Doug64 wrote:Heed Jimmy Carter on the Danger of Mail-In Voting ‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.’
‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That quote isn’t from President Trump, who criticized mail-in voting this week after Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to change an election at the last minute into an exclusively mail-in affair. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III....
Intimidation and vote buying were key concerns of the commission: “Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.” The report provides examples, such as the 1997 Miami mayoral election that resulted in 36 arrests for absentee-ballot fraud. The election had to be rerun, and the result was reversed.
There are more recent cases, too. In 2017 an investigation of a Dallas City Council election found some 700 fraudulent mail-in ballots signed by the same witness using a fake name. The discovery left two council races in limbo, and the fraud was much larger than the vote differential in one of those races. The case resulted in a criminal conviction.
This seems incorrect.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dal ... ns-9484686What We Know — And What We Don't — About the Ongoing Voter Fraud Investigation in West Dallas
STEPHEN YOUNG | MAY 22, 2017 | 4:00AM
One thing is clear two weeks after the 2017 Dallas City Council election: Something went wrong with absentee voting in West Dallas. While rumor and innuendo have been plentiful, very little has emerged in the way of fact, especially since many key players in the drama have clammed up because of the ongoing investigation into the potential vote fraud.
In hopes of keeping this all straight, let's take a look at what we know and what we don't about the ongoing investigation into the District 6 election.
We know that approximately 700 mail-in ballots were impounded on election day.
This is what started the whole thing. On May 4, two days before the election, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office asked Carl Ginsberg, Dallas County's 193rd District Court judge, to hold 700 or so mail-in ballots. The common thread among the ballots, which would not be counted until Thursday of the following week, was Jose Rodriguez, who helped the voters receiving the contested ballots with their mail-ballot applications.
We know that Rodriguez does not exist, at least not as Jose Rodriguez.
In its request to sequester the ballots, the district attorney's office said it believes Jose Rodriguez is a fictitious name.
We know that the county, despite the investigation into the ballots tied to Rodriguez, elected to count most of them anyway.
On Thursday, May 11, the Dallas County Elections office released its final totals for the City Council election. Between District 6 and District 2, where investigators also discovered several hundred ballots connected to Rodriguez, Dallas County added 629 votes to the various candidates involved.
We know that those ballots didn't swing any city of Dallas elections.
Adam Medrano won more than 91 percent of the vote in District 2, so that race is a moot point. District 6, while highly contested, wasn't affected by the sequestered ballots. Any way you slice the ballots in District 6, incumbent Monica Alonzo, mayor pro tem, and Dallas County Schools board member Omar Narvaez go to a runoff. If you only count ballots cast in person, Alonzo beats Narvaez by five points, winning 35 percent of the vote in a six-person field. If you count all undisputed ballots cast on Election Day, Alonzo beats Narvaez by a 39 to 27 margin.
If you count only the disputed ballots that ended up in the final totals, Alonzo wins by a nearly identical margin, 48 to 37. Even if every ballot that got tossed out — 98, according to The Dallas Morning News' Robert Wilonsky's account of a meeting of the Dallas County Election officials and members of the Dallas City Council — went for either Alonzo, Narvaez or any other candidate in the race, the outcome would've be the same.
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So, 700-629=71.
That is how many ballots were not acceptable.
And they did not affect the vote at all.
Also....
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He shows off some of the evidence he’s gathered: open records requests from a familiar name in Dallas politics, asking only for voting lists of people who’ve never before cast a vote; a name he identifies as a harvester seen all over the campaign finance report of a recent Dallas City Council victor. He names big fish, too, and their families. He’s not afraid of getting sued, he says, because he has the evidence. D Magazine is opting not to disclose the names due to the pending criminal investigation. That said, the names are not surprising.
Harris’ work has earned the scorn of those who say he’s simply a Tea Partier intent on undermining Democrats, especially Latinos. He says this theory ignores several details: one, he has gone after Republicans; two, mail-in ballots only work in low-turnout races usually found in poor majority-minority precincts; three, his unusual background.
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Since the federal election is not a low turnout race, nor is it decided in poor majority-minority precincts, it would be hard to argue that this would have a significant (or even measurable) effect on the federal election.
In a 2018 North Carolina congressional race, Republican Mark Harris edged out Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. Fortunately, the state had relatively complete absentee-ballot records. Election officials became suspicious when they discovered that the Republican received 61% of mail-in votes, even though registered Republicans accounted for only 19% of those who had requested mail-in ballots.
A Republican operative, L. McCrae Dowless Jr., had allegedly requested more than 1,200 absentee ballots on voters’ behalf and then collected the ballots from voters’ homes when they were mailed out. Mr. Dowless’s assistants testified that they were directed to forge voters’ signatures and fill in votes. A new election was required, but Mr. Harris didn’t run. Mr. Dowless faces criminal charges for absentee-ballot fraud in both the 2016 and 2018 elections and has pled not guilty.
This one is more applicable. It is actually a federal election. It is not low turnout (for US elections).
The more interesting aspect is how they caught this guy: by simply comparing the number of ballots collected through one person. Mary Rosh mentions that “the state had relatively complete absentee-ballot records”, but does not explain how this helped the investigation. Point being, that in any jurisdiction where absentee ballots are the deciding factor, and a large portion of said ballots have gone through one person or group, you can verify those votes. That would be enough to prevent this type of fraud.
It also shows that Republicans are just as likely to benefit from mail in voting as Democrats, so there is no partisan benefit. This also provides a reason for allowing mail in voting.
There seems to be no need to disenfranchise anyone who feels that in person voting is unsafe during the ongoing pandemic.