The False Narrative of Vote-by-Mail Fraud
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If we are to have safe, healthy, and fair elections this year in the face one of the worst pandemics in a century, Americans must make widespread use of mail ballots. Election administrators and other leaders from across the political spectrum have urged support to make the necessary adjustments to their election infrastructure. They recognize we have no choice. Most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, agree .
President Trump and his allies, however, are pushing back against this option, raising spurious claims that fraudulent mail ballots will contaminate the election. “I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,” Trump said earlier this week. “Mail in voting is a terrible thing. . . . I think if you vote, you should go,” he later added , not long after he requested a vote-by-mail ballot for the Florida primary. Shortly afterward, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel echoed the president in a Fox News op-ed. (This is in sharp contrast to former chairman Michael Steele, who coauthored an op-ed arguing that “the current emergency demands expanded use of vote-by-mail,” and that “democracy depends on it.”)
Trump’s claims are wrong, and if used to prevent states from taking the steps needed to ensure public safety during November’s election, they will be deadly wrong. Mail ballot fraud is incredibly rare, and legitimate security concerns can be easily addressed.
Mail balloting is not a newfangled idea; it was already deeply embedded in the American electoral system before the coronavirus hit. In the last two federal elections, roughly one out of every four Americans cast a mail ballot . In five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington — mail balloting has been the primary method of voting. In 28 additional states, all voters have had the right to vote by mail ballot if they choose, without having to provide any reason or excuse. Over time, a growing number of voters have chosen that option. Since 2000 more than 250 million votes have been cast via mailed-out ballots, in all 50 states, according to the Vote at Home Institute. In 2018, more than 31 million Americans cast their ballots by mail, about 25.8 percent of election participants.
Despite this dramatic increase in mail voting over time, fraud rates remain infinitesimally small. None of the five states that hold their elections primarily by mail has had any voter fraud scandals since making that change. As the New York Times editorial board notes , “states that use vote-by-mail have encountered essentially zero fraud: Oregon, the pioneer in this area, has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000, and has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud.” Rounded to the seventh decimal point, that’s 0.0000001 percent of all votes cast. An exhaustive investigative journalism analysis of all known voter fraud cases identified only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012. As election law professor Richard L. Hasen notes , during that period “literally billions of votes were cast.” While mail ballots are more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting, it is still more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than to commit mail voting fraud.
but, but, Trump said we shouldn't ...
all while HE DID. He was "too busy" to fly down and vote like the carpetbagger he is, but if it were a fckn pep rally, he would have been there in NY Crack addict minute!
How many times did he fly to Florida \, costing US ALL MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS, yet he was too "busy" to VOTE
.
just another lame attempt to suppress the damn VOTE
That my friend, is EXACTLY what this is about.
In 2016, in-person voter fraud made up 0.00002 percent of all votes in North Carolina
The state’s voter ID law caused protests and court battles — essentially for one vote out of nearly 4.8 million.
There will always be a tiny number of cases treated as fraud for in person voting or any other form of voting.
Nothing in this world passes the purity test if people are involved.
I have been voting by mail for years and I trust voting by mail far more than the modern voting machines and paper ballots, both of which have issues that make them less than fail proof.
I saw with my own eyes when the voting machines first came out how the votes were changed right before my eyes to a vote not of my doing, nor my choice, with no way to correct it to my actual voting choice.
Then there was the year when there were all the hanging chads on the punch voting cards that caused errant readings and the uproar they caused for both parties, and delayed certification of the Presidential winner for several days while all the hanging chads were being recounted.
In todays world there is no reason why there is not as fool proof means of voting to stop all the political cries of foul and accusations of voter fraud by one party or the other.
So being as there is no current fool proof means of voting at this point in time, then mail voting leaves no more room for foul play than any other means. It simply gives one side or the other bitching room and accusations of fraud and foul play.
But, there really is no sure means of voting to insure no foul play.
tRump said it himself, republicans lose when all are able to vote, when mail in voting is done.
