Do you think mail-in ballots are fraudulent?

Question

emeraldsaphire · Accepted Answer

There are many problems with mail in voting. One big problem is that there is no chain of custody. You don't know who handles them at any given time. This can lead to ballots getting lost or tampered with, and there is no way of knowing if Its even happening. Lets say there is a zip code that leans super one way or another. An unscrupulous postal worker could easily throw it out if that zip code votes against there interests. Unless individual voters double check, we would never know if this fraud even happened.

A second problem is "ballot harvesting" Its common for political groups to go into districts that swing super far in their direction and then bully residents to vote for their candidates. With in person balloting you have to convince a person to come to the poll station, which is not easy, groups will often rent busses and come around right after most people get home from work. Volunteers also have a tight time limit. Even with early voting they may only have a week to "get out the vote. With mail in voting they no longer need to convince you to come to the voting place, and you go from having a week to harvest to having potentially months. Ballot harvesters can also offer to fill out the form for you and drop them off for you as well. Many will choose to do this just to get them out of their hair.

In general elections are very dirty and you could write many books on unethical campaign tactics. Well adding mail in voting can help improve access to elections, it also creates many vectors for fraud and unethical campaigning tactics. I suppose the question is; is the increase in accessibly worth the increase risk of fraud and election scumerry

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Of course not, but don't ask me. Ask Trump, who votes by mail in all Florida elections.

RavVid · Accepted Answer

It is prone to fraud if there are not processes around it.

You need good voter rolls for a start so illegitimate voters can't request a postal ballot. Your address must match your enrolled address otherwise you can't vote.

We run a pretty tight ship in Australian. I like to joke we got democracy in a box with the instructions shrink wrapped on. Consequently we focused more on the details to ensure integrity in elections. A lot of things that are taken for granted now in most countries first came about in Australian. Like secret ballot for example

There is nearly 100% enrollment. When someone gains citizenship they are enrolled automatically, when a kid turns 18 they are auto enrolled. The Federal role is primary. I can't change states and cast two ballots.

I can potentially request and complete a postal vote and vote in person as I can swear it wasn't me that voted by post. I am still allowed to vote but by a different path that allows cross checks. There is good reason to count postal votes last to enable cross checks.

An apparent two votes by one person will be investigated and there will be quite severe penalties if I vote twice.

It is not a problem to us to invalidate an election and re-hold it. Anybody can go to the Court of Disputed Returns and if there has been fraud a new election is ordered. Voter fraud is a serious criminal offense and any alleged instance is investigate by police.

That is about as tight as you can get and it is quite adequate. The US does seem to have some flaws.

AviatorTom · Accepted Answer

Mail-in ballots can be fraudulent, and require much more processing than in-person voting to determine the mail-in ballot is legitimate, the only vote of the person reportedly voting via mail-in ballot.

To ensure the security of voting, I suggest in-person voting, with the only exception being a voter requesting an absentee ballot with a valid excuse. I also dislike early voting, for a variety of reasons, including that news media releases how many people vote early each day of early voting within each district, which gives people an early understanding of what groups of people are voting and who they are probably voting for.

I grew up in an era where early voting did not exist, and people voted in-person on election day. There were rarely any claims of fraud.

More recently, steps have been taken to make voting easier. There is no law that requires voting be easy. If a citizen takes their civic responsibility seriously, they can, and will, find time to vote on election day.

Anonymous · Answer

To put it to you straight, mail in ballots have always been around and the only time it was thought to be fraudulent was 2020.

Absentee voting is as old as The Civil War , imagine you are far from home and can’t vote at a polling place on paper so you have a mail man carry your ballot back home so, your vote counts in the election.

There is a ‘myth’ being pushed that doing away with the machines will make elections figured out on election night, well 2024 did we learn the winner election night? Yes, then why would we fight for change with a system that works? Because some people say otherwise.

The local non partisan volunteers count the will of the voters , insert them into the machines , manually check each one , make sure the votes were cast by legal authorized citizens and make sure there are no errors then submit it for the statewide election count. All states run theirs differently and within their right, though it is collected in a similar fashion which tallies up. It is the same system we’ve been running for decades. Same system for decades.

The machines can have errors and malfunctions, though the narrative is “without this, we will have election results in a day not weeks and months” which is not true since the computers upload the results and findings to state servers. If we didn’t do this, then each local election office would have to submit their results by hand instead of instantaneous machine technology. This will create further distrust for the system.

I would like a solution that 1) Mail in ballots are allowed especially to veterans overseas and disabled who can’t leave their homes or vulnerable to a possible disease outbreak 2) Computer systems are utilized ONLY for uploading the paper results 3) We cast ballots on paper

Lliam · Answer

Not necessarily. My wife and I mailed in our ballots for years. We were registered to receive them in the mail. It was convenient.

