I know of no boxes of ballots (completed, valid ballots) in trunks of cars. Georgia’s election systems are as secure as anything I’ve seen. They are more complex than needed. I don’t see how mass cheating is remotely possible. Not now, not in 2020.
Mass cheating is not likely. Stealing an election is possible but only when the margins are razor thin (like Florida in 2000 - about 4 or 5 votes per county). Recounts are useless once the ballots are counted. All of the controls must be in the registration process and positive ID of voters. I'm not sure how that is assured when a large percentage of the votes are mailed in or placed in unattended drop boxes.
My reasoning goes back to razor thin margins. I believe the ballot counting process is generally very accurate. Recounts almost always verify the original total has little or no error. Most precincts have observers and good controls. I sometimes question how many of the ballots are valid, but it seldom matters unless the election is very close. In the case of mail in or drop box ballots, there will always be a question as to whether they are valid but once they are separated from the envelopes, there is no way to determine validity.
The envelope is what determines validity - so if the envelope comes back as valid, then the ballot inside is too. Then it's just a matter of ensuring custody of the ballot - which is the responsbility of the county/state.
Regarding registration: "The federal Help America Vote Act (2002) requires that individuals in all 50 states who register to vote by mail and who have not voted previously in a federal election in their state must provide either their driver's license or a paycheck, bank statement, current utility bill, or government document showing their name and address. Individuals voting by mail must include a copy of one of those documents with their absentee/mail-in ballot.
These requirements do not apply if an individual submitted a copy of their identification, their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering to vote."
Mail-in ballots typically use signature matching on the return envelope containing the ballot to verify that the returned ballot is valid. We could enhance those with a voter-set PIN - as signatures do change over time - but: it's not like a drop-box is just a random ballot - one had to have been registered to receive a ballot and must return the ballot in the return envelope provided with the ballot.
Yeah, there are federal laws governing Visa durations, Commercial Drivers Licenses, aid for autistic children, COVID business relief, day care for children of low-income parents and dozens of other activities. None of them get the attention they should. Signature mismatches and other irregularities in ballot submittals and provisional ballots are often "cured". Documents are easy to forge and must be carefully matched against databases. There is no substitute for in-person voting.
We are talking very small numbers here. About 97% of Georgia registered voters have their DL and SSN registered due to motor voter. The percentage of provisional ballots is between 0.1 - 0.5% of total cast, and even with mail in ballots these percentages hold. 2020 was a different animal because of COVID-19 and the SOS office deciding to mail absentee ballot applications to every single registered voter. The number of “cured” ballots is generally less than 1,000 so unless a race is super close, it is not a factor.
Why put "cured" in quotes? That's where they contact the voter and confirm that the ballot was theirs - exactly what we would want to have happen.
That's where I think a PIN on the envelope would be very helpful - no possibility of mismatching that. Either it's the correct PIN or it's not, and if not then take appropriate action: confirm if the registered voter actually sent it in and used the wrong PIN, or if they did not open an investigation...
Poll workers are not career government workers. They may be paid enough to cover their expenses, but they are unfailingly, polite and helpful and always verify my ID. And there are observers at polling places
On the other hand, career bureaucrats are charged with enforcing the legal requirement of registration and voting laws. While there are many exceptions, many are less than diligent and less than honest. The following paragraphs from Shipwrecked crew illustrate why I never fully trust bureaucrats.
"Using the excuse that the expansion of eligibility overwhelmed the system, Newsom’s EDD was unable to implement fraud detection mechanisms at the same scale as the new level of claims. Rather than allow any delay to perform even rudimentary screening efforts, such as cross-referencing the claimants against other state databases that would disclose ineligibility, Newsom’s EDD simply approved claims and processed payments.
That included payments to Death Row inmates in California’s San Quentin prison, as well as inmates elsewhere. From an NBC News report in Dec. 2020:
Tens of thousands of prison and jail inmates, including convicted serial killers and notorious inmates like Scott Peterson, have carried out what prosecutors described Tuesday as possibly the largest fraud scheme in California history.
The alleged crimes, which center on pandemic unemployment benefits, could total as much as $1 billion, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.
“The fraud is honestly staggering,” she said.
Between March and August, Schubert said, inmates housed in every California prison and in jails across the state filed 35,000 claims totaling $140 million in benefits.
Sometimes those benefits were paid directly to inmates inside the facilities, she said. In other cases, the money was sent to relatives and friends outside the prisons and jails.
Note that the date of that report was December 2020 — the fraud continued another nine months, as noted below.