Historically, republicans do poorly when there is a high voter turnout, that's not a secret and trump said it himself, "If we allow voting by mail, no republican will ever win the presidency again". He's right, which proves that republicans know they cannot win a fair election, that's why they so eagerly embrace gerrymandering and voter suppression.
My state has been voting by mail for decades, zero problems and fraud is almost unheard of. With voting by mail, gerrymandering and voter suppression doesn't work, everyone has an equal opportunity to vote, that's why republicans don't want it.
I'm not sure I agree that is true. I think it is however likely that in this upcoming election, that it would be true.
Just mailed my ballot today.
Well done!
It looks like democrats have finally admitted that they think minorities are too stupid to get IDs and make it to a brick and mortar voting location.
I wonder if they will supply the ballots with the D already checked and a postage paid envelope (Pelosi already suggested the postage paid envelope) and tell the minority to just sign it and they will take care of the rest.
Broward and Palm Beach Counties Florida are prime examples of fraud when when a D is your supervisor of elections.
"Numbers reported by Snipes began fluctuating. She alleged the U.S. Postal Service had lost 58,000 absentee ballots, which was shocking in and of itself. Oddly enough, the number shifted considerably when Snipes came out again and said 6,000 ballots had disappeared. The Post Office denied all fault, and the incident devolved into a he-said-she-said between two government bodies. At one point, Snipes’ team dropped 2,400 absentee ballots off at the post office before the election, after mail carriers were reportedly gone for the day."
Probably all in the same hand writing and all had the D checked off.
This was for a governor and senator race. Wait until the Ds are able to thousandfold this type of behavior if all mail in is allowed for a Presidential race.
Thankfully, Florida dodged the drug addict Gillum as governor, or we would probably be in far worse shape with COVID.
Really?! Even the over 650,000 mail votes sent out to military personel in the last election? How about the elderly or sick too infirm to travel or wait in long lines? How about those gone on business or pleasure during election season? Are they too stupid to vote too?
So bugsy, do you believe that voter fraud is a problem in a mail-in election?
Even in your seed you said that voter mail fraud was ALMOST zero, so there is admittance of fraud.
There have been many instances where absentee ballots have gone uncounted, mainly for military, because they are known to overwhelmingly vote R over D. The excuse is they did not get sent back in time.
I never said some mail voting is not OK, however, with your examples, the number of people who really may need an absentee ballot is very small compared to the overall US population.
As I noted in my link, there is noted fraud by a D SOE with a small amount of the Palm Beach/Broward population. Think about what they can do with almost 200 million mail in ballots, especially if harvesting is allowed.
Walk into a nursing home with a bunch of already checked ballots, tell the poor lady with dementia to sign the form, and move on to the next.
Yet in your link it even admits that the number is small. There is always going to be concern for the integrity of voting; yet, that should not dissuade us from allowing as many people as wish to vote, to get to vote, even from home. The numbers are so infinitesimal as to be close to zero, and have not proved to be a significant problem, or affect on elections. also, as the article states, real security concerns can easily be addressed.
bugsy do you believe that Republicans would do better or worse in a mail-in election?
But it exists, in which Ds are trying to downplay as it is nothing. If it goes to a national, presidential level, the numbers would probably increase dramatically.
Liberals will do absolutely anything to get this President out of office, including cheat. Their hatred of this man is so complete.
Can you explain how, in California, and ballot harvesting became legal during the last midterms legal, the last 7 Republican strong holds went D.
Way too fishy...
To be honest, I think Democrats would do better with mailin, not because they are determined the better candidate, but because most Republicans believe in voter ID and showing up to a voting location. Other than the ID, Americans have been going to voting booths since the days of horse and carriage, where it sometimes took hours to days to get to it.
One political party thinks we should be so lazy that we can't figure out how to get to a voting location 10 minutes away, but have no problem getting to the nearest wal mart 30 minutes away.
