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Earlier this week, I had a post that put to rest much of the FAKE NEWS surrounding the Postal Service and its ability to handle election-related mail. (You can find a link below if you missed it.) There were a couple of very good follow-up questions from that post about:

the “R” or “D” letters on the envelopes used for absentee by mail ballots in South Carolina.

the difference between “absentee by mail” voting versus “mail-in” voting.

Let’s start with absentee vs. mail-in because it continues to be a source of confusion. These are two completely different animals.

In South Carolina, we have absentee voting. There are eligibility requirements, but essentially if you’re unable to vote in person on election day, you can vote either “Absentee In-Person” or “Absentee By Mail.”

“Absentee In-Person” means you physically go to your county elections office and vote there. Meanwhile, “Absentee By Mail” is where verified, eligible voters proactively request an absentee ballot to be mailed to them at their confirmed address.

Absentee voting is completely different from so-called “mail-in” voting that a few other states have. Mail-in voting is when election officials mail ballots to every voter’s last known address, with questionable regard for whether those individuals still live at those addresses, and absolutely no regard for whether those individuals even want a ballot to begin with.

It shouldn’t take long to understand the numerous concerns with mail-in voting. But to be clear, absentee voting like we have here in South Carolina – where voters request a ballot and verify their current address – is a good thing.

Next, there is some concern with “R” and “D” letters on the absentee by mail envelopes in South Carolina. Many people inquired about this, so we looked into it with the South Carolina State Election Commission. It turns out this is true for PRIMARY elections, and not true for general elections.

Let me explain...

When you vote in a *primary* election in South Carolina, you can either vote in the Republican primary or the Democrat primary. Those have different ballots. If you vote absentee by mail, you have to indicate which ballot you want to receive, just like when you vote in-person you have to tell the staff at your polling location what ballot you want.

For *primary* elections in South Carolina, yes, there is a code on the mailing address labels of absentee by mail ballots that features a “D” or “R” along with some other numbers that indicate the specific ballot you need. County election officials look at this code to figure out what ballot to place in your particular envelope.

Three important notes on this:

(A) The “R” and “D” doesn’t mean you, the voter, is a Republican or Democrat. It only indicates which ballot you requested. We don’t declare party affiliation when registering to vote in South Carolina. People who are Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary if they wish to do so, and vice versa.

(B) The “R” or “D” should NOT be present on the absentee by mail ballots sent out for the upcoming general election in November. This is because there are no party-specific ballots in the general election.

(C) While I understand the concerns these codes might raise, I’m simply passing along this information for those who inquired. How a state chooses to conduct its elections is a matter for that state’s legislature, not the federal government.

And finally, if you missed my post earlier this week destroying the false narratives about the USPS, you can find a link to that here: