A few weeks ago, someone posted that “there is absolutely no fraud when voting by mail”. Curious. Any time someone claims an absolute number, zero in this case, I tend to be a bit skeptical.
So, I politely asked, “If there was mail fraud, how would you detect it?” The reply, “Do your own research”. Not particularly helpful. But, OK.
Since I only need to disprove that there is zero vote-by-mail fraud. This should be easy. But, let’s start with traditional voting.
My local voting precinct is an elementary school about three blocks from my house. When I vote, I walk up to a desk manned by volunteers. I give them my name and address, they look me up in a ledger, I sign my name and then I get to vote.
But, here’s the thing. My son, who has NEVER voted in California and has lived in Washington State for nearly 6 years is still on the list of qualified voters in California. His name is right next to mine. I could go back to the precinct, tell them that I was my son and vote again. And, if I knew my neighbor wasn’t going to vote, I could cast his vote as well.
They also don’t check to make sure the person voting is still alive. So, I could vote for anyone in the neighborhood that I knew had recently died.
As you can see, without me having to prove who I am, it’s really easy for me to commit voting fraud. I probably won’t do it. But I could. No one would ever know.
Now, let’s talk about mail-in-voting. I’m the only one in my family that checks the mail. So, when the ballots are sent out, I’m the one who is going to get them. I could easily vote using my ballot and throw hers away. That is voter fraud.
If I had other registered voters living in my house, I could easily vote many more times using someone else’s ballot. All I have to do is fill out the ballot and convince the person to sign the form. Each time I did that, it would be voter fraud. And, I wouldn’t get caught.
If I happen to get someone else’s mail, which happens all the time, I could simply throw away the ballot. Again, that’s voter fraud.
The United States Postal Service has created this useless tool called “Informed Delivery”. If you sign up for it, you can go to their Web site and see an image of each piece of mail sent to your address on the day it’s going to be delivered. Well, not every piece of mail. They don’t take pictures of packages, which would make the tool useful. But, if you want to see an image of every piece of your junk mail, they’ve got you covered.
The thing about Informed Delivery is that you can sign up for it using anyone’s address. In fact, there have been cases of scammers signing up for Informed Delivery using the address of Senior citizens. They can then see when the Social Security checks have been delivered and simply steal them out of the mailbox.
Getting back to voting fraud, it isn’t hard to imagine someone using Informed Delivery to know when the ballots have been delivered, steal them, and throw them in the trash. That is voter fraud.
Mail-in-voting also allows me to vote twice. Every voter in California will be receiving a vote-by-mail ballot. I could vote by mail and then walk to my local precinct and vote again in person.
As you can see, the voting process in the United States is fraught with issues. It is impossible to determine the amount of voting fraud that occurs with each election. But, with tens of millions of people voting, it is unreasonable to believe that there are absolutely no cases of fraud with mail-in-voting, as well as with more traditional voting methods.
I think I’ve proven my point. There is voting fraud when people vote by mail, we just don’t know how much. But, there is also voting fraud using other, more traditional, methods of voting. And, we also don’t know how much.
The question isn’t “is there fraud with voting by mail”, the question is “is there more fraud with voting by mail than other methods of voting”. I don’t have that answer.
But, if you’re concerned about voting fraud, there is a way to reduce it. The most effective way to ensure that elections are kept honest is to simply make people present their ID before they can vote. That’s the only way you’re going to slow down someone who thinks like me but is perhaps just a bit more felonious.
