More Americans will be casting their ballots by mail this fall than ever before. But in a year as chaotic and unusual as this, voters' confidence levels and best-laid plans can change quickly.
So what happens when people receive an absentee ballot but decide that heading to the polls is the more reliable or even convenient option than using the Postal Service or a drop box ? Or what if they apply to vote by mail but their envelope never shows up?
In every state except Kentucky, these are not insurmountable problems. But the degree of permissiveness varies considerably for voters who change their minds about their voting method of choice.
Source: The National Vote at Home Institute
With nine states (and D.C.) automatically sending all active registered voters an absentee ballot, and 10 others sending applications statewide to encourage people to vote remotely, the share of ballots being cast by mail is virtually guaranteed to set a record. (It's been about one in four nationwide for several elections, and estimates it could be double that in 2020.)
But since President Trump is working to promote his baseless claims that mail voting incubates fraud, and given the Postal Service's recent travails, millions seem destined to make a late decision to use a voting booth instead — despite this year's unique risks of coronavirus exposure. Polling and early voting shows more Democrats relying on the mail and more Republicans relying on a trip to the polls.
An analysis from the nonprofit National Vote at Home Institute found D.C. and 19 states — including battlegrounds Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia — where voters have the widest latitude to change their minds, or recover when a requested vote-by-mail packet does not arrive.
Essentially with no questions asked, they can cast a regular ballot in person on Election Day or at an early voting location. Seven other states, purple New Hampshire among them, will only allow this on Nov. 3.
A dozen states automatically hand provisional ballots to people who show up to vote after receiving or applying for an absentee ballot. Those ballots are as good as regular ballots but aren't counted with them. Instead, they are tabulated only after election officials make sure the voter's registration is in order and no double-voting occurred.
Eight states, among them presidential tossup Arizona, offer this option whenever polls are open. Four restrict it to Election Day.
It gets more complicated for voters in much of the rest of the country, where a range of additional rules may apply. The most common is a requirement that voters bring their not-completed absentee ballot with them if they want to use a voting booth instead. Other states have complex rules for people who want to cancel a vote they already cast by mail and choose different candidates in person.
Nine places — including the big swing states of Florida, Ohio and Texas — apply these rules during early voting and on Election Day. Battleground Pennsylvania and West Virginia will allow people to pass through the hoops for such last-minute switches on Nov. 3 only.
And then there's reliably red Kentucky, where a voter who requests an absentee ballot must complete it — or, if they claim they are unable to, or it never shows up, there's a set of early deadlines and paperwork rules that is so complicated compliance is virtually impossible.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.