As states likely expand the use of mail ballots in response to the COVID-19 breakout, they need to also protect the integrity of mail ballots to prevent both the appearance of impropriety and actual fraud this November.  Lawyers Democracy Fund published a study last year by current Republican federal Election Assistance Commission(EAC) Commissioner Don Palmer (before he joined the EAC), describing some of the steps needed to protect the integrity of mail ballots and improve voter confidence in mail voting:

Many residents in California are voting twice and it’s time for Secretary of State Alex Padilla to stop ignoring the problem. This flaw in their system has been an issue for years and the integrity of our elections is at stake.

Yesterday was an emotional hearing of the North Carolina election board that generated a fair result, a new election for North Carolina’s ninth Congressional District as a result of ballot harvesting. “Ballot harvesting” is a practice in which paid or organized political operatives collect absentee ballots from voters to whom they have no familial connection and drop them off at a polling place or election office. As happened in North Carolina, critics complain that such actions leave open opportunities for tampering and taking advantage of society’s most vulnerable and those who have no interest in voting.

New Mexico has yet again proven that the feudal system and political corruption is alive and well in the Land of Enchantment. On election night, Republican Yvette Herrell led Democrat Xochitl Torres Small by 1,972 votes and was declared a winner by several news outlets, but then the Dona Ana County Clerk found 8,000 absentee ballots that still needed to be added to the total. By the end of Wednesday, Torres Small had a substantial, 2,700 vote lead over Herrell; therefore making Torres Small the winner, not Herrell.