11 ms·

Vote by Mail: Ballot Fraud Risk, State Laws and Trump's Claims

63 points by evo_9 6y ago

_red 6y ago
HN is usually pretty good at detecting insecure implementations and obvious attempts at subversion. I wonder whats wrong in this case?
- kochb 6y ago
  The crux is whether mail delivery of the ballot can be executed securely and verifiably, and whether failures can be corrected in a timely manner. A few examples of where this can go wrong: * Introducing third party ballot collectors risks bad actors manipulating the ballot pipeline, for example what we saw in 2018 in North Carolina's 9th district. * The US mail is mostly reliable, but lost mail (in my experience) is still fairly common. While this would be a random occurrence, every election cycle involves several tight races, and a lost ballot can flip the results. * In the event errors in ballot transmission occur, you need to correct them in a timely manner. This requires someone to put in the effort to proactively watch out for missing ballots. Individuals are lazy, and it might not be in the interests of partisan officials to try. The severity of these and other issues largely depends on the volume of mail voting; the more mail voting the more incentive to try to subvert it. As with any security issue, the defenses against them need to be strong enough to make the attacks too expensive to execute. Just because we don't see fraud yet doesn't mean mail voting won't be targeted in the future.
  - soco 6y ago
    This underlines how the actual bipartisan system winner-takes-all much too sensitive to minor (postal or otherwise) hiccups. In a proportional system wouldn't matter much if the difference between the lead positions was plusminus 1%... but okay, it is how it is.
tryptophan 6y ago
Does anyone understand the security model of mail-in-ballots or have a good article about it? This article suggests there is some security-through-obscurity with each county having its own ballot version, changed each election year. They also mention matching voter registrations and signatures, but doesn't this defeat the principle of anonymous voting by putting your signature and name in the same envelope as your vote?
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  When I’ve voted by mail, the signature is on the outside of the envelope so that it can be validated before they remove the contents. I assume that after validation the contents go in a big stack to be counted just like other ballots.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    Additionally, there is a tear-off strip with a barcode that you hold on to, which allows you to follow up on the status of your ballot online.
  - takeda 6y ago
    The ballot also has an unique ID, perhaps is not tied to your name, but there is nothing that would prevent that. The ID is known when it is marked to you.
- stillbourne 6y ago
  I was listening to my local NPR station when I heard a news story about how Colorado secures their elections: https://www.cpr.org/2018/10/25/colorado-is-a-pretty-darn-safe-place-to-cast-a-ballot-this-is-how-we-got-here/ https://www.cpr.org/2018/10/25/colorado-is-a-pretty-darn-saf...
- fuzzy2 6y ago
  In Germany, you have two envelopes, outer and inner. The inner envelope contains your anonymous voting slip. I think it’s basically the same one you get when voting in person. (Haven’t been there for a long time.) It’s what goes into the voting box. The outer envelope contains the sealed (invalid otherwise) inner envelope and an affidavit where you declare that the vote was your own blah blah. This also doubles as your voting registration (dunno how to precisely translate it, it’s a paper your receive that allows you to vote wherever or via mail). So the security is that it’s perjury if you’re not voting properly. The anonymity is because the inner envelope is only opened when counting. The outer envelope is gone by then.
snarfy 6y ago
"The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." - trump
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  Trump is laying the groundwork for being able to contest the results of the election.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  If making it easier to vote hurts the Republican Party, then presumably it's on the Republican Party to make itself more appealing to people. Incidentally, this is a VERY common argument against extending the franchise, and extremely self-serving. And also typically incorrect; the Tory party in the UK was terrified of letting all men vote, and then of letting all people vote; a century later, they're still getting elected (though of course they have a somewhat different character now that they have to appeal to people who aren't even male landowners...)
  - _-david-_ 6y ago
    >If making it easier to vote hurts the Republican Party, then presumably it's on the Republican Party to make itself more appealing to people. You could turn this around since its possibly that people who wouldn't normally vote but would vote if they could do a mail in ballot are probably less informed. The Republican Party is afraid that people who are less informed are more likely to vote for the Democratic Party.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      > are probably less informed. How did you get there? I'd assume a lot of people who don't vote in the US don't vote because in many states it is awkward if one has a job. Also, it doesn't matter how informed voters are; in a democracy they are supposed to be able to vote.
      - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wry_discontent 6y ago
People complaining about voter fraud shouldn't be taken seriously. If you cared about the integrity of US elections, voter fraud isn't where you'd start. It's a fraction of a percent compared to the election rigging that happens in the open. Campaign finance makes a mockery of the campaign process. Voter id laws disenfranchise more people than fraudulently vote. Gerrymandering creates unfair advantages with malicious boundaries. Regular closing of the polls disenfranchises more people than vote fraudulently. Voter fraud might be a problem, but it's minuscule compared to fraud of the elections themselves.