So your persuasion comes not from being concerned about election credibility, but concern that Republicans will lose? As well, how is it that "Republican voters who believe in voter ID", would be dissuaded from voting in a mail-in election, and thus be overwhelmed by Democratic voters? That doesn't make any sense.
Because democrats are all in for ballot harvesting, where the chance of fraud is far higher than not allowing it.
Have you ever voted by mail? You get the ballot in your mailbox, you open it, you read the instructions, you vote, you seal the envelope and sign it with your signature, (which needs to be damn close to the signature you used when you registered to vote), then put it all in the security envelope and mail that fucker off. Literally less than 10 minutes.
All that means is volunteers pick up the votes to take them to the post office, it doesn't mean that they are voting for other people. Far less destructive than gerrymandering and voter suppression, which the right wing just LOVES.
Seems to me I heard about some republicans doing that in North Carolina in the 2018 elections.....
I could be wrong
I know what it is SUPPOSED to mean, but the urge to fill out a bunch of ballots they way you want them to read could be too overwhelming to overcome...especially if you hate Trump as many on here do.
I really don't get it. A statistically negligible voting issue requires a massive response disenfranchising specially targeted groups of Americans for one Constitutional right, but the killing of a few school children by nut bags with a weapons for mass killing is just the price we pay for liberty?
Well, that was dumb...
Dude, Republicans are caught cheating elections as well, not just Democrats.
Pretty much what I said. Some people have some stupid screwed up priorities.
Great point, hadn't thought of that.
How can you register to vote without a SSN#? You can't. Try again.
A social security number is not required to register to vote.
What state requires it?
Can you name a single state that requires a SSN to register to vote? One?
First, no one is saying that except you and others who are trying to defend the blatantly discriminatory voter ID laws that were specifically designed to disenfranchise eligible American voters. North Carolina Republican legislators gathered data on voting patterns by race and, with that data in hand, drafted a law that did specifically "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision," the court found. So your lame excuse of saying that those who oppose such discriminatory laws think anyone is "too stupid" is nothing but a sad moronic lie.
Second, the constitution doesn't care if you're the laziest person on the planet, as an American citizen you still have a right to vote. So If I want to laze around all day and never get a license and never go anywhere and I want to live a hundred miles from a polling booth but I still want to vote, then I should still be able to regardless of what some witless partisan idiots believe, it should not be they who get to determine who is eligible to vote.
There has been almost no voter fraud found when mail in ballots are used, thus the only reason anyone would be against it would be that they want to keep some Americans from voting so they can have better odds of electing unpopular candidates who only the conservative minority support. They know they can't win when more Americans vote so they scheme, lie and cheat which proves they do not care about our nation or our constitution, they only care about their own sorry miserable lives.
especially in these times,
people SHOULD NOT NEED TO RISK THEIR LIVES TO REMOVE
THE CURRENT RISK TO THEIR LIVES IN OUR WHITE HOUSE
Talk about risk assessment on steroids!
Why if they can do it from home? Why risk infecting people with a virus?
No but it does say voting is a constitutional right. Are you opposed to everyone that has a legal right to vote, voting? Voting by mail would mean MUCH higher turnouts. Why exactly would you oppose that?
No...my post stands. Democrats think minorities are too stupid to get an ID or find their precinct site.
You even said "there is almost no fraud", so you admit there is fraud. Every voting cycle there are arrests and convictions for voting fraud in this country.
Voting fraud would probably increase dramatically if mail in is allowed in a presidential election, especially this one, because the hatred of Trump is so complete.
My personal opinion is that election day should be a national holiday, as liberals have been pushing for a long time. However, the trade off is that unless you have a letter from a doctor saying you are too ill go vote in person, you carry your lazy ass to your voting precinct......with your ID in hand
If you do have a letter, then a copy of that letter should be included in your mail in vote.
They just can't seem to understand that point that THEY make.
There is always going to be some fraud in the voting system, people are after all people. But there is so little of it that I think we spend more time talking about it than it really deserves.
