Ballot Envelopes Don’t Reveal Your Party

24th August 2020

Ballot Envelopes Don’t Reveal Your Party

it is a federal crime to tamper with mail (Getty Images)

The Claim

Mail-In ballots reveal the political party of the voter, meaning postal service employees can tamper with election results.

News posted on

Twitter

Melanie Marie

🌊🌍 Meaghan not Megan 🌍🌊

Twitter

Emerging story

In August 2020, a Florida woman with the Twitter handle @mamabridgee posted a video to the platform claiming that the envelopes with her and her brother’s mail-in ballots were different due to the fact that they were voting for different parties, specifically with differences in the bar code on the envelope. The woman was subsequently identified as Palm Beach county’s Tina Brown, and her claim went viral on social media, even being retweeted by the president.

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar’s investigation into this claim reveals it to be false. While the bar codes of intra-party primary election ballots are labelled according to the party within which one is selecting a candidate, during the inter-party general election there is no indication on the outside of ballots as to which party one voted for. Furthermore, it is a federal crime to tamper with mail, including ballots. Not that such crimes can’t be committed, but there will be severe punishment for anybody caught tampering with mail-in ballots.