- DevX101 6y ago
  If vote by mail is secure enough for Utah, Oregon, and citizens over the age of 65, it's secure enough for everyone.
  - samfriedman 6y ago
    Not to mention our military.
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    All of Colorado, as well.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mcculley 6y ago
  I did some analysis of vote data in Florida and found some fraud: https://enki.org/2018/12/07/finding-unusual-voters/ https://enki.org/2018/12/07/finding-unusual-voters/ I'm not convinced it is large scale enough to sway an election. It's mostly just a failure of the counties to coordinate with each other to prevent double votes. Florida has had unrestricted absentee ballot voting by mail since 2002. Over 2.5 million Florida voters used it in the last two elections, so I think the recent noise about voting by mail is just a distraction. I do think we need better coordination across the states. I am convinced that there are people with residences in multiple states getting more than one vote. Unfortunately, not all of the states are as transparent as Florida is with the vote data.
soco 6y ago
We vote by mail in Switzerland every few months, for decades already. No major issues... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland#Mail-in_ballots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland#Mail-in_...
aSplash0fDerp 6y ago
John Oliver summed this up pretty well. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-nEHkgm_Gk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-nEHkgm_Gk It looks like the age of Independent candidates is upon US. The existing burdens/obligations prevent the existing parties from seeing the future.
- aSplash0fDerp 6y ago
  Whoops! Shouldn't have mentioned Independant. The defenition of puppet is someone else dictating the words and actions, so if your not amazed currently, you're just not a fan of puppet shows.
ikeyany 6y ago
> The opposition to mail voting is anchored by Republicans in states that don't offer wide access to mail voting already. The president has made it clear that despite voting by mail himself multiple times, he does not support wide expansion of the practice. Occam's Razor apllies here.
- tw000001 6y ago
  >The president has made it clear that despite voting by mail himself multiple times, he does not support wide expansion of the practice. If we take off our hate-goggles here, this really isn't the gotchya that journalists want you to think it is. One can be qualified to legally vote by mail and do so while also claiming that overall the system is broken.
  - tkzed49 6y ago
    I fail to see what would justify one able-bodied individual being able to vote by mail and others not. If he believes that the system unjustly qualifies him to do so, then shouldn't he, out of principle, not exploit it? Shouldn't the leader of a country exemplify their principles?
  - ikeyany 6y ago
    Did you read the very next paragraph in the article after what I quoted? The claims were based on bogus evidence. Not everyone who disagrees with you has "hate" in them.
slovette 6y ago
I've been voting by mail in Colorado for at least three years of memory, and I've seen zero reports of any systemic issues. Utah and Oregon are the same from what I know. Both Germany and Switzerland have mail voting, and there isn't any strong statistical data showing an abundance of voter fraud. However, this doesn't stop my rural farming parents from screaming about rampant voter fraud and "The Dumb-o-crats" trying to take advantage of the system. Yes, they also live in Colorado and vote by mail. The propaganda works, even on decent people. We have a HUGE misinformation issue to solve in this country before any complex issue like our voting system can ever be talked about seriously. Those of us that put real work effort into being properly informed, know the real issue is turn-out and how voting by mail enables polling to have MUCH MUCH higher turn-out. This is a problem for one of those parties that have been able to hang onto power through less than ethical means of manipulation and reducing voter turn-out from population bases they look down their nose at. This isn't my opinion, its fact. It's strategically brilliant by them and their playbook is exceptionally effective. And THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS. People like my folks are good, decent people. But they're intellectually lazy and are victims to the propaganda machine that runs across their televisions every day. If vetted information was presented in an easy-to-relate way, they would see what I see. But somehow Trump and the right have figured out a single childish label for complex societal issues chanted over and over again, mentally over-powers the thousands of hours living a life of the exact opposite. It's shocking how well the right has dialed in their messaging. My parents work in the trees and fields, under the hot sun, nearly every day in the summer next to the same people they'll later chant are ruining their "American Prosperity." They nearly bankrupted themselves, keeping these same workers paid during COVID, because they weren't going to let them go hungry or lose their homes. But they'll talk about the rampant welfare state and the need to gut it over dinner. Somehow, they don't relate what they see in politics with what they're living every day. It's like it's two different worlds for them, and I'm dumbfounded by how the propaganda has created that reality within them. Voting issues, welfare, and/or any single issue directive won't overpower this reality we live in now. We HAVE to solve this information issue first.
every 6y ago
There are over 3000 counties or equivalents in the US and each one has their own particular take on the mail-in process. This isn't where I would start if I wanted to influence the tallies beyond a strictly local level...
mnm1 6y ago
This isn't a debate. Many states have had mail in ballots for decades and some use them exclusively. This is established practice and we know that suspected fraud cases occur extremely rarely. Just because our idiot president and his even dumber followers think something stupid is an issue doesn't make it so.

