Due to coronavirus, in the upcoming election for the Dutch House of Representatives, all eligible voters aged 70 and over are allowed to cast their vote by mail. It concerns over 2.4 million inhabitants. Overall, at least 76 countries and territories across the globe have decided to postpone national and subnational elections due to COVID-19, from Feb 2020 until March 2021.
As part of the government’s measures to curb the risk of contracting the coronavirus, all Dutch voters who will be aged 70 or older on Election Day have been offered the possibility of voting by mail. It concerns almost 2.42 million people. They represent over 18 percent of the total electorate, reads the recent report of the Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
According to the Global Overview of COVID-19: Impact on Elections, published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), from 21 February 2020 until 7 March 2021, at least 76 countries and territories across the globe have decided to postpone national and subnational elections due to COVID-19, out of which at least 40 countries and territories have decided to postpone national elections and referendums;
At least 108 countries and territories have decided to hold national or subnational elections despite concerns related to COVID-19 of which at least 86 have held national elections or referendums;
At least, 50 countries and territories have held elections that were initially postponed due to concerns related to COVID-19 of which at least 27 have held national elections or referendums.
“Thirty-seven states have so far changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the Coronavirus. Despite frequent claims that President Trump’s warning about vote fraud/voting buying with mail-in ballots is “baselessly” or “without evidence” about mail-in vote fraud, there are numerous examples of vote fraud and vote-buying with mail-in ballots in the United States and across the world. Indeed, concerns over vote fraud and vote-buying with mail-in ballots cause the vast majority of countries to ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad,” reads the study of John R. Lott, from Crime Prevention Research Center, titled: Why Do Most Countries Ban Mail-In Ballots? They Have Seen Massive Vote Fraud Problems.
Pursuant to the abstract of the study, “most developed countries ban absentee ballots unless the citizen is living abroad or require Photo-IDs to obtain those ballots. Even higher percentages of European Union or other European countries ban absentee for in-country voters. In addition, some countries that allow voting by mail for citizens living in the country don’t allow it for everyone. For example, Japan and Poland have limited mail-in voting to those who have special certificates verifying that they are disabled.”
“France has made an exception this year to the ban on absentee ballots to those who are sick or at particular risk during the Coronavirus pandemic. Poland and two cities in Russia have adopted mail-in ballots for elections this year only, but most countries haven't changed their regulations,” reads the report, adding, “France banned absentee voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people. Examples for other countries are provided.”
