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It's a bit late to be concerned: CA has already had opt-in mail-in voting for a while! Ballots are mailed to the address on file, you can't just ask for a frie

by jdashg 6y ago

It's a bit late to be concerned: CA has already had opt-in mail-in voting for a while! Ballots are mailed to the address on file, you can't just ask for a friend's. Voting fraud just doesn't scale either: A couple fraudulent votes per fraudster? No, election fraud is way more dangerous. Anti-fraud efforts are proportional to fraud prevalence, which is very low. For voter verification, the rate of false negatives (you're not registered to vote, when you are) wildly dwarfs the false positive (fraud) rate. I'm happy to be concerned if presented evidence of a problem, but absent evidence to counter real, concrete evidence of "voting security"->false-negatives, they don't seem worth spending time, money, and effort on. (After all, government bureaucracy and waste are famously unpopular)

Alupis 6y ago
What about vote harvesting? Mail-in Ballots open the door for this abuse a lot more than before. Just drive around and offer to return Ballots or "help" people fill them in.
- triceratops 6y ago
  Stuff like that tends to get out. For example: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-operative-faces-new-felony-charges-that-allege-ballot-fraud https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-...
  - Alupis 6y ago
    Ya, well in SF they've more-or-less made this very thing legal. Read into that what you want.
    - no-s 6y ago
      it kills me how whenever one raises a question or criticism about the potential for voter fraud in mail-in voting a huge cloud of vitriol descends upon them. It shouldn't be necessary to prove that voter fraud exists in order to wonder about the propensity for fraud. I lived at the same address in San Mateo for 18 years and every time I voted at the polls I would check the book and see there were 3-4 folks registered to my house that I did not know. I complained to the county multiple times and they informed me it didn't matter, those folks were not voting. Then in 2008 I started walking neighborhoods for the local Republican Party. They gave me a list of registered voters and the most recent elections they voted. I checked my address and sure enough all of those extra voters had been voting. Also one additional person was listed. I went back and complained to the party HQ and at the county assessor's office. Those folks stayed on the list until 2013. I moved in 2017 and submitted the form to cancel my registration. Guess what? I checked just now and I'm still registered to vote in San Mateo! Wonder if I voted in the last election there?
holler 6y ago
> voter fraud doesn't scale. That's the most rational argument I've heard and one that is easy to parse even for someone skeptical of Government doing anything competently.

by jdashg 6y ago

Alupis 6y ago

What about vote harvesting? Mail-in Ballots open the door for this abuse a lot more than before. Just drive around and offer to return Ballots or "help" people fill them in.

triceratops 6y ago
Stuff like that tends to get out. For example: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-operative-faces-new-felony-charges-that-allege-ballot-fraud https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-...
- Alupis 6y ago
  Ya, well in SF they've more-or-less made this very thing legal. Read into that what you want.
  - no-s 6y ago
    it kills me how whenever one raises a question or criticism about the potential for voter fraud in mail-in voting a huge cloud of vitriol descends upon them. It shouldn't be necessary to prove that voter fraud exists in order to wonder about the propensity for fraud. I lived at the same address in San Mateo for 18 years and every time I voted at the polls I would check the book and see there were 3-4 folks registered to my house that I did not know. I complained to the county multiple times and they informed me it didn't matter, those folks were not voting. Then in 2008 I started walking neighborhoods for the local Republican Party. They gave me a list of registered voters and the most recent elections they voted. I checked my address and sure enough all of those extra voters had been voting. Also one additional person was listed. I went back and complained to the party HQ and at the county assessor's office. Those folks stayed on the list until 2013. I moved in 2017 and submitted the form to cancel my registration. Guess what? I checked just now and I'm still registered to vote in San Mateo! Wonder if I voted in the last election there?

holler 6y ago

> voter fraud doesn't scale. That's the most rational argument I've heard and one that is easy to parse even for someone skeptical of Government doing anything competently.