More than 18,000 ballots were mailed in but not tabulated in Florida's presidential primary, researchers have found. And the envelopes returned by young, first-time and Black voters were the most likely not to get counted.
The number of uncounted absentee ballots is one component of an analysis of the March 17 primary published last week by the Healthy Elections Project, created by experts at Stanford and MIT.
While the number of uncounted mail ballots is a tiny fraction — 1.3 percent — of the total number of mail-in ballots in the primary, it nonetheless represents a significant number of voters in a state renowned for its razor-thin election results.
Researchers said the data they studied did not provide a breakdown of why the mail-in ballots were not counted. But they said the two most likely reasons were that the envelopes arrived after the deadline — when the polls closed on primary day — or there was some problem with the way the ballots were filled out. This could include everything from not signing the ballot to the signature not matching what is on file with election officials.
The GOP-majority Legislature last year changed the process of signature matching in ways that voting rights advocates want to see nationwide. It sets out a more rigorous standard than in the past for rejecting a mail-in ballot, requires election officials to notify voterd if their envelopes have been rejected because of a perceived signature mismatch, and gives voters until two days after the election to persuade officials that their handwriting was legitimate.
The Healthy Elections Project analysis also found that voters 18 to 29 were almost three times as likely to have their mail-in ballots not counted (3.6 percent compared to 1.3 percent overall).
First-time voters were almost twice as likely to have their mail-in ballots not counted, while 2.3 percent of Black voters' mail-in ballots were not counted.
Experts say the results call for a public education effort to explain to people how to properly vote by mail.
Overall, the share of votes cast by mail increased dramatically for the presidential contest — to 46 percent, up from 29 percent four years ago — despite the fact that the coronavirus pandemic was still in its early stages when voters had to decide whether to vote absentee or in person.
Notably, the percentage of Republicans voting absentee outstripped Democrats, 55 percent to 40 percent — a sign that plenty of GOP voters in the third-most populous state disagree with President Trump's oft-stated view that mail-in voting should be sharply restricted because it promotes election fraud.
The president was one of those mail-in voters in March, however, even though he had been in his newly adopted hometown of Palm Beach during the period for in-person early voting in a primary. (He had to amend his initial registration application in September, because he originally listed his "legal residence" as 1600 Pennsyvania Avenue in Washington — the White House address — and Florida law requires voters to be legal residents of the state.
There's no way the uncounted ballots were dispositive. Trump was essentially unopposed and Joe Biden cruised to victory with 62 percent of the vote. But there are plenty of hard-fought campaigns underway for congressional, legislative, judicial and local office nominations ahead of the state primary in seven weeks.
And, of course, the state's 29 electoral votes will be intensely contested in November. Trump carried the state last time by just over 100,000 votes, or 1.2 percentage points, out of a 9.5 million ballots cast. President Barack Obama won the state by less than 1 point in 2012.
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.