By the time covid-19 took off in America, the presidential primaries were already wrapping up. However, some later-voting states creaked under a historic load of postal ballots. In primary elections in June, 21% of absentee ballots in New York City were rejected, mainly for hiccups like missing signatures. Such a rate in the general election would put its legitimacy in doubt.
The final impact of a surge in postal voting will not be known until weeks after the election. Yet North Carolina, a closely contested state, releases detailed data on ballots as they arrive. So far, its figures suggest that a tarnished election is unlikely—but that Democrats could be hurt by their disproportionate embrace of voting by mail.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
