Election Fraud

[Al-O-Meter]

100 landings, sets of steps, right next to a door. Very doubtful. Very risky for being seen in the time to go door to door to 100 houses.

Some people in California may have those mailboxes, but not most people. I'm very much in the city in a house built in the late 70's and here are the mailboxes in front of my house in San Diego.

The entire housing tract has mailboxes in clusters of 4 exactly like this. In newer housing developments they have far bigger cluster mailboxes.

My comment on mail fraud isn't limited to that one guy they found passed out with 300 ballots. There are hundreds of guys like that. What I'm trying to communicate is that there is an industry of stealing ballots and submitting them. It wouldn't work for my ballot because I had filed to vote absentee which means the registrar of voters has my email address and sends me a confirmation. I can even log in and see how I voted.

However, there are a large group of senior voters who like to vote in person. When COVID hit, California changed so that everyone was automatically sent ballots including those voters who always vote in person. For those voters, the registrar of voters doesn't have their email address and doesn't send notifications. They wouldn't know someone had stolen their ballot from their mailbox and submitted it for money until they showed up to the polling place to cast their vote only to be told they'd already voted.

Mail theft is a felony, but this type of ballot stealing wouldn't be a thing if ballot harvesting weren't legal. In California, anyone can submit anyone's ballot without needing to identify themselves. Super-Republican Orange County went from reliable Republican to having every single Republican lose to a Democrat challenger as soon as universal mail-in balloting became a thing. If you want to believe the elderly woman in the news article wasn't telling the truth about the polling place telling her she'd already voted and that this kind of harvesting isn't happening then I can't stop you, but I don't agree.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

Here is what cluster mailboxes in newer California housing developments look like:

Postal Carriers put mail in the boxes through doors in the back that open to all the mailboxes. The common door is opened by a universal key that will open all the cluster mailboxes in the area. Possession of one of these keys is a felony, but they are out there.

 

[LogGrad98]

Here is what cluster mailboxes in newer California housing developments look like:

Postal Carriers put mail in the boxes through doors in the back that open to all the mailboxes. The common door is opened by a universal key what will open all the cluster mailboxes in the area. Possession of one of these keys is a felony, but they are out there.

Easily picked. Laughably easily picked. Can rake many of these open. Even the cylinder locks are very flimsy protection.

 

[Avery]

I hate that we've set a precedent where if someone loses or is going to lose, it must have been fraud. It's especially silly to do so when the deck was already stacked against you.

As Newsom leads California recall polls, Larry Elder pushes baseless fraud claims

A website paid for by Elder's campaign on Monday predicted his defeat and blamed unsubstantiated fraud claims.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Al-O-Meter]

I hate that we've set a precedent where if someone loses or is going to lose, it must have been fraud. It's especially silly to do so when the deck was already stacked against you.

As Newsom leads California recall polls, Larry Elder pushes baseless fraud claims

A website paid for by Elder's campaign on Monday predicted his defeat and blamed unsubstantiated fraud claims.

www.nbcnews.com

I mostly agree with you on how ridiculous it is to always claim fraud, but if the rest of the United States adopts California's legal ballot harvesting with universal mail-in voting then no one will ever trust the results of a vote again. And they shouldn't.

We have the technology to absolutely secure our voting system and I shake my head in disbelief that we as a nation seem to have no interest in implementing it.

 

[Avery]

I mostly agree with you on how ridiculous it is to always claim fraud, but if the rest of the United States adopts California's legal ballot harvesting with universal mail-in voting then no one will ever trust the results of a vote again. And they shouldn't.

We have the technology to absolutely secure our voting system and I shake my head in disbelief that we as a nation seem to have no interest in implementing it.

I don't believe anyone affiliated any political campaign, PAC or special interest should ever help 'gather' up ballots on anyone's behalf. Just don't like it - GOTV through normal means.

Unfortunate that so many states do things in such different ways.

 

[LogGrad98]

I hate that we've set a precedent where if someone loses or is going to lose, it must have been fraud. It's especially silly to do so when the deck was already stacked against you.

As Newsom leads California recall polls, Larry Elder pushes baseless fraud claims

A website paid for by Elder's campaign on Monday predicted his defeat and blamed unsubstantiated fraud claims.

www.nbcnews.com

Unbelievable. Since they get so much attention doing this it is going to continue. Even some democrats have engaged in this ********. Our democracy is falling apart before our eyes.

 

[Avery]

Unbelievable. Since they get so much attention doing this it is going to continue. Even some democrats have engaged in this ********. Our democracy is falling apart before our eyes.

I have no doubt that super close elections where the MoE is fractional should undergo some review. What I'm not okay with is when some people latched on to the 'it's rigged' in which they lost elections by 70 points (I believe that was Errol Webber in California who refused to concede to Rep. Bass in a highly D district).