I've been voting by mail for many years now, Arizona allows that for a great many reasons and it's very easy to set up thru the DMV site which is also the same site where you register for voting in the first place. As it's the same system to register to vote as well as request mail-in ballots, the risk of fraud is about the same as having to vote in person so this is not a large issue in my mind, at least in my state. So I have no problems with all states setting up mail in voting. Where I have the problem is that people are pushing for the federal government to fix the issue and it's not a federal government problem. Managing the voting is delegated to the states, they need to set up a process to handle mail-in ballots.
I do not agree with ballot harvesting as has been done in CA. I have heard stories of ballots being brought in by the hundreds with no real control over who actually filled out the ballot in the first place. In Arizona if the person voting cannot bring the ballot in themselves then it can only be done by a relative or someone who also lives in the same residence. A political activist should never be in the position to collect and turn in ballots, that is definitely a bridge too far for me.
Lastly, I am not in agreement of creating a holiday for election day. There are too many holidays now and not every company will give time off for every holiday, even federal holidays. The company I work for (a very major firm that everybody would recognize) only recognizes 6 federal holidays + the day after Thanksgiving. Then we are also given 3 floating holidays. I would rather that election day be moved and held on a Friday/Saturday which while it would cost the states more money to have the polls open two days it would allow for more time for people to be able to make it in to cast their ballots. The reason why election day is on a Tuesday is from a very old reason which is no longer valid so it can be eliminated now.
Statistically the 0.02% of fraud found isn't effecting any elections. The hundreds of thousands who are specifically targeted for disenfranchisement by bigoted conservative fuck wads are where the true voter fraud exists.
This continued defense of the blatantly discriminatory voter ID laws by some truly shows their yellow cowardly bellies as they fight to overturn the actual will of the people and force their own personal conservative agenda they KNOW won't be supported by the majority by kicking tens of thousands of poor and minorities off the voting rolls through onerous ID laws and other targeted restrictions. There are many reasons why someone may not have a current valid photo ID, from unpaid parking tickets, being homeless, disabled, elderly to unpaid moving violations. It should not be for the dumb shits demanding an ID to vote to determine how many hoops voters should have to jump through or how hard they should be forced to work to cast their vote. It should not be up to some slime ball bigots who claim a fellow American is just being too lazy or too stupid and thus should not be allowed to vote from home. Those demanding more onerous voter ID laws are the true fraudsters and they know it, they just have no shame left and grossly believe the ends justify the means.
'This continued defense of the blatantly discriminatory voter ID laws by some truly shows their yellow cowardly bellies as they fight to overturn the actual will of the people and force their own personal conservative agenda they KNOW won't be supported by the majority by kicking tens of thousands of poor and minorities off the voting rolls through onerous ID laws and other targeted restrictions. There are many reasons why someone may not have a current valid photo ID, from unpaid parking tickets, being homeless, disabled, elderly to unpaid moving violations. It should not be for the dumb shits demanding an ID to vote to determine how many hoops voters should have to jump through or how hard they should be forced to work to cast their vote. It should not be up to some slime ball bigots who claim a fellow American is just being too lazy or too stupid and thus should not be allowed to vote from home. Those demanding more onerous voter ID laws are the true fraudsters and they know it, they just have no shame left and grossly believe the ends justify the means.'
So deny voting by mail because someone screwed up once? Really?
Voting is a constitutional right. It's been postage paid here for decades. Also, if you are suggesting that Pelosi wants to send out ballots with Democrats already checked, I would LOVE to see proof.
Actually in almost every state, (all if I am not mistaken), you can request a mail in ballot. You are aware that there are registered voters that are paralyzed, have debilitating diseases, (MS, ALS, to name a couple of the top of my head), that have a VERY difficult time getting to a polling place? Why would you want to deny or make more difficult their right to vote? Why not just make mail in voting for everyone and be done with it? What is the advantage of standing in line for a few hours to vote when you can do it at home, no waiting required?
The constitution also does not say anything about registering to vote online either; yet, here 200 plus years later, we see that we have to grow with the times or wither.
