A comment on voting by mail

This is not intended as a position to debate, rather offered as my personal experience--you make up your own minds.

After many years of voting via absentee ballot there was a change this year, I suspect as a result of opening up general access to voting by mail for the first time.

This year I was required to put my driver's license number on the application. There was a note saying that the digital copy of my signature would be used for comparison to the signature on my ballot. That has concerned me now for weeks, the signature on my license looks nothing like my normal signature. It was done in a tiny window with a tethered pseudo-pen with my hand suspended at an awkward angle in space.

So--this morning I gave in and sent an email to the election broad. Within a few hours I had a response. They sent me a form to fill out and signed to be used as my sample for comparison. That form had to be mailed, not scanned or sent electronically and it also required my Voter Registration Number on the form---and yes I knew where to find it :omfg:

I can't make up my mind. If done ethically and by competent honest poll workers I believe I could support it. I certainly do not relish the idea of standing in line at a polling station this year. My biggest concern is folks getting their hands on ballots of folks that would not normally vote and filling everything out and sending it in. Lot's of young and old folks don't vote so that is a large amount of votes out there to be tampered with. At this point I think there are many dishonest people running the polling. That concerns me.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...k-in-politics/

Seems The Don had to do a mail in ballot. Starts about 2:20 in if you don't want to follow Lemon's comments.

Absentee ballots and mail-in ballots are two different beasts depending on how the states regulate them or don’t. The fear of slapped together Mail-in procedures will not allow for an ample verification process of one eligible voter sending one vote. If the vote counting authorities cannot verify who sent the vote, they obviously can not verify eligibility or how many they sent. In Dave’s case the Penn. procedures for absentee votes provide checks. Should Penn. or any other state want to allow every vote to be provided for mail-in that would by necessity devolve to a massive mail-out of raw ballots to everyone with no time for the pre-certification processes we now use. If the states can print them and flush the countryside with them, so can fraudsters. Raw ballots will be a cinch to forge. Even the Chi-Coms could knock of millions in no time...or just enough in key jurisdictions to turn matters. The folks who have used “walking around money” to rig the system for decades will be delighted to do it wholesale.

The “vote harvesting” schemes are another issue.

I believe the process for both types of remote voting are the same in Pa.

That’s not what is being proposed around the country, Dave. The old rules will not accommodate everyone being able to skip the voting booths. They are trying it here in Texas doing away with the exclusions on absentee voting, which would effectively allow any eligible voter to cast a absentee vote without the qualifications (age, absent from the state, disability, sign-up deadline) but the last I heard the ACLU federal lawsuit was decided against them.

Other states will have other results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dave Grubb

I believe the process for both types of remote voting are the same in Pa.

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All are absentee voting in Virginia.. we had a local election delayed a few weeks then it was announced that fear of Covid was a valid health reason to vote absentee.. I believe November will be the same rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhscswJudYM

I think the difference is that with mail in ballots, they are concerned that ballots will be sent out wholesale, to every registered voter, so my dead mom would get her ballot, even though she died four years ago. That would allow someone to vote on her behalf. Someone could conceivably pretend to be an official that went to previous homes of the departed, and gather their ballots. Then they could vote in behalf of the dead.
Absentee, you actually have to request the ballot. If it is done like Arizona, as long as you keep voting, you keep getting the ballot. There is still a potential for fraud, but no more than going into a polling place with nothing more than a name to vote.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scooter

I think the difference is that with mail in ballots, they are concerned that ballots will be sent out wholesale, to every registered voter, so my dead mom would get her ballot, even though she died four years ago. That would allow someone to vote on her behalf. Someone could conceivably pretend to be an official that went to previous homes of the departed, and gather their ballots. Then they could vote in behalf of the dead.
Absentee, you actually have to request the ballot. If it is done like Arizona, as long as you keep voting, you keep getting the ballot. There is still a potential for fraud, but no more than going into a polling place with nothing more than a name to vote.

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In PA, both types of ballots must be requested. In the case of absentee ballots there is no "evergreen" process, I have to request a ballot prior to every election. I do not know, but would expect, the same will apply to the new mail in ballots.

https://www.wusa9.com/mobile/article...5-9bb45df00a8d

We in Virginia must also request a mail ballot.. we just submitted our request and were asked for our DMV (drivers/walker’s license) number..

And to complicate matters..

We in Virginia just received a mass mailing from a FDG (f—- do gooder) group with an absentee ballot request form .

The Verify team's inbox was flooded with emails relating to a vote-by-mail application sent to Fairfax homes from a nonprofit, Center For Voter Information. Unfortunately they included an envelope to mail the form to the local regisrar.. unfortunately they had the majority of envelopes addressed to the wrong jurisdiction..

Oh.. it is sparking heated election fraud debate. But it was just a bunch of well intended but stupid “get out the vote” people..