyguy: ”Do you think some post office workers could be bribed?”

If you had a job making about 70 – 100k plus benefits, how much would it take to get you to risk your job, plus risk prosecution. $500k? A million $? Each person. Now you’re going to need to find those people and pay them, and whatever they do has to be successful or else it’s all for naught. In doing the “finding” you risk having those people who are not interested in the bribe ratting and saying they were approached in the illegal scheme, too.

I would like anyone to propose a viable method for a postal worker to shift the ballots in favor of one party or the other. How could it be done?

I also think you should be a lot more concerned that republicans are now trying to invalidate votes that were already legally cast in person.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/01/texas-drive-thru-votes-harris-county/

@ragingloli: Shows how scared and desperate they are feeling right now.

@ragingloli I am not a lawyer, and cannot comment on the esoteric laws being argued in Texas. However, from your link:

“Plus, the county argued in a Friday filing that Texas’ election code, along with court rulings, have determined that even if the drive-thru locations are violations, votes cast there are still valid.”

Earlier, in the same link,

‘drive-thru voting is “a creative approach that is probably okay legally,” according to court transcripts.’

In other words, the approach taken in Harris County was “probably okay legally” based on the assumption that “even if the drive-thru locations are violations, votes cast there are still valid.”

Seems to me like the move represented desperation on the Democrats’ part, not the Republicans’.

@jca2 Great point. Not only good salaries, but great pensions, and they would not only be fired, but also risk prison time and fines.

The bar code that gets printed on each letter will tell when.

All, after reading some of the answers here, I had to go back and reread my question.

I just did that.

@JLeslie The postal workers who swear that they were instructed to backdate ballots are risking everything you talked about, aren’t they?

@kritiper I am not sure what bar code you are referring to. Does it appear on dropped-off ballots?

This question is again a bogus excuse to cast doubt on our elections. For example, what thinking person would believe that enough postmarks might be tampered with in levels sufficient to swing an election?

And once again, this is the sort of question only someone unfamiliar with the ACTUAL way our mail system functions could possibly ask. These guys can google up postal regulations, but they slip up like poor @seawulf575 when describing the regulated duties of mailmen here without a clue as to the ACTUAL parameters reality dictates of the job.

To me, all these things were presented to many courts in many court cases over the past month and a half, and all were shot down. Mulling over it and crying over it is useless at this point. As they sang in the movie “Frozen,” “Let it go, let it go.”

They will NEVER let go. It is so laughably obvious that their job here is to sew dissension and cast doubt on the legitimacy of our electoral process and any other aspect of this country for which we should be justifiably proud.