[I have had trouble contacting the right people regarding this idea so I'm posting here.]

As you know, mail-in balloting threatens the integrity of U.S. elections. I am writing to you to outline a concept that I have been thinking about that could help to minimize fraud – a way to do mail-in balloting that will not appeal to election fraudsters. It’s entirely possible that there are legal or other issues with this concept – I’m no expert – but I wanted to make sure the idea was sent to the right people for consideration, especially given the push for inclusion of funds for mail-in voting as part of a fourth COVID-19 bill. Here’s a brief outline of my thoughts about this:

Mail-In Voting

Given the pandemic, mail-in voting has become an especially hot button issue. I believe that recent elections have shown much fraud, much of it through absentee and mail-in voting. My concept could greatly reduce fraud in mail-in voting.

Elements

• Set standards for mail-in voting by amending the Help America Vote Act, which prohibited punch card ballots in the wake of the 2000 Presidential election and established National Standards for voting systems. These standards would require mail-in voting to be conducted as outlined here.

• Leverage government control of the United States Postal Service to create new classes of mail, required to be used for ballot issuance and ballot return, as follows:

o Outgoing ballots must be sent by this class of mail, which is tracked and signed for by the person on the ballot, like Certified Mail. The delivery worker is required to verify the ID of the person matches the name on the ballot mailing.

o Completed (voted) ballots must be brought to a post office and tendered to a postal employee by the voter. They cannot be dropped in a mailbox and will not be sent with a return envelope. (As you know, mail-in ballots typically have an “inner” and “outer” envelope.)

o When receiving a ballot, the postal employee will scan a removable barcode on the outer envelope. This barcode would indicate the name of the voter, and the jurisdiction to which this person’s ballot is to be returned.

o The postal employee must then verify the identity, age, address, and citizenship status of the voter, using appropriate identification. Postal employees are familiar with this process as they currently perform this function when receiving passport applications on behalf of the State Department.

o After verifying the voter, the postal employee would remove the barcode on the “inner” envelope and place the ballot in the “outer” envelope (which would be stocked at the post office.) The postal service can print a label with the return address for the voter’s jurisdiction through the standard POS system that is used by them.

o The outer envelopes will also have a tracking barcode (that is scanned by the postal service as is done with other classes of tracked mail) and require signature by the elections supervisor or designate upon receipt. The number of ballots returned can be tracked based on this barcode for each jurisdiction.

• Ballots must be opened and counted in the presence of election monitors. Part of that process includes the verification that the ballot was properly mailed through the above process, including by the USPS tracking system.

• Ballots must be retained for a duration equal to the longer of the election and voter fraud statute of limitations.

• Any state that does not conduct mail-in voting pursuant to these procedures is considered not able to be certified for purposes of presenting election results to the Congress.

I hope some of this information is useful as a starting point for building a system that would minimize fraud through mail-in ballots.

Thank you for your consideration.