Both the inmates themselves, as well as accomplices working with them on the outside, accessed the online application system for unemployment compensation. Using both their own Social Security numbers and birthdates, as well Security numbers and birthdates of others they could could their hands on, prisoners obtained payments via prepaid debit cards that were mailed to whatever address the prisoner listed on the application.
But there were even instances where investigators found that physical checks were mailed TO THE PRISONS AND PRISON OFFICIALS ALLOWED THE FUNDS TO BE DEPOSITED INTO THE PRISONER’S COMMISSARY ACCOUNTS!!!!!
Nothing more complicated than cross-referencing applicant names against the names and Social Security numbers of incarcerated inmates would have revealed and halted the fraud. As noted below, it is estimated that more than $1 billion was paid to prison inmates."
Shipley's article continues with the below paragraphs.
"I doubt the Department of Labor guidance took into consideration the fact that EDD was accepting and paying on claims without any verification process at all. EDD’s decision simply poured more money into the pockets of the fraudsters than they would have received based solely on their initial application.
As of late‑December 2020, EDD had more than 2.2 million claims submitted during the pandemic for which it could not confirm the identity of the claimant— 24% of the 9.5 million claims filed from the time the CARES Act became law in March. EDD issued at least one benefit payment on about 597,000 of those claims before identifying them as potentially fraudulent. In total, EDD paid about $10.4 billion for these claims…. Although EDD explained that it is not able to confirm that all of these claims are fraudulent … it does not know how many are legitimate and how many are fraudulent. More than 534,000 of the claims were paid UI benefits in excess of EDD’s traditional dollar threshold for pursuing a criminal investigation of an impostor.
Bear in mind that this Report was issued in January 2021, and we know from examples reported about the prison inmates that fraudulent claims continued to be paid all the way until federal funding was stopped — September 4, 2021. They ran out of money.
That’s why the ultimate amount of fraud is estimated to exceed $30 billion but the Report only identified $10.4 billion — up to Dec. 2020."
Get deep enough into any endeavor and you will find some shady characters.
I'd say Trump is racist, he just doesn't let that get into the way of his using people for his own gain.
Or maybe those boxes of ballots they kept finding in trunks of vehicles were fraudulent after all.
I know of no boxes of ballots (completed, valid ballots) in trunks of cars. Georgia’s election systems are as secure as anything I’ve seen. They are more complex than needed. I don’t see how mass cheating is remotely possible. Not now, not in 2020.
Mass cheating is not likely. Stealing an election is possible but only when the margins are razor thin (like Florida in 2000 - about 4 or 5 votes per county). Recounts are useless once the ballots are counted. All of the controls must be in the registration process and positive ID of voters. I'm not sure how that is assured when a large percentage of the votes are mailed in or placed in unattended drop boxes.
"Recounts are useless once the ballots are counted."
Can you elaborate on why you think this?
My reasoning goes back to razor thin margins. I believe the ballot counting process is generally very accurate. Recounts almost always verify the original total has little or no error. Most precincts have observers and good controls. I sometimes question how many of the ballots are valid, but it seldom matters unless the election is very close. In the case of mail in or drop box ballots, there will always be a question as to whether they are valid but once they are separated from the envelopes, there is no way to determine validity.
The envelope is what determines validity - so if the envelope comes back as valid, then the ballot inside is too. Then it's just a matter of ensuring custody of the ballot - which is the responsbility of the county/state.
Regarding registration: "The federal Help America Vote Act (2002) requires that individuals in all 50 states who register to vote by mail and who have not voted previously in a federal election in their state must provide either their driver's license or a paycheck, bank statement, current utility bill, or government document showing their name and address. Individuals voting by mail must include a copy of one of those documents with their absentee/mail-in ballot.
These requirements do not apply if an individual submitted a copy of their identification, their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering to vote."
Mail-in ballots typically use signature matching on the return envelope containing the ballot to verify that the returned ballot is valid. We could enhance those with a voter-set PIN - as signatures do change over time - but: it's not like a drop-box is just a random ballot - one had to have been registered to receive a ballot and must return the ballot in the return envelope provided with the ballot.
Yeah, there are federal laws governing Visa durations, Commercial Drivers Licenses, aid for autistic children, COVID business relief, day care for children of low-income parents and dozens of other activities. None of them get the attention they should. Signature mismatches and other irregularities in ballot submittals and provisional ballots are often "cured". Documents are easy to forge and must be carefully matched against databases. There is no substitute for in-person voting.
