Politics

States Debut Ways To Track Absentee Ballots As More Americans Vote By Mail

No featured image available

Forty-six states have implemented options allowing voters to track their absentee ballot in an effort to alleviate voters’ potential fears, according to an NBC News report.

States also hope that the systems, which most states have debuted for the 2020 election amid record amounts of mail-in ballots due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, will help mitigate Americans’ growing distrust in the accuracy of voting by mail and in the integrity of the election, NBC News reported.

In many states, absentee voters can reportedly look up general information about their ballot’s status, according to NBC. However, in some, voters receive a unique tracking barcode with specific updates, similar to a tracking number on a package.

Only a few states offered voters the option to track their ballot in 2016, according to NBC News.

Many states’ ballot tracking initiatives have been led by the National Vote at Home Institute, NBC reported. The nonprofit advocates for voting without having to visit polling places, according to their website.

“With all the misinformation on mail-in ballots, we’ve got to deal with the accurate information out there,” National Vote at Home Institute CEO Amber McReynolds told NBC News.

“Not only does it notify that your ballot’s been accepted, it notifies you if your ballot has a problem. That instant notification is helpful, and it streamlines the administrative process,” she added.

Over half of Americans said that they planned to vote early for November’s election, whether in-person or by mail, and a majority of voters said that they did not believe the vote count for November’s election would be accurate, according to NBC News.