I'm only gonna do this for this one post, I'm not gonna keep going back and forth with you, but I'm also not gonna just allow you to say things authoritatively and act like its fact.
Before I start, I want to point out that I was merely using the scenario you threw out there. That said, you must have missed the part that by the time these ballots are going to be opened and processed, they are indeed in order by street address and number, so even though they may have been received over the course of a few weeks, they will indeed be processed one after another, because they are in the same building, therefore their addresses would be consecutive, or very close to it. That's how the voter rolls are organized (because street address determines where you vote), so that's how they are sorted, so as to make it easier to count and validate the votes. Also, doesn;t matter how many handwriting styles you use, they will likely all be flagged for not looking like the signatures on file once they hit the scanner.
Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
The same level of "investigation" would take place if I went into my local post office and reported my mail stolen. Technically it's a federal crime. But in reality, they do zero investigation, unless there's a recurring or large-scale problem (such as mail stolen from 50 mailboxes on the same day, or regular mail theft aimed at certain individuals).
It is highly unlikely that there would be any kind of investigation like this for low-level election fraud.
Also, it's safe to say that people who throw away their universal mail-in ballots in a public trashcan probably aren't planning to go vote in person. It can happen, but it probably won't.
A bunch of false ballots from the same building would indeed be investigated by the election department, and the FBI would 100% be informed about it. That's not in question, that's policy, and it has no correlation with how the post office treats mail fraud. The more votes that were fraudulent, the larger the investigation. While I very much exaggerated in saying the police would be there that very day, the fact is that all challenged ballots are investigated until one of 2 things happen, either the ballot is proven legit or false, or there's no longer any chance it could effect the election outcome.
AS far as "it's safe to say that people who throw away their universal mail-in ballots in a public trashcan probably aren't planning to go vote in person," I'm not even sure what type of logic you are using here. I'll use myself as the example, because I can speak definitively and truthfully about this. I got the mailer to apply for a mail-in ballot, and I threw it in the trash after it sat on my coffee table as a coaster for a few days. Had I received an actual ballot, the exact same thing would have happened, not because I was unlikely to vote in person, but because it was a 100% lock I was going to vote in person, either early or on the day (I had not yet signed up to work the election). It's way easier to make the logical argument that people who throw out their mail-in ballot are more likely to vote in person, not less. It's quite literally what I would do if I got one.
There isn't time for this. There are going to be a ton of signatures which don't match. Hell, my signature today doesn't match my voter registration at age 18. I don't even know if they're going to count my vote (dead serious). If we had until the end of 2020 to verify questionable signatures, this might work. In a few days, or even in 2 weeks, there's zero point zero chance you can contact everyone with questionable signatures and verify their authenticity. Also, what about voters without phones? They just lose their votes? C'mon, man.
This is a key paragraph where you get almost everything sideways, if not exactly 100% wrong. Yes, there is time for all of this, because it's expected and planned for. Your sig doesn;t match your sig from when you were 18? OK, that's fair, but its probably pretty close to the one on your driver's license, and that's another database that election commissions use, because that's also where a massive number of people register to vote. If your sig doesn't look like either, then yes, you might indeed have cast a vote that won;t count. (Have you been tracking your ballot to see if it has been counted yet?) That's exactly why so many mail-in ballots are challenged and NOT counted, and why I had decided long ago to vote in person where there's zero chance of my vote getting thrown out. This isn't a secret, anyone paying attention should be aware that there's a lot that can be done incorrectly on a mail-in ballot that will invalidate a vote, which is why so many states start counting those votes early and reach out to citizens to give them a chance to correct any errors or mistakes.
"BUT THERE ISN'T TIME TO VERIFY ALL THE BALLOTS!!!" Dude, there's all sorts of time before an election has to be certified, and an election can very well be certified if you have 10K ballots you cannot verify but the margin of error is >20K ballots. Guess what? Those votes indeed DON'T get counted. That's how it works, pretty much everywhere. "Also, what about voters without phones? They just lose their votes? C'mon, man." If your challenged ballot cannot be verified by the election people, yes, you DO lose your vote, and it dies in the challenge bin unless there's a recount ordered or a court order of some sort. This is not just a local policy, this is pretty much standard business, best practices. This is not new, & this is not a secret. Not every single vote gets counted in elections, and if you want to get mad about it, a lot of armed services people would be right there with you, because they've historically been the group with the most mail in ballots, and consequently, they are the group that has their votes go uncounted the most often. A bit ironic and sad, really, but it doesn;t effect the outcome, or else they would be counted. Sorry if this is news to you.
Also, you aren't accounting for what would be the most common two versions of voter fraud:
1) Voting for relatives who are either dead, apathetic, or incapacitated. If 98-year-old grandma barely knows her name, you can easily cast a vote for her without anyone ever finding out. If grandma died last year, you can also do it (and then feign ignorance if caught, claiming you threw it away, and someone must have fished it out). If your 18-year-old son says, "Voting is a fucking waste of time" and tosses it in the trash in front of you, then you can retrieve it and cast votes for him.
2) Voting for people who moved, but their ballots show up at your house anyway. In this case, none of the security checks there work aside from the aforementioned signature thing (which I already explained is very flawed). Someone who moved likely isn't in the precinct anymore, so there won't be a duplicate voting scenario. Again, you could submit their vote while knowing you could feign ignorance by saying you threw it away, and someone must have fished it out of the trash. But nobody is going to investigate you aggressively for throwing in 1 or 2 extra votes.
Brother Druff, I was merely ripping apart the scenario you presented early in the thread, I have no interest in going back & forth with you on various other situations that I can;t speak knowledgeably on, especially since you have no real knowledge of how these things are handled either. As for the signature thing that you"already explained is very flawed", you don;t seem to get the point that the flaw works against voters, not for them. It's flawed in the sense that it will disqualify voters who's sig has changed and can;t be reached, it's not flawed in any sense that makes it easier to get a ballot into the ballot box.
Again, you are also talking about Boston, which appears to be putting some effort into a more secure system (which is good). Many areas do not have this.
Unless you feel like giving provable examples, you are just saying stuff here. The American South is very well known for being extremely hard on vetting mail-in ballots. Boston isn't special in any regard, and you have no basis for saying that it is better or worse than any other place, other than to try to bolster your own points by making Boston an exception, rather than a norm.
There will be more fraud in this election than the last several elections combined. Some will be for Trump, some will be for Biden. I don't even know which one will have more of it, but I assume probably more for Biden, because some people believe Trump is so evil that it's imperative to knock him out of office, even if some criminal activity is necessary. The riots we've seen this year prove that.
Again, just you saying stuff, based on no facts at all. The fact you think Biden voters are more likely to commit fraud seems strange, especially since the Republican party has made voter suppression one of its central paths to victory, along with getting the courts to throw out votes and make it as hard as possible for largely democratic areas to even vote at all. One party has a very strong recent history of trying to fuck with elections for their own benefit, and it ain;t Biden;s party, but we're both just speculating here.
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