Other things the Constitution does not mention :
Not only that, but if someone has to wait in a long line for several hours, there's a good chance they are going to turn around and go home. I try to do the early voting because I can't get time off work to vote and the polling places are always crowded.
Nobody has a problem with the military doing mail in ballots.
Also, the vast majority of our military personnel vote by mail. Guess trump wants to fuck them over too.....again.
Once that got caught.
Ah, yes., the left tactic of trying to argue something never said.
Try again.
Read my 3.1.1 for your education.
Yup. The ones willing to lay down their lives for their country should be told to get their asses to a voting booth, or just fuck off I guess according to some of our Conservatives.
But he LOVES the military!!!!!
Granted, Mr Frost didn't say Pelosi, but I think we all know who you are implying.
Uh, yeah, this is a quote from a comment you made at 3.1.1
I said "IF" you are suggesting that... I did not say you WERE saying it.
I already addressed this with you in 3.1.1. If you want to ignore it, then you be you.
Sure do. Especially since my dad was a 30 year veteran and I am a 20 year veteran.
We all know what happens when one assumes.
Then why even bring it up?
I was talking about trmp, not you
I didn't use the word "assume" I used imply. Two different words with two different meanings. You were implying a democratic party apparatchik, not unlike Nancy Pelosi
Actually there is, states must provide reasonable accommodations for people to exercise their constitutional right to vote. That's why republicans support voter suppression, they only want certain segments of society to vote, you are proving that right now by arguing that some registered voters shouldn't be allowed to vote.
I want that too. Our state voting auditor is a republican, she said there is almost literally no voter fraud here even after decades of voting by mail. Why would you support a president that openly asked a foreign country to interfere in our elections?
You don't have a leg to stand on in opposition of voting by mail. None.
Straw man. Also, voting is a right, not a privilege.
I had a supervisor who really did tell me that he thought the only people that should be allowed to vote are land owners. Wasn't that the way it was before one of them there amendments were added on to the Constitution. I'm bad with remembering the amendments and what number they are
I know it was like that in colonial America. It was that way because women couldn't own land, which meant they couldn't vote, either. (If my memory serves me).
Over the years we have had members here on The NTer's that also felt that only land owners should have voting rights. For real.
People like that scare the bejesus out of me
Neither I or the article I quoted said anything of the sort. If you would have went to the link and researched a little, you would see that it said the same thing, you just said.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
According to a 2002 Columbia Law School study , nearly two-thirds of persons polled thought that this phrase came from the Constitution or might have been crafted by the Framers. This phrase, however, originates from Karl Marx, and was written in 1875's Critique of the Gotha Program. It is considered by many to be a brief summation of the principles of communism.
In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers requested data on various voting practices, broken down by race. They then passed laws that restricted voting and registration many ways that disproportionately affected African Americans, including cutting back on early voting. [7] [8] In a 2016 appellate court case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down a law that removed the first week of early voting. The court held that the GOP used the data they gathered to remove the first week of early voting because more African American voters voted during that week, and African American voters were more likely to vote for Democrats. [9] Between 2008 and 2012 in North Carolina, 70% of African American voters voted early. [10] After cuts to early voting, African American turnout in early voting was down by 8.7% (around 66,000 votes) in North Carolina. [11] [12]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but one article on voter suppression/gerrymandering, mentioned that it was done with practically razor like precision, cutting out all the minorities, etc., likely to vote Democratic. Just like all this nonsense about voter fraud with mail in voting, it is negligible, and it scares the gop/republicans to death!
Like a Laser-cut jigsaw puzzle.
Funny as to NOW some want to listen to Steele, but could not stand him when he held the reins.
I've voted by mail while in the military and also when I was an ex pat. I've also voted by mail while living in the US. I plan on doing it whenever it's available.
Geez that was easy.
My son is a disabled Marine (100% disability) he does not have a car so his mobility is restricted, it's either public transportation if any come close to a voting building or someone has to take him. Mail voting is a blessing for him.
Thank you Kavika; those are perfect examples.