How Mail-in Voting Works

Every state has different election processes, but for sake of argument lets pretend like what you have presented in Colorado were the rules in every state.

This country has somewhere around 185 million registered voters, and somewhere around 135 million expected to vote. What you are proposing would specifically mean that there are 50 million ballots floating around that are not being legally cast. What could possibly go wrong with 50 million extraneous ballots?...hmmm.

When I was in college, there was an urban legend where a college student at a large university was taking his final exam in one of those classes that have 500 students. At the end of the exam, he brazenly stood up and started blatantly copying the answers from the person in front of him with no attempt to hide it whatsoever. When he went to the front of the class to turn in his exam, the professor said "You were cheating and are going to fail the exam", to which the student responded defiantly "don't you know who I am?". When the professor said no, the student exclaimed "good!", and then proceeded to thrust his exam into the middle of the pile as he walked out of the class forever. In that instance, the professor would have no way of knowing which test was his, and he would end up getting his test counted despite the fact that he cheated.

The point being that a ballot does not have a name on it. It does not have a signature. So even if we are going to pretend like poll workers would be capable of legitimately accurately verifying 135 million signatures on envelopes ( which is a huge assumption indeed), the potential for massive fraud exists by virtue of those nameless, faceless ballots and the possibility that someone, somewhere might be able to bypass the envelope opening process and somehow introduce them into the pile of ballots much like the college student in my example. Polling locations are not Fort Knox. It is not all that difficult to imagine a scenario where someone could bypass the envelope verification process and introduce those extraneous ballots into the "pile". If you look back to Florida in 2000 where a few hundred votes literally determined who won the presidency, if there were an extra 5 million nameless Florida ballots floating around that were not legally cast, what are the odds in your estimation that some of those would end up in the "pile"? In my estimation that would be a virtual certainty, and the only question is how many.

The eventual winner in that scenario would be the best cheater, and the end result would be a constitutional crisis of EPIC proportions.

 

LOL. You think the radical partisan extremists around us, who are quite literally engaged in mob action and attempted murder on police care?

Par for the course in lefties extremism land.

 

This thread addresses the "MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD" that Trump keeps whining about.

You and others here are nitpicking at a few ways to submit a single fraudulent ballot. Please refer to the second link in the OP from the Heritage Foundation and try to find any instances in any state of massive fraud attempts with mail-in ballots.

 

I say send it

And I'm sorry for your loss.

 

It’s not about one ballot. It’s about the fact signature verification is not required so literally ANYONE can take the ballot and sign it and send it in.

 

Who will forge those 50 million sugnatures?

Why would that college orofessor not already know the cheater's name? Not much of a teacher is he or she doesn't know who their students are by the time finsl exams come along.

As with others here, I refer you to the second link in the OP. Please find any instance of massive mail-in voter fraud.

 

That’s disingenuous at best given this will be the first time MILLIONS of people send in mail in ballots.

 

If it can be done on a small scale, it can be done on a massive scale.

There is one very basic problem with finding evidence. We have a secret ballot. The only way to be absolutely sure there is no voter fraud would be for every voter to verify that his vote was counted the way he intended it. That is obviously impossible.

You have faith in the system. I have faith in the people who try to defraud the system. Every day, crooks find new and inventive ways to scam you over the telephone and internet and every once in a while we find out that someone pulled it off.

It all goes back to the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid. When you keep adding more and more people to the process and thus more and more opportunities for scam and mistakes, you are violating that very simple principle.

 

-You missed the part where I said bypassed the envelope opening process. Nobody would need to forge a signature. They only would need to introduce the nameless ballots into the pile at any point AFTER the envelope opening process. Since polling locations are NOT Fort Knox, it is not difficult to envision a scenario where that could easily happen. Additionally, this would not require 50 million slipped into the pile. In the scenario I presented it would only require a few hundred.

-In large universities, many classes have 500 plus students, and the professors never know the overwhelming majority of student's names.

-If you show me instances where there are 50 million unused ballots floating around, then you may have a point about there not being any precedent to prove such an assertion. Similarly, I could correctly assert that I have no proof that leaving a hundred dollar bill on my windshield wiper in a mall parking lot will result in it likely being stolen. Common sense tells you that would be an unwise decision if your goal was to retain that hundred dollar bill. Sometimes common sense should be used to avoid a problem BEFORE it happens.

 

Thank you. The article isn't very clear, but I think I understand the argument. I'm not sure how "one witness" is defined. I first read it as meaning someone other than the one processing the ballot, but it could mean one person only. Here's what I find incredible from that argument:

Brinson Bell justifies stripping away signature verification by stating that “voter’s identity is completed through the witness requirement.” While the witness requirement is an important tool in helping to prevent or investigate absentee ballot fraud, recent legislation reducing the witness requirement to one for the 2020 general election means that a single political operative who gains possession of a ballot is free to complete the ballot container envelope, complete the witness section, and forge the voter’s signature. Thanks to Brinson Bell’s order, the forged signature does not even have to be a reasonable approximation of that of the voter.