 

[LogGrad98]

I have no doubt that super close elections where the MoE is fractional should undergo some review. What I'm not okay with is when some people latched on to the 'it's rigged' in which they lost elections by 70 points (I believe that was Errol Webber in California who refused to concede to Rep. Bass in a highly D district).

What I'm not ok with us the current practice of calling "rigged" before the race even starts just because a candidate is expected to be the underdog. It's ridiculous.

Nothing has materially changed since Trump was elected. So was his first election rigged? If elections were just fine 5 years ago, and nothing has really changed, then why are literally all elections now riddled with fraud? It's just such a blatantly ******** tactic that it is comical. And even more comical is how many people legitimately believe it.

My notoriously conservative brother in law actually had this exchange on his Facebook. Regarding some local election where he lives he claimed voter fraud before the vote even happened and he said it was because of a news story that democrats were canvassing to get people to vote. Someone said, well that's legal what if republicans did it. His response was that if republicans did it, it was just fine because it was for a good reason, but if democrats do it, it's to rally the troops to commit widespread voter fraud. This is a college educated man who is currently a school principal. He's no dummy. But holy ****ing hell is he stupid. Or is it brainwashed.

Our democracy is rapidly swirling the *****er.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

If elections were just fine 5 years ago, and nothing has really changed...

Sorry, but your stated premise is false. There is a massive difference between elections 5 years ago and elections now. That difference is called Universal Mail-in Voting. It is a game changer that didn't exist 5 years ago.

 

[LogGrad98]

Sorry, but your stated premise is false. There is a massive difference between elections 5 years ago and elections now. That difference is called Universal Mail-in Voting. It is a game changer that didn't exist 5 years ago.

Yeah, ok. No one ever mailed in votes before. Uh-huh. Sure.

So your premise is that every state that had widespread mail-in ballots had massive voter fraud all along? And the fact that we have increased mail-in voting means every election forever forward will be invalidated because mail-in voting is inherently fraudulent, or something? You are playing right into the hands of the demagogues that built the huge straw-man around the spectre of evil mail-in ballots.

What materially has changed when mail-in ballots have been in play for a long time? In 2016 nearly 25% of the electorate voted by mail. In 2020 that jumped to 45%. In California millions have been voting by mail since 1962, and in 2016 14.6 million votes were cast by mail, in 2020 it was 17.7 million. How is this casting the threat of fraud over literally every single election in the country when it materially isn't any different than what we have already had. The numbers went up, but it didn't change the methods or the processes. It took more time to validate. That's about it.

There is no evidence that simply increasing the percentage of mail-in ballots automatically increases instances of fraud. That's the demagogues talking, and not the data. In 2020 there were 8 convictions for voter fraud in California ⁰. None of those had anything to do with absentee ballots at all. Half of them were for buying votes. In fact in 2016 there were 8 confirmed cases of voter fraud involving absentee ballots. In 2020 it was 5.

The data do not bear out the claim that increasing the number of mail-in ballots created an increase in voter fraud. Therefore it isn't materially any different.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

Yeah, ok. No one ever mailed in votes before. Uh-huh. Sure.

Nice try, but that is not what I said. What I said was that Universal Mail-in Voting didn't exist 5 years ago. You said NOTHING had changed and that simply isn't true.

So your premise is that every state that had widespread mail-in ballots had massive voter fraud all along?

No, I'm saying that in pre-pandemic times, in registering for absentee voting to be returned via mail there some things set up in the back end to provide some measure of security. Those things were NOT set up when they decided that COVID means everyone gets a ballot, voters can't come in to change their account, and registrar of voters workers wouldn't be there even if they did. Where there used to be some security measures is now a giant hole that is being exploited, especially in states where ballot harvesting is legal.

the fact that we have increased mail-in voting means every election forever forward will be invalidated because mail-in voting is inherently fraudulent

Again, no. Mail-in voting can be secure but even better would be electronic voting that uses the same identification measures banks use. I do not believe that unsolicited paper ballots mailed out en masse with the only security feature being an ink scrawl of a signature for which there may be no recent source image to match against is inadequate to prevent unscrupulous people from taking advantage.

You are playing right into the hands of the demagogues that built the huge straw-man around the spectre of evil mail-in ballots.

I'm certainly playing into the spectre of popular elections needing a foundation of trust and if the security on the election isn't adequate to prove absolute integrity to any third party audit then people will start using other potentially violent means to get their voices heard.

There is no evidence that simply increasing the percentage of mail-in ballots automatically increases instances of fraud.

You can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better but 80% of all voters support requiring voters to show an ID to vote. That was not required in this past election and a full third of the country believes the Election was stolen. Thanks to the lax security, you can't prove it wasn't. Many come unglued at the very idea of double checking the vote with an audit.

I don't personally have a dog in the big lie fight because I believe the United States is a Republic, the popular vote counts for nothing, and the Electoral College voters are the only ones that matter. However I find the falling level of trust in the system to be greatly concerning and think we need implement the extremely popular voter ID voting requirements to increase the level of trust.