Voting by mail grows in popularity – but is it reliable?

With control of Virginia’s House of Delegates hanging in the balance in last month’s election, every potential vote mattered – particularly in the state’s hotly contested 28th District.

The candidates knew it. So did election officials.

Throughout Election Day, workers at the Stafford County election office repeatedly telephoned the US Postal Service to make sure there were no absentee ballots waiting for delivery. The calls were made at least once every hour all day until polls closed at 7 p.m.

The race was indeed tight. By the time all votes were counted, Republican Robert Thomas, Jr. held an 82-vote lead over Democrat Joshua Cole.

Then, at 10 a.m. the morning after the election, the local Post Office delivered a stack of 55 uncounted absentee ballots.

“There is no possible way … that these ballots should not have been available to us on Election Day before close-of-polls,” Director of Elections Greg Riddlemoser wrote in an exasperated email to various officials.

Nonetheless, somehow 55 potential votes slipped through the cracks.

Lawyers for Mr. Cole, the trailing Democrat, filed an emergency motion asking a federal judge to order election officials to open and count the 55 mail-in ballots. They argued that not counting the ballots would disenfranchise 55 voters.

“These voters did everything they were supposed to do in order to have their ballots counted,” the lawyers wrote in their motion to the judge.

Virginia law requires that absentee ballots be received in the election office before

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