The Democrats fucked that up when they started mailing ballots to everybody without checking the people's status. Ballots were mailed to people who were deceased, illegal aliens, people who no longer lived in the state or district. Under that mess, some people voted multiple times. Ballots were counted without being vetted properly.

Then Democrats engaged in ballot stuffing.

I even discovered that there were codes on some ballot envelopes that indicated Democrat or Republican and some ballots that were mailed got tossed out.

So my wife and I started going to voting stations to cast our ballots in 2020.

I think the problem could be fixed if ineligible were removed from the system and if eligibility was further verified once the ballots were received. Also, people who cheat should receive very stiff penalties.

NaultD · Answer

There a small percentage of people who fuck up paper work within a margin of error. It's less then 1% i believe. There's a saying "perfection is the enemy of good."

There's reason why others can't have nice things. WE are doing anything and everything to have nice things. LETS have nice things. We've earned it and doing right by it I WANT NICE THINGS PLEACE.

this thought exercise is helping me why I'm such a hardcore leftist. We are the richest country to ever exist let's have nice things.

ProbablyClueless · Answer

No. I think they're probably fairly safe from fraud with modern technology.

That said, I think there's considerable value in making people actually drive to polling locations to vote. It makes you take the decision more seriously. I want serious voters

dragoblack · Answer

No, because that is how overseas usa military and overseas USA citizens vote, and how those who are too busy working to earn a paycheck are able to vote. To get rid of it would mean stripping those people of their right to vote which is illegal as hell for any politician to do

Pohjolan · Answer

Really depends on how its organised.

In some countries you have to put the ballot into a mail envelope while witnessed by official who stamps the envelope and later the ballots are transported in sealed watertight containers separate from other mail.

exitseven · Answer

let's see, thousands of ballots mailed to places where nobody requested them, then somebody fills it out and mails it back with no way to check who really was the person that filled it out and then it goes into a ballot box and there is no way to tell which is real and which may be fake.

What could go wrong?

Anonymous · Answer

Hell no! Another lie perpetrated by the petulant child in the WH! Have you noticed that since he won, all of a sudden fraud is not even discussed? There's a strong odor of authoritarianism here. Notice how GOPers are working on allowing him another term... along with midterm redistricting to blatantly prevent any opposition?

Jackblue · Answer

Mail in ballots ruin the purpose of secret ballots. What if a woman sees how her boyfriend votes and then doesn't feel like having sex with him or vice versa a man sees how his girlfriend votes and suddenly says he needs to work when they had planned an evening at a fancy restaurant together?

OneViewpoint · Answer

No I think MAGA morons are fake people. A sub-human primate species. Capable only of shit fights.

DryGermanGuy · Answer

Of course not. And they have never been a problem in German elections.

DrPepper12 · Answer

No right thinking person does. I even heard MAGAs say that military personnel serving overseas should not be allowed to vote for fear of fraud. Read that again.

noohair · Answer

All voting should be in person, Unless you are physically unable to go to the polls to vote, This is not getting food from uber eats. It is about trillions of dollars.

Anonymous · Answer

Are they always? Of course not. Can some be? Yes, I think so.

FreyaRed · Answer

In countries that don't require an ID for voting and don't have any voter ID database, it's very likely this system weakness will be abused.

Twalli · Answer

No. The MAGA argument that it is because they can get off work and go vote easily. Not everyone can and most that can't are unlikely to vote red.

Sal_Monella · Answer

I think mail in ballots must be carefully regulated. The technology exists.

frysauce · Answer

Inanimate objects are not fraudulent, but humans are. No one is against absentee ballots because you have to request one. You don't request a mail-in ballot, they're dumped in Mass on the population. I got five of them last year.

Snakeyes7 · Answer

On it's own, no but it is incredibly vulnerable to physical interference.

DCVsMarvel2 · Answer

If you are republican, you'll think they are That's what trump wants you to think

zagor · Answer

As opposed to walk-in voting, where you can go in and claim to be your neighbor who you know is drunk at home and never votes?

seeyounexttuesday · Answer

they are certainly less secure than in-person voting.

Alex-Snow · Answer

Not at all. Another idiot idea from Trump

Anonymous · Answer

Not at all. Why do think they are?

slatyb · Answer

No, they are not.

jazzy34 · Answer

They aren’t.

Anonymous · Answer

I have no idea.

BarryLiverstone · Answer

Some

Dongie · Answer

They can be so...

Kingofkings1992 · Answer

Obviously.

Do you think mail-in ballots are fraudulent?

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