Let me first say up front that this isn't some sort of clever trick. I'm not smart enough for that. This isn't some sort of "gotcha" maneuver. I'm genuinely curious and I want to talk this out. Washington state has had vote by mail since 2005. The military has voted by mail for decades? Early voting by mail is a thing in many parts of the nation. Can someone show me: 1: The instances of fraud specific to vote by mail, and 2: Ways in which vote by mail fraud can be prevented, and 3: How instances of vote by mail fraud compare to the number of instances of vote in person fraud?
This seems to be a comprehensive list of cases across the country state by state. Most of these seem to have been caught and convicted. https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud Looks like one of the main ways of doing it with the absentee ballot is to also show up to vote in person to double your vote. That would seem to be a very stup[id method as they record that you sent in an absentee ballot and when you vote in person which would be easily identified and have your voter registration for them to find you with. I would say another issue would be voting for someone else who you are caring for who needs an absentee ballot. Still, that would not be a lot of extra voting. I would say with a massive increase in absentee voting we would see an increase in fraud using those ballots. More opportunity will simply mean more reason to look to do it. I would also look at the partiees over individual voters as they would have the best opportunity to do it in a way that gets the vote counts that would flip elections. It seems like the best a single person could do is double or triple their vote by grabbing someone else's ballot. An organized effort would need to be made to get a massive number of votes.
The vote by mail states are Washington, Colorado, Hawai'i, Oregon and Utah. As for the question of fraud. Here's an overview of Fearless Leader's claim that it leads to widespread fraud. I'm not even going to link to reports that show what a fraud the Kobach Commission investigation into voter frau turned out to be.
I'll give you one example of FUBAR military "absentee voting" via mail (pre internet obviously). Granted things may be better now for military stationed overseas. Anyway in the early-mid 90's in the army you had to go through your unit voting NCO to vote - you couldn't do it yourself. The unit voting NCO worked for a commissioned officer at battalion level in charge of the whole shebang. So in 1992 there was an election (no shit) and of course everyone who voted assumed the process worked as advertised. Flashforward to 1995 and as luck would have it I'm back in Korea assigned to the same unit. We're cleaning out an office and organizing things to relocate to another part of the base. Guess what's in one of the old desk drawers? Absentee votes from 1992 - shitloads of them, a whole company's worth! They never went further than whomever was the voting NCO. Maybe they sidetracked, lazy, who knows? But they never made it from point A to point B. Imagine if the officer in charge of everything had failed to follow through with all the different companies in the battalion votes - we're taking potentially hundreds of votes that never got sent forward. Here's another example - for the 2000 election when I was stationed in Germany the votes got sent (the same process of not being to do it yourself, you must go through the appointed, trained, certified experts) but they got sent way too late to make it for the election. Once again military members' votes never counted. Suffice it to say with hundreds of units in the military overseas back in the day, the situations I described were quite likely commonplace. Bottom line...there's a big gap between "theory" and "reality".
I see no inherent problem with voting by mail. Lots of people do it all the time, as absentee voting. Shouldn't be an issue, so long as there's a reasonable chain of custody of the ballots.
Somewhat similar will be the people who cannot make it to the polls, and who are too out of it to watch their own responsibilities. I am talking about a big percent of people in assisted living, or who have nurses or family who handle things like their finances or mail. It is one thing if you can understand the ballot and get it to your mailbox. There would be a huge opening for nurses and aids to fill those out, and they would have access to a number of them. The other problem is the people who are in danger of that are also the ones with no knowledge of how to check on any of that. I would say the elderly are probably the biggest weakness for potential absentee ballot fraud. Not that they should not have it, but that is where the main vulnerability is and that is where those who are going to do voter fraud are going to look for opportunities. You might also find weakness in the really young crowd as they have a huge chunk tht don't bother with voting and therefor might never know if someone else voted for them.
I remember the first time I ended up voting absentee was in college. There was a whole lot of security after you put your ballot into the outgoing mail slot in the dorm. It would sit there for hours next to all the people going in and out of that room until the mail man came. It is the same sort of security an old people's home has in their mail roomk between the time you drop your mail in and the PO guy picks up the box. Then you have to rely on the PO guy until the mail gets put into a machine. Then you have to worry about it in whatever office those things get dumped until they are opened and processed. It does not seem to be many people do anything with them, but I would not necessarily call it secure.
One really nice benefit of Vote By Mail is that there is a literal paper trail. No worrying about someone hacking a machine. If you need to recount then you’ve got all the ballots there in a pile to go through. And at least the way King County does it, you can see every step of the way. Ballot Sent, Ballot Received, Signature Verified and finally Ballot Counted.
