You can't change the vote in most states, as Trump says

By Daniel Funke - Politifact

A week before Election Day, President Donald Trump posted an electoral tip for Americans on Twitter, saying they could change their votes for Joe Biden to votes for him.

“Strong trend (on Google) immediately after the second debate is CAN I CHANGE MY VOTE?

This refers to changing it to a vote for me.

The answer in most states is YES.

Go ahead and do it.

The most important choices of your life! ”He wrote on October 27 on the social network.

But the most likely answer is no.

(We will explain later why the question “can I change my vote?” Was a trend in Google).

Voting experts say this tactic is not as easy as Trump suggested.

It depends a lot on the status of your ballot.

“It is not correct to say that most states allow the cancellation of a vote-by-mail ballot that has already been sent,” said Matthew Weil, director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

“It depends on when it starts to process and what it means, in that state, to process.

Most states would not allow voters to cancel ballots already sent, ”he explained.

[Follow our coverage of the 2020 presidential elections]

The Trump campaign did not respond to our questions for this article.

Here are some scenarios about your ballots.

Scenario 1: You received your vote-by-mail ballot and you still have it.

This is the category that gives voters the most choice.

Obviously, if you haven't filled out your ballot yet, you can simply fill it out with your current preference and submit it.

It gets more complicated if you have already filled out your ballot and want to change your vote but have not yet sent it.

An analysis of state election laws by ProPublica found that most states allow ballots that have not yet been sent to be canceled as long as those who want to do this vote in person and speak with election officials to ensure that the vote is recorded. in person is the one that should count.

In some states, the voter will need to send a provisional ballot in these cases.

Many times, election officials must hold a canceled ballot and destroy it.

The youth vote has tripled compared to 2016 and can be decisive in key states

Oct. 28, 202002: 56

Scenario 2: You have already mailed your ballot.

Experts say that there are three states - Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan - that specifically allow you to change your mind and send a new ballot before Election Day.

But it depends on when you change your mind.

"Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan have clear rules about canceling a vote-by-mail ballot that has already been sent," Weil said.

However, Weil added that Minnesota's deadline to do this has passed.

In Connecticut, you can change your mind, depending on which town you're voting in, added Jessica Huseman, the lead reporter for ProPublica's Electionland project, which covers electoral management.

The key in all these cases is whether your ballot has already been counted.

If so, it can no longer be canceled.

“Once the ballot envelopes are verified for eligibility and the ballots are taken out of the envelope and put on a tab, there is nothing to do,” Weil said, “once the ballot is on a tab. it cannot be canceled, since it cannot be related to a specific voter ”.

So, in a state that only starts counting ballots on Election Day, like New York, it is possible for someone who votes in person to make that vote take precedence over a correspondence vote they previously sent.

But in other states, ballots are counted before that day, which makes the situation described above impossible.

Scenario 3: You voted in person, either before or on Election Day.

If you voted in person, there is nothing you can do.

"I can't think of a way for someone to change a vote in person, since the votes are secret and you can't ask for them back," Huseman said.

"This is the same reason why you cannot vote again if your vote by correspondence has already been counted, since once your ballot comes out of the envelope it can no longer be related to you," he added.

[Thousands of mailed ballots are about to be rejected in two key states]

Experts said they do not know reliable data on how often ballots are canceled because voters have changed their minds, but they said it is probably a rare phenomenon.

"It can't be a large number of cases, since we know that the majority of vote-by-mail ballots that are requested end up being counted as they are sent," Weil said.

Why doesn't the candidate with the most votes always win the presidency

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Google trends for the search "Can I change my vote?"

While it's true that searches for the phrase "I can change my vote" have increased in recent weeks, Trump's claim doesn't tell the whole story.

The phrase may have skyrocketed on Google because as Election Day approaches, more voters are researching the electoral process.

This is in line with other Google Trends data showing an increase in early voting and vote-by-mail searches.

In 2016, there was a similar increase in searches for the phrase "Can I change my vote?"

in the days leading up to the day of the elections.

This year, searches for other electoral-related phrases, such as "Where can I vote?"

and "early voting" also increased, while "Can I change my vote?"

Google Trends says the top election searches for the past week are generic, like "elections" and "polls."

Google advises against overinterpreting the data.

“An increase in a particular topic does not mean that that topic is somehow“ popular ”, or that it is“ winning ”.

It just means that, for some unknown reason, there seem to be a lot of users doing a search for that term, ”Google says on an FAQ page.

"Google Trends data should always be considered as one specific piece of data among many to consider before drawing conclusions," he added.

Our verdict

Trump posted on Twitter: “CAN I CHANGE MY VOTE?

… The answer in most states is YES ”.

Voters who have not sent their vote-by-mail ballot may do this as long as they go to vote in person and speak with elections officials to cancel their original ballot.

However, only a few states explicitly allow the cancellation of ballots that have already been sent before Election Day.

And a voter could do nothing to change his vote if his ballot was already tabulated before or if he votes in person early.

Therefore, we characterize Trump's claim as

The translation of this article was carried out by Pablo Medina Uribe thanks to the FactChat agreement, coordinated by the 

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