One shouldn’t extrapolate big claims from small instances, but the story does illustrate both the reality of voter fraud and the unique vulnerability of mail-in ballotting.
1 in 5 Ballots Rejected as Fraud Is Charged in N.J. Mail-In Election
Published
From what I can tell, the irregularities were discovered by inspecting the ballots and signatures. So what is the issue?
In the last weeks and months there have been elections. The real travesty is that not enough polling places to handle turnouts seem to be happening.
I think Louisville had one polling place for 1/2 million people. Wisconsin had 5 in the city of Milwaukee. Voting problems in Georgia were almost all in minority districts.
So mail in seems to be almost a better way to go. With safeguards, of course.
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RE: “From what I can tell, the irregularities were discovered by inspecting the ballots and signatures. So what is the issue?”
Is that a serious question?
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Well, if the safeguards work to detect voter fraud, what more do we want.
If the virus is still around in November, not using mail in ballots will be a travesty.
Se can’t get enough poll workers to provide polling places, what are the solutions?
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For another take on the same election in NJ.
“The first is that the rejected ballots do not necessarily demonstrate proved fraud. Trump touts the idea that this 19 percent of ballots was evidence of fraud, though that’s not demonstrably the case. Some of those involved in the issue argue, in fact, that the high rejection rate is a function of the intense focus on rooting out any possibly fraudulent ballots. One candidate, for example, claims to have identified 100 people whose ballots were rejected for “bearer” problems but who say they submitted the ballots themselves, perhaps because they were mailed from mailboxes also used in apparent harvesting operations.
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That’s the second point: the rejected ballots are evidence, if anything, that fraud is detectable.
About a thousand of the ballots were tossed because of mismatched signatures. Last week, we spoke to an expert on forgery who pointed out how hard that part of any fraud attempt would be to successfully execute, particularly without any existing examples of a voter’s signature.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/29/what-alleged-voter-fraud-paterson-nj-tells-us-about-november-and-what-it-doesnt/
In my opinion, Trump is laying the groundwork for declaring a fraudulent election in November. If he loses, he will rant and rave about rigging. If he wins, he will ignore the issue. Or he could rant and rave about voter fraud because he didn’t get every friggin’ vote like good little autocrats do in “s#$thole countries”.
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Interesting to note is the denial by ignoring of the fraud that occurred in NC-9. But that fraud is OK because it was FOR the GOP. Every time that tidbit gets mentioned, the “conservatives” here find something else to nitpick about.
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The system to determine if fraud occurred worked. Lo and behold, the fraudulent ballots were not counted. There is no issue if the system to root out fraud does just that.
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No doubt the fraudsters have learned their lesson and will cheat more effectively in the future.
It’s one thing to carefully inspect 16K ballots for fraud, but inspecting 140million ballots that carefully?
A mail in statewide election would be impossible to check effectively, and there would be endless lawsuits over the fairness of the checkers.
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“… inspecting 140million ballots that carefully?”
We have thousands of voting districts nationwide, more than enough people to verify ballots in a timely fashion.
Lawsuits? Of course, it is the American way. But think of the national long drawn out suits if the rest of the states followed Wisconsin, Kentucky, Georgia, and go the routes they just did. And these were not big turnouts for primaries.
One polling place for 1/2 million people in Louisville.
5 out of 180 polling places in Milwaukee.
Shortage of polling places and staff primarily in minority districts.
Without mailing ballots, the election would be a farce and fraught with lawsuits.
States that have been doing mail-in for years are going to be fine. It is the states trying this out that don’t have enough time to iron out and prepare for new systems.
Besides, we ALL want big turnouts, don’t we? A sign that our system is alive and well.
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…”we ALL want big turnouts, don’t we?”
To refer back to an earlier post of yours, Len, only of the RIGHT voters.
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“Besides, we ALL want big turnouts”
Not me. I want the location of the polling place kept secret and located at the end of a string of clues starting with one left at the previous election site.
We have had enough of elections determined by those either too stupid or too lazy to make a little effort to get there.
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“We have had enough of elections determined by those either too stupid “…
November 2017 comes to mind.
Power to the people, but only the right people? Is that the Libertarian way now?
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I didn’t say anything about selecting the voters, I said that it should be limited to those willing to make an effort.
What you’re going to get with mail in elections is community organizers showing up in select locations with a pre-filled in ballot and $10 for a signature.
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That is why I wrote “ALL” in caps. I thought you might shout “OBJECTION”.
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Well people stood in line for 6 hours in some places.
That is inexcusable no matter who you are rooting for. Especially in a pandemic.
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I agree that kind of wait is inexcusable. Everyone who succeeds in finding the polling place should be able to vote efficiently.
But my scavenger hunt method should reduce the number getting to the polls enough to alleviate the wait. 🙂
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While you scavenger hunt is kind of fun to consider, why add time to those going to the polls to have to FIND the damned things first? It’s hard enough for some people to get ample time to get to the polls when they have jobs, child care and other life “things” to consider.
At least VA has made Election Day a holiday now. SO maybe your little game could work. I still prefer the idea of people being able to vote when they are civic minded citizens exercising their right to do so. WITHOUT interference or impediments. Kind of like, oh, I don’t know, buying a hand gun?
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Buying an handgun requires photo ID and a criminal background check, as well as a document signed and subject to prosecution for perjury that you are not a user of proscribed drugs, a member of a subversive organization, or under treatment for mental illness.
That would be great for voting.
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Proof that a gun is a lethal weapon and a vote is not. Hmmmm.
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I would assert that stupid votes have done more harm than handguns in the US
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A stupid vote has never been used to shoot a cop. Or kill a varmint. Or shoot a black man in the back.
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I could have said something about 63 million stupid votes in 2016, but I didn’t want to make it about Trump. 😉😘
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“A mail in statewide election would be impossible to check effectively, and there would be endless lawsuits over the fairness of the checkers.”
Your lack of faith is noted. With proper planning and training, it is actually rather simple to make this change. But because people such as yourself are determined to keep voter turnout low, people will fight tooth and nail for something that is just not worth fighting over. Better turnout means a more representative form of government. With the historically low turnout in Chesapeake City elections, I thought maybe you would feel differently about doing something to improve voter participation.
But 15 states already allow the kind of absentee and mail-in balloting being discussed. No reports of fraud and no problems with lawsuits over the fairness of the checkers.
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Some of it seems to be federal crimes, i.e., mailbox theft, sloppy usps carriers, i.e., throwing ballots on lobby floors, and possibly misunderstanding the usps handling, i.e., bundling mail for delivery. This last wasn’t clear as to wear the bundles were discovered.
But, we KNOW there are opportunity fraud thanks to NC9.
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