We are talking very small numbers here. About 97% of Georgia registered voters have their DL and SSN registered due to motor voter. The percentage of provisional ballots is between 0.1 - 0.5% of total cast, and even with mail in ballots these percentages hold. 2020 was a different animal because of COVID-19 and the SOS office deciding to mail absentee ballot applications to every single registered voter. The number of “cured” ballots is generally less than 1,000 so unless a race is super close, it is not a factor.
Why put "cured" in quotes? That's where they contact the voter and confirm that the ballot was theirs - exactly what we would want to have happen.
That's where I think a PIN on the envelope would be very helpful - no possibility of mismatching that. Either it's the correct PIN or it's not, and if not then take appropriate action: confirm if the registered voter actually sent it in and used the wrong PIN, or if they did not open an investigation...
Poll workers are not career government workers. They may be paid enough to cover their expenses, but they are unfailingly, polite and helpful and always verify my ID. And there are observers at polling places
On the other hand, career bureaucrats are charged with enforcing the legal requirement of registration and voting laws. While there are many exceptions, many are less than diligent and less than honest. The following paragraphs from Shipwrecked crew illustrate why I never fully trust bureaucrats.
https://open.substack.com/pub/shipwreckedcrew/p/covid-fraud-in-california-makes-the?r=d2084&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
"Using the excuse that the expansion of eligibility overwhelmed the system, Newsom’s EDD was unable to implement fraud detection mechanisms at the same scale as the new level of claims. Rather than allow any delay to perform even rudimentary screening efforts, such as cross-referencing the claimants against other state databases that would disclose ineligibility, Newsom’s EDD simply approved claims and processed payments.
That included payments to Death Row inmates in California’s San Quentin prison, as well as inmates elsewhere. From an NBC News report in Dec. 2020:
Tens of thousands of prison and jail inmates, including convicted serial killers and notorious inmates like Scott Peterson, have carried out what prosecutors described Tuesday as possibly the largest fraud scheme in California history.
The alleged crimes, which center on pandemic unemployment benefits, could total as much as $1 billion, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.
“The fraud is honestly staggering,” she said.
Between March and August, Schubert said, inmates housed in every California prison and in jails across the state filed 35,000 claims totaling $140 million in benefits.
Sometimes those benefits were paid directly to inmates inside the facilities, she said. In other cases, the money was sent to relatives and friends outside the prisons and jails.
Note that the date of that report was December 2020 — the fraud continued another nine months, as noted below.
Both the inmates themselves, as well as accomplices working with them on the outside, accessed the online application system for unemployment compensation. Using both their own Social Security numbers and birthdates, as well Security numbers and birthdates of others they could could their hands on, prisoners obtained payments via prepaid debit cards that were mailed to whatever address the prisoner listed on the application.
But there were even instances where investigators found that physical checks were mailed TO THE PRISONS AND PRISON OFFICIALS ALLOWED THE FUNDS TO BE DEPOSITED INTO THE PRISONER’S COMMISSARY ACCOUNTS!!!!!
Nothing more complicated than cross-referencing applicant names against the names and Social Security numbers of incarcerated inmates would have revealed and halted the fraud. As noted below, it is estimated that more than $1 billion was paid to prison inmates."
Shipley's article continues with the below paragraphs.
"I doubt the Department of Labor guidance took into consideration the fact that EDD was accepting and paying on claims without any verification process at all. EDD’s decision simply poured more money into the pockets of the fraudsters than they would have received based solely on their initial application.
As of late‑December 2020, EDD had more than 2.2 million claims submitted during the pandemic for which it could not confirm the identity of the claimant— 24% of the 9.5 million claims filed from the time the CARES Act became law in March. EDD issued at least one benefit payment on about 597,000 of those claims before identifying them as potentially fraudulent. In total, EDD paid about $10.4 billion for these claims…. Although EDD explained that it is not able to confirm that all of these claims are fraudulent … it does not know how many are legitimate and how many are fraudulent. More than 534,000 of the claims were paid UI benefits in excess of EDD’s traditional dollar threshold for pursuing a criminal investigation of an impostor.
Bear in mind that this Report was issued in January 2021, and we know from examples reported about the prison inmates that fraudulent claims continued to be paid all the way until federal funding was stopped — September 4, 2021. They ran out of money.
That’s why the ultimate amount of fraud is estimated to exceed $30 billion but the Report only identified $10.4 billion — up to Dec. 2020."
I Hate New York.
John Lennon