This follows the arguments I've seen here, the one you're making and that from the president. It's a hypothetical argument. Hypotheticals can only be examined using probability, likelihood. Let's look at this:

a single political operative who gains possession of a ballot

How would anyone other than the addressee gain possession of a ballot? Who and how many would be involved in illegally gaining possession of ballots? What are the risks and what is the likelihood of getting caught? In other words, using my answer to your other post, who and why would people risk "five years in the pen" (or whatever the penalty is) to falsify ballots?

We can go over those questions if you want, but if you think about it realistically; if it were so easy to steal from the post office (or any other delivery service), lots of people would be missing lots of checks and credit cards, and expensive laptops would be exiting the FedEx truck before reaching their destiny. It just doesn't happen. We have empirical evidence for that. (Not to say theft doesn't occur, but it is rare and dealt with swiftly.)

The argument isn't credible. While it is certainly true theoretically, the likelihood of this happening on a massive scale is barely above impossible.

 

This is a "spin" opinion blog post that, itself, cites no sources. Do you have an actual source? You could be correct, but this link hardly established anything.

 

False. We're not talking about manufacturing, we're talking about voter fraud. You have the converse of the truth, which is this: With just about everything illegal, what can't be done on a massive scale, can be done on a smaller scale.

People are getting caught. Going to jail, probably. How on earth could a campaign involving millions of fraudulent ballots go undetected, and why would anyone in his right mind choose to participate in such a suicidal enterprise?

 

We're dealing with people who are trying to argue that the fact that there is no evidence of their claims is somehow evidence itself that their claims are true. We've entered . . . the Twilight Zone.

 

Those were just words saying it can't be done. Now prove to me that some scam artist will be unable to pull it off on a massive scale. That KISS principle applies all man's endeavors. The more complicated you make it, the more likely that something will go wrong.

 

Based on that logic, we must assume that voting is inaccurate. No votes should count! You can't prove they aren't fraudulent, so we have to cancel the election, right?

 

How imaginative.
- You vote in person the day after you send in your ballot.
- You arrange for ballots from strong (D) or (R) precincts to inexplicably disappear
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mail-absentee-ballots-found-wisconsin-ditch
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-a-ditch-in-wisconsin/ar-BB19mhqr?li=BB141NW3
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/8897...nds-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness
Et al.

Give men another 2.2653 seconds and I can think of more ways than what you suggest.

 

You reduce the odds of it going wrong. The most fool proof way is the say we do it. I go to the voting machine. I pick my candidates. I review my candidates. I hit the vote button and and a written record of my vote is rolled up into the voting machine. I can actually see my vote go into the machine.

Is it possible that someone could still hijack my vote? Absolutely, but I have reduced the odds of that happening by at least a magnitude over mail in voting.

 

Your entire argument about mail-in voting being prone to fraud was that it was CAPABLE of fraud. But you shift the goalposts as soon as it comes to in-person voting. If it is possible that someone could still hijack your vote, as you admit, then we have to put it in the same category as mail-in voting.

If counting those who were caught were a reasonable measure of fraud for in-person voting, then doing the same for mail-in voting would also be a reasonable measure . . . making it virtually non-existent. You are trying to change the rules: you want those who were caught to be a measure of the fraud in in-person voting, but you don't want the same measure used for mail-in voting. Why?

 

Uh..."words saying it can't be done" is called an argument. Got a rebuttal?

Some scam artist? Are you joking or giving up? I just proved it. That you refuse to accept reality is on you. I can't help that.

"The more complicated you make it" is the equivalence of "massive." You contradict your argument here.

 

Sigh . . .

Again, this thread in no way implies that it is impossible to commit fraud with mail-in ballots, just that it isn't easy enough to ever have constituted what Trump kerps calling "massive voter fraud." See the second link in the OP.

 

You're urging someone to commit a federal felony. Is that really how you roll?

 

You're talking about a system in one state, and even that state has a good process, even if they do allow a witness to verify.

 

How is it disingenuous? It's a logical question... how would anyone make use of those 50 million ballots?

The ballot verification process is the same whether one applies for absentee status or the whole state votes by mail. It may take a little longer to tally votes, that's the only difference.

And fyi, in 2016 and 2018, about 33% of voters voted by mail. That is "MILLIONS of people."

 

Thats a lot of steps. When my ballot goes from my hand to the scanner, it doesn't end up in a dumpster and is not subject to someones opinion on how close my signature is to the example from years ago.

 

How? Please tell me how one could commit large scale fraud in any state. Please provide links to prove your claim.