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When you mail in your ballot you sign it, and the signature is checked to verify it is yours. If you vote for your friend or neighbor, then you need to steal t
by birken 6y ago
When you mail in your ballot you sign it, and the signature is checked to verify it is yours. If you vote for your friend or neighbor, then you need to steal their ballot and forge their signature. You also need them to not notice that they didn't get a ballot and not report it missing/stolen. The rest of the questions apply equally to in-person voting, which are all figured out.
Voter fraud also almost never happens because the person committing the fraud is taking enormous risk for literally zero gain. People aren't stupid. Most people don't even vote anyways, why are they going to go to all this effort to commit fraud.
- holler 6y agoOh so there's a database of valid signatures for all 330M Americans?
- birken 6y agoyawn Yes, CA has a database of signatures. In order to register to vote, you need to have a signature. For most people the signature is already on file with the DMV. If you were a resident of CA you can verify this easily, just look at your picture ID... it has your signature on it. I don't know how other states do it, this post is about California.
- fossuser 6y agoYeah - voter fraud is a common know-nothing talking point not substantiated by evidence. I flagged this article anyway, this isn't really a topic for HN (and the quality of comments shows why).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- holler 6y agohttps://www.kuow.org/stories/it-s-easy-to-commit-election-fraud-in-washington-state https://www.kuow.org/stories/it-s-easy-to-commit-election-fr...
- triceratops 6y agoFrom your article: 'a signature is required when you return your ballot, which is checked against a copy of your signature that's kept on file. Wyman calls it security "at the back end."' So basically like checking voter ID at the polls.
- Alupis 6y agoThis is scary if true. It's a blanket excuse to toss ballots - just claim the signature didn't look quite the same and nobody is there to challenge that assertion or request follow-up evidence?
- untog 6y agoWhy have you assumed there is no opportunity to follow up and check?
- Alupis 6y agoBecause I can't imagine getting through roughly 30 million (adults over 18) ballots in anything resembling a timely manner if we're looking at matching signatures. What more, we're then going to mail, call, visit people who's signatures didn't look like a match? How many of those people will respond?
- birken 6y agoSan Francisco has about 600 polling places, which each are required to have 4 people. That is 2400 polling workers. In the 2016 election, SF dealt with 400k ballots. Assuming all 400k ballots needed a signature match, and it took a trained worker 20 seconds to match a signature, and they worked 8 hours a day, then it would take: 400k ballots / (3 ballots/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 8 hours/day) = 277 worker-days to match all those signatures. If you can get 2400 people to work the polling places you'd probably have no trouble getting 277 people to match signatures, and would get them all matched within a single 8 hour workday. In practice it takes several days, so you'd need far less. It doesn't seem hard to imagine how this could be done. Running elections is one of the most important things that a government does, so they've put some thought into figuring out how to do it.
- Alupis 6y agoPeople's signatures change. The signature at DMV on the electronic pad is hardly a representation of my real pen-and-paper signature. I suspect you're assuming there's some sort of verification going on - but have no evidence of this.
- pietroglyph 6y agoIn Washington state where I live, voter registration includes soliciting a signature, which can also often be checked with drivers license signature on file. You have to be ignorant or deliberately acting in bad faith to say that signatures are an issue, because about 10 minutes of research will show you that states which do vote by mail get around these issues pretty easily.
- nodesocket 6y ago> signature is checked to verify it is yours Are you sure? That doesn’t seem right. How are they verifying it?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- birken 6y agoWith voter ID, how do poll workers verify the person on the ID is you? The answer is the same. They look at it. This isn't rocket science.
- Alupis 6y agoA government issued ID complete with matching home address and picture is a LOT more difficult to fake than just some scribbling on a piece of paper. Even better - swiping the card and running the data on the magstrip on the back and comparing to what the government has on that ID is almost impossible to forge. Who didn't forge their parent's signature in grade school once in a while? It's trivial to fake signatures - particularly since most people aren't trained Graphologists. Heck, my local grocery store requires me to swipe my government issued ID just to prove my age to buy some beer... they scan your government issued ID to get into some bars and clubs even... but we won't allow that at the voting booth?
- nodesocket 6y agoNot only that, but aren't they volunteers who tend to be elderly? I can't imagine they have any training to remotely compare signatures.
- birken 6y agoSo the same volunteers who aren't able to compare 2 signatures are also your impenetrable line of defense looking at the tiny picture and tiny writing on a photo ID and verifying the ID is valid and it is the same person.
- egberts1 6y agoSenior homes And retirement respite centers are a ripe target for doing proxy voting in a fraudulent manner.
- caseysoftware 6y ago> When you mail in your ballot you sign it, and the signature is checked to verify it is yours. If you vote for your friend or neighbor, then you need to steal their ballot and forge their signature. Is this done manually or automated? This is the first time I've heard about it and the mechanics - and scale - are interesting. In addition, how is the database of signatures secured? Who has access to it now? What other things is a signature and basic information (address, phone, dob) sufficient for?