Can America Return to Same-Day Voting?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns election integrity. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would sign an executive order to end mail-in voting. Trump claims that mail-in voting is prone to fraud.

An example of possible fraud was shared in an article written by Fred Lucas and published at The Daily Signal. 

A city council member in Michigan was reportedly seen on video helping to drop what appear to be several absentee ballots into a ballot drop box ahead of an August primary election.

Abu Musa, a city councilman in the city of Hamtramck, Michigan, was reportedly in the passenger seat handing what appear to be ballots to the driver, who then dropped them in the drop box. Various news reports say they were “bundles” of ballots, another says “stacks.”

The video was first reported by Local 4 News in Detroit and later was reported in other Michigan and national news outlets. Local 4 reported that Michigan State Police confirmed the footage….

Musa did not immediately respond to phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal for this story. Musa hasn’t been charged with any offense.

The driver of the vehicle dumped three stacks of ballots, 7 News Detroit WXYZ reported.

It’s not clear that dumping a large number of ballots into a drop box is wrong or illegal – depending on whose ballots they were, according to Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown. Michigan law allows family members or household members to drop off ballots for one another. But there is no numerical limit as to how many can be dropped off.

“You can [return more than one ballot], but there’s a big caveat as to who, whose ballot you can return,” Brown told WXYZ. She added, “If it’s an immediate family member or you co-inhabit with somebody – it doesn’t have to be in a romantic way – but if you co-inhabit with someone, you can return their absentee ballots.”

The ballot drop occurred on Aug. 1. Musa won the Aug. 5 primary, garnering 1,129 votes. Of those, 843 were cast by absentee ballots, the Daily Mail reported. He received 286 votes on Election Day.

Hamtramck is located near Detroit and has a population smaller than 30,000, but it has had numerous problems recently. Two other councilmen were charged with fraud – including forging absentee ballot applications. In addition, “the city manager and police chief are on administrative leave in different investigations. However, the Michigan State Police say that there is “a larger ongoing investigation into city officials” including the video with Musa putting ballots into the drop off box.