2:07
Five states were already slated to proactively send mail-in ballots to registered voters -- Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington. While it's Hawaii's first election cycle doing this, all five of these states have a predominantly vote-by-mail system.
In addition to those five states, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Vermont and the District of Columbia have decided to mail ballots to all active voters. In Montana, Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is allowing any county to hold all-mail elections if they want to. All counties were given this option for the primary and did so, and 45 of the state's 56 counties, including the most populous, have opted to do this for the general election. Return ballot postage will be paid for. The counties doing this will mail ballots on Oct. 9 and in-person voting will still be available. In Nebraska, 11 counties will be proactively mailing ballots to voters, which is allowed under state law in any counties with less than 10,000 residents.
The Trump campaign lost its lawsuit in Nevada seeking to stop the state from mailing out ballots, among other pursuits. The campaign is also suing in New Jersey and Montana seeking to stop election officials from sending out ballots that haven't specifically been requested by voters. In New Jersey, the campaign has alleged that mass mailing of ballots is unconstitutional and in violation of federal statutes. In Montana, the campaign has alleged doing this will negatively affect the integrity of the election. The president has repeatedly claimed widespread mail-in voting will lead to fraud, but election experts dispute that.
Elections can be messy, but that doesn't mean they'll be fraudulent, ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams noted on \"This Week\" in early August.
\"Remember, when you're talking about universal mail-in ballots, let's be honest about what the issues are. Again and again you hear people say, 'Well, you know, they get sent to places where no one's there anymore, they've moved or they're not alive anymore.' And those are real issues,\" Abrams said. \"But that's not voter fraud, right? Voter fraud then is the person who decides they're going to risk their freedom to take said ballot, falsify information, and then send it in.\"
In addition to the states sending ballots, others have opted to proactively send absentee ballot applications to voters. Nine states are currently planning to do this: Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
Additionally, the rest of Nebraska's 93 counties that are not sending ballots will be sending applications to voters.
For its primary, Georgia's secretary of state opted to send all 6.9 million active voters in the state absentee ballot applications. While the state isn't doing the same for the general election, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did create an online absentee application portal that any voter statewide can use to request an absentee ballot.
Walter Jones, the communication manager for voter education in Raffensperger's office, told ABC News that some voters reported it taking less than a minute to fill out the application online. Upon completion of the application, voters receive an email, so they can be sure it was successfully submitted.
This story will continue to be updated as news warrants.
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