As the midterm elections approach, much of life has returned to its busy post-COVID-19 normal, even as the pandemic continues. Being busy and wary of sharing space with large numbers of strangers are among the many reasons people might consider skipping Election Day.

In most states, you can skip Election Day and still vote, though. In many ways, the most convenient way to vote is by mail – even if many states require you to file a form or use a website to request a ballot. You can examine the choices of candidates and questions, and consider your choices, as you would if you were to vote on Election Day. When you are ready, you can mark your ballot in your own time and either mail it back or drop it off at a local ballot drop box or government office – as long as you do it before your state’s deadline.

Many people have questions about the integrity of this process, how they can be sure their vote will be counted accurately and how they can make sure it is even counted at all. Several scholars have written articles for The Conversation U.S. describing aspects of this system and explaining why it’s trustworthy and safe.

1. ‘Built-in safeguards’

Charlotte Hill, a former local election official in San Francisco who now studies voting laws at the University of California, Berkeley, and political scientist Jake Grumbach from the University of Washington write about six ways mailed ballots are protected from fraud. Those include the facts that it’s very hard to make a fake ballot and a fake envelope and that eagle-eyed postal and municipal workers are always on the lookout for irregularities.

“The mail-in voting process has several built-in safeguards that together make it hard for one person to vote fraudulently and even more difficult to commit voter fraud on a scale capable of swinging election outcomes,” Hill and Grumbach write.

2. Lessons from Oregon

Since 1998, all elections in Oregon have been held by mail. Over that entire time, Priscilla Southwell, a professor emerita of political science at the University of Oregon, has watched how the system has worked and how people have reacted to it, and then she has analyzed its integrity.

“Oregon’s experience shows that mail-in voting can be safe and secure, providing accurate and reliable results the public can be confident in,” she writes.

Her conclusion reflects broad public support of the system: “Perhaps the strongest evidence that the system is equitable, fair, reliable and safe is that in two statewide surveys I have conducted over the years, a nearly identical percentage of Oregon Republicans and Democrats strongly support voting by mail, and the same is true of elected officials in the state.”

3. One caution

In an article crediting the convenience and integrity of voting by mail, political scientists Susan Orr of The College at Brockport, State University of New York, and James Johnson at the University of Rochester note one potential pitfall: Because it happens outside an official polling place, the act of voting isn’t necessarily secret.

A person voting by mail may be more susceptible to the influence of a relative, friend or employer, or may even be observed while marking their ballot.

“The voter marks the ballot outside the supervision of election monitors – often at home. It’s possible to do so in secret,” they explain. “But secrecy is no longer guaranteed, and for some it may actually be impossible.”

4. Some ignore the evidence

There have been several lawsuits, especially in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, alleging that voting by mail is fraudulent or suspect. Rutgers University Newark law professor Penny Venetis has observed that some judges accept those claims:

“Without providing any explanation or evidence to the contrary, these decisions essentially erase scientific findings, cementing into law unsubstantiated and discredited claims linking voting by mail to fraud.”

5. Easy accountability

If you’ve decided to vote by mail, in most states you can keep tabs on your ballot and make sure it arrived safely at your local election office.

Law professor Steven Mulroy at the University of Memphis explained that many states have “a unified system [that] allows all voters to see when their request for a ballot by mail was received, when the ballot was mailed to them and when the completed ballot was received back at the local election office.”

Check to see if your state is one, and you can rest assured that your ballot is on the way, that you’ve successfully mailed it back and that it has been accepted and counted.

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archive.

Jeff Inglis, Freelance Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The extreme weather that has battered much of the U.S. in 2022 doesn’t just affect humans. Heat waves, wildfires, droughts and storms also threaten many wild species – including some that already face other stresses.

I’ve been researching bee health for over 10 years, with a focus on honey bees. In 2021, I began hearing for the first time from beekeepers about how extreme drought and rainfall were affecting bee colony health.

Drought conditions in the western U.S. in 2021 dried up bee forage – the floral nectar and pollen that bees need to produce honey and stay healthy. And extreme rain in the Northeast limited the hours that bees could fly for forage.

In both cases, managed colonies – hives that humans keep for honey production or commercial pollination – were starving. Beekeepers had to feed their bees more supplements of sugar water and pollen than they usually would to keep their colonies alive. Some beekeepers who had been in business for decades shared that they lost 50% to 70% of their colonies over the winter of 2021-2022.

These weather conditions likely also affected wild and native bees. And unlike managed colonies, these important species did not receive supplements to buffer them through harsh conditions.

Each year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency host federal pollinator experts to share the latest scientific findings on bee and pollinator health, and assess the status of these important insects, birds, bats and other species. One clear takeaway from this year’s meeting was that climate change has become a new and formidable stressor for bees, potentially amplifying previously known issues in ways that scientists can’t yet predict but need to prepare for.