Don't have info on the others, but for point 2 while you can never make any system perfect you can make fraud difficult and not especially effective. For Federal elections here, voters can register to vote by mail. When doing so you give information, including a security question. The ballot will only be mailed out to your registered address on the electoral roll. You answer the security question on the envelope, and a witness who is also on the electoral roll has to sign as seeing you have the blank ballot papers. You fill out the ballot as normal, seal the envelope, and post it back. Any large-scale fraud of the system would require intercepting ballots in the postal system en-masse, and having counterfeit ballot papers + envelopes to replace them with.
In WA they have a signature on file and you have to sign the back of the ballot envelope. If the signatures don’t match the ballot is held until they can reach you and verify. Ballot Chasing is when in close elections volunteers go and get their candidates’ supporters to check their ballot status and if there is an issue to talk to Elections and get the ballot released.
It would actually be a lot better than voting in person. Florida mails out an imitation ballot with all the issues so you can take your time and read up on everything before you vote. It is a fucking book. If you could just vote on it then instead of carrying it to wait on line for hours it would be nice. I bet a lot more people would vote if they did not have to stand for hours in line waiting.
that hours in line waiting thing blows my mind. There are at least three polling stations less than 1/8 mile to me. I don't think it's ever taken more than half an hour to do. Also, employers are required to give you a half day off with pay... even though you can usually vote at a couple of advance poll times/days, and till 9pm.
Ohio does the same thing. I used to vote in person, but vote by mail is so simple, and I have time to make my choices and read up on issues I didn't hear about that are on the ballot, I much prefer it.
It is purely a republican ploy to make voting more annoying for democrats. Republicans live in more rural and low population suburban areas. There are no lines in those areas, and employers often give time off to vote. The more densely populated areas always shift blue and have tons more people. A rural town hall can easily handle the townies from republican areas. The government offices in urban and high density suburban areas cannot handle everyone in one or two days. They specifically limit these areas voting locations. The lines are created by scarcity of places to vote, and our system requires you to go to certain locations because records. With modern record keeping and databases we should be able to vote in any place in the state, and they should be able to set up temporary stations with secure database connections for urban areas. It is rigging the system. There is no other term for it. They realized where most dems vote and that those areas are crowded and you can create massive lines and discourage people in dem districts. Donald Trumpo actually spoke the truth for once when he admitted if we got more people to vote republicans would never win another election (federally).
As you can probably expect, I have voted by mail a lot more often than in person. I have no way of knowing if my vote is counted, since for all I know someone might open it, say "Welll, he sure voted wrong!" and throw it away. But then, I have no proof that doesn't happen when I vote in person, either. What I do know is that no experts and no serious studies have ever indicated that there is a meaningful amount of voter fraud (meaning: enough to swing elections) in the US. One of the two most damaging aspects of the Trump presidency is to have undermined people's faith in democracy. (The other is his attack on the free press.) But since my confidence in PINO is about on a par with my confidence in e-mails from Nigeria informing me how much money those kind and rich Africans want to give me, I continue to believe that voting by mail or in person are both extremely safe methods, but that voting by mail has a huge number of practical advantages.
newsflash Anc - King County Washington apparently has their shit together, but much of the rest of the country? Not so much! About all you can guarantee in Anytown U.S.A. is "ballot sent" as in you put it in your outgoing mail. Once you realize that it never got any further (or maybe partially through the process) good luck getting a straight answer in enough time for the election. My point being if the same people who fucked up mailing your ballot are in charge of investigating why your ballot didn't make it to point B (obviously more difficult than just delivering the mail) do you expect a positive outcome? With a lot of luck once the election is over and it's too late, you'll get a statement saying "we found out where your ballot went and retraining will be conducted" or something to that effect.
^ Does it really matter where your vote goes, if the man in charge is claiming total authority anyway......
yes I heard about this on the news. Not the time to be acting like this. Yes, it's his personality, but this is not the time to lose focus.
Dont worry, @Zombie will be along shortly to let you know you have morphed into a raving leftist and importantly, his man didn't mean what he actually said.......
are you saying someone should shoot the president? That would be really bad over just some tweets. America is stronger than that and you might need to calm down.
Perhaps you should explain what you mean? I think you will agree we do not think the same way so enlighten me how the second amendment comes into play. There is some sort of noise I just heard like a drop of water.
George Mason: “When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.”. . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” “That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free state.” Richard Henry Lee: “A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms… The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle.” James Madison, in The Federalist #46: The Constitution preserves “the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” Also James Madison: “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” “As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms.” Noah Webster: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power.” Now, I can go right on quoting the founders as to why the Second Amendment applies when an organ of government tries to exert unilateral powers not enumerated in the Constitution, but I sense a great dissonance forming in the minds of those who want to give government ever greater powers as they behold the results of that actually happening when that government is run by someone they dislike. TL; DR: Be careful what you wish for. You're likely to get it, good and hard. Edit: Hey @Ancalagon, remember that oath you took when you joined the Army? Remember the "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" bit? Yeah, about that . . .
