I can’t vote by mail. I received one of those signature cards in the mail months ago, but I didn’t send it in. My signature is like a bunch of snowflakes. I can write/scribble my name five times and they’ll all look completely different. Not wanting to take the chance that my vote would be discarded, I decided that in-person voting is the right choice for me.
I called the country Ventura County Registrar of Voters office this morning to find out what the process is for voting in person. I was told that I can stop by any one of the 48 in-person voting locations between October 31st and November 3rd and exchange my mail-in-ballot for an in-person ballot. Then I use that new ballot to vote. When I asked, specifically, what kind of ID I needed to bring, I was told that none was required.
Let’s look at this a little more carefully. The State of California mailed 21 million ballots to every registered voter in the state, whether they asked for one or not. If a voter mails in their ballot, the State will attempt to verify the voter’s identity by comparing the signature on the ballot to the signature on the card previously mailed in. But, if that exact same ballot is brought to any polling station, no identity verification is performed.
Essentially, every single one of the 21 million mail-in ballots that were distributed in California are the voting equivalent of a bearer bond. With a bearer bond, whoever presents the bond can cash it. No questions asked. In the case of a mail-in-ballot, whoever presents it can vote. No questions asked.
As I mentioned, someone can vote at 48 different locations in the county. And, you’ve got five days to do it. Imagine if someone harvested ballots from unsuspecting patients in nursing homes. That person could vote as many times as possible over the course of the five days using those ballots. With 48 different locations, they wouldn’t even have to worry about the staff noticing them voting multiple times.
I know what you’re thinking, “But Mike, what if I don’t work in a nursing home and want to commit voter fraud?” That’s OK. You can use ballots that you found in the trash, were abandoned by a postal worker or stolen from someone else’s mailbox. You don’t even need to be a U.S. citizen. If you can get your hands on a ballot, you can vote.
This type of voter fraud is extremely simple and straightforward to do. But, unless someone complains about not receiving their ballot, there would be no possible way to even suspect that this type of fraud has occurred. Even if you suspect that fraud is occurring, detecting it without a complaint is equally as impossible.
With the in-person voting of previous years, at least people were forced to vote at a specific polling place. Someone would have needed a huge set of balls to return over and over to the same place to cast multiple fraudulent votes. But with this year’s process, all but one of the barriers to voting fraudulently have been removed. And, that remaining hurdle isn’t particularly high.
How to commit voter fraud (in California) in two easy steps:
- Get your hands on a someone else’s mail-in-ballot.
- Vote in person.
It truly is that easy.