The scourge of Varroa mites

Pollinators contribute an estimated US$235 billion to $577 billion yearly to global agriculture, based on the value of the crops they pollinate. Understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change on pollinators is key for supporting healthy ecosystems and sustainable agriculture.

Bee health first attracted widespread attention in 2006 with the emergence of Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon where the majority of adult worker bees in a colony disappeared, leaving their honey and pollen stores and some nurse bees behind to care for the queen and remaining immature bees. In the past five years, reported cases have declined substantially. Now, researchers are focusing on what beekeepers call the “four Ps”: parasites, pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition, as well as habitat loss for wild and native bees.

One of the most severe threats to honey bees over the past several decades has been Varroa destructor, a crablike parasitic mite that feeds on honey bees’ fat body tissue. The fat body is a nutrient-dense organ that functions much like the liver in mammals. It helps bees maintain a strong immune system, metabolize pesticides and survive through the winter.

These are vital functions, so controlling mite infestations is essential for bee health. Varroa can also transmit deadly pathogens to honey bees, such as deformed wing virus.

Controlling mite populations is challenging. It requires using an insecticide in an insect colony, or as beekeepers say, “trying to kill a bug on a bug.” It’s hard to find a formula strong enough to kill mites without harming the bees.

Monitoring Varroa takes significant skill and labor, and mites can build up resistance to treatments over time. Researchers and beekeepers are working hard to breed Varroa-resistant bees, but mites continue to plague the industry.

Pesticide microdoses

Pesticides also harm bees, particularly products that cause sublethal or chronic bee health issues. Sublethal pesticide exposures can make bees less able to gather forage, grow healthy larvae and fight off viruses and mites.

However, it can be hard to document and understand sublethal toxicity. Many factors affect how bees react to agrochemicals, including whether they are exposed as larvae or as adult bees, the mixture of chemicals bees are exposed to, the weather at the time of application and how healthy a bee colony is pre-exposure.

Researchers are also working to understand how soil pesticides affect ground-nesting wild bees, which represent over 70% of the U.S. native bee population.

Junk food diets

Like many other species, bees are losing the habitat and food sources that they depend on. This is happening for many reasons.

For example, uncultivated lands are being converted to farmland or developed worldwide. Large-scale agriculture focuses on mass production of a few commodity crops, which reduces the amount of nesting habitat and forage available for bees.

And many farmers often remove pollinator-friendly plants and shrubs that grow around farm lands to reduce the risk of attracting animals such as deer and rodents, which could spread pathogens that cause foodborne illness. Research suggests that these efforts harm beneficial insects and don’t increase food safety.

As diverse and healthy bee forage disappears, beekeepers feed their bees more supplements, such as sugar water and pollen substitutes, which are not as nutritious as the nectar and pollen bees get from flowers.

Climate change is a force multiplier

Researchers don’t know exactly how climate change will affect bee health. But they suspect it will add to existing stresses.

For example, if pest pressures mount for farmers, bees will be exposed to more pesticides. Extreme rainfall can disrupt bees’ foraging patterns. Wildfires and floods may destroy bee habitat and food sources. Drought may also reduce available forage and discourage land managers from planting new areas for bees as water becomes less readily available.

Climate change could also increase the spread of Varroa and other pathogens. Warmer fall and winter temperatures extend the period when bees forage. Varroa travel on foraging bees, so longer foraging provides a larger time window for mites and the viruses they carry to spread among colonies. Higher mite populations on bee colonies heading into winter will likely cripple colony health and increase winter losses.

Studies have already shown that climate change is disrupting seasonal connections between bees and flowers. As spring arrives earlier in the year, flowers bloom earlier or in different regions, but bees may not be present to feed on them. Even if flowers bloom at their usual times and locations, they may produce less-nutritious pollen and nectar under extreme weather conditions.

Research that analyzes the nutritional profiles of bee forage plants and how they change under different climate scenarios will help land managers plant climate-resilient plants for different regions.

Creating safe bee spaces

There are many ways to support bees and pollinators. Planting pollinator gardens with regional plants that bloom throughout the year can provide much-needed forage.

Ground-nesting native bees need patches of exposed and undisturbed soil, free of mulch or other ground covers. Gardeners can clear some ground in a sunny, well-drained area to create dedicated spaces for bees to dig nests.

Another important step is using integrated pest management, a land management approach that minimizes the use of chemical pesticides. And anyone who wants to help monitor native bees can join community science projects and use phone apps to submit data.

Most importantly, educating people and communities about bees and their importance to our food system can help create a more pollinator-friendly world.

Jennie L. Durant, Research Affiliate in Human Ecology, University of California, Davis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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