63 points by evo_9 6y ago

_red 6y ago

HN is usually pretty good at detecting insecure implementations and obvious attempts at subversion. I wonder whats wrong in this case?

kochb 6y ago
The crux is whether mail delivery of the ballot can be executed securely and verifiably, and whether failures can be corrected in a timely manner. A few examples of where this can go wrong: * Introducing third party ballot collectors risks bad actors manipulating the ballot pipeline, for example what we saw in 2018 in North Carolina's 9th district. * The US mail is mostly reliable, but lost mail (in my experience) is still fairly common. While this would be a random occurrence, every election cycle involves several tight races, and a lost ballot can flip the results. * In the event errors in ballot transmission occur, you need to correct them in a timely manner. This requires someone to put in the effort to proactively watch out for missing ballots. Individuals are lazy, and it might not be in the interests of partisan officials to try. The severity of these and other issues largely depends on the volume of mail voting; the more mail voting the more incentive to try to subvert it. As with any security issue, the defenses against them need to be strong enough to make the attacks too expensive to execute. Just because we don't see fraud yet doesn't mean mail voting won't be targeted in the future.
- soco 6y ago
  This underlines how the actual bipartisan system winner-takes-all much too sensitive to minor (postal or otherwise) hiccups. In a proportional system wouldn't matter much if the difference between the lead positions was plusminus 1%... but okay, it is how it is.

tryptophan 6y ago

Does anyone understand the security model of mail-in-ballots or have a good article about it? This article suggests there is some security-through-obscurity with each county having its own ballot version, changed each election year. They also mention matching voter registrations and signatures, but doesn't this defeat the principle of anonymous voting by putting your signature and name in the same envelope as your vote?

ViViDboarder 6y ago
When I’ve voted by mail, the signature is on the outside of the envelope so that it can be validated before they remove the contents. I assume that after validation the contents go in a big stack to be counted just like other ballots.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  Additionally, there is a tear-off strip with a barcode that you hold on to, which allows you to follow up on the status of your ballot online.
- takeda 6y ago
  The ballot also has an unique ID, perhaps is not tied to your name, but there is nothing that would prevent that. The ID is known when it is marked to you.
stillbourne 6y ago
I was listening to my local NPR station when I heard a news story about how Colorado secures their elections: https://www.cpr.org/2018/10/25/colorado-is-a-pretty-darn-safe-place-to-cast-a-ballot-this-is-how-we-got-here/ https://www.cpr.org/2018/10/25/colorado-is-a-pretty-darn-saf...
fuzzy2 6y ago
In Germany, you have two envelopes, outer and inner. The inner envelope contains your anonymous voting slip. I think it’s basically the same one you get when voting in person. (Haven’t been there for a long time.) It’s what goes into the voting box. The outer envelope contains the sealed (invalid otherwise) inner envelope and an affidavit where you declare that the vote was your own blah blah. This also doubles as your voting registration (dunno how to precisely translate it, it’s a paper your receive that allows you to vote wherever or via mail). So the security is that it’s perjury if you’re not voting properly. The anonymity is because the inner envelope is only opened when counting. The outer envelope is gone by then.

snarfy 6y ago

"The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." - trump

Trasmatta 6y ago
Trump is laying the groundwork for being able to contest the results of the election.
rsynnott 6y ago
If making it easier to vote hurts the Republican Party, then presumably it's on the Republican Party to make itself more appealing to people. Incidentally, this is a VERY common argument against extending the franchise, and extremely self-serving. And also typically incorrect; the Tory party in the UK was terrified of letting all men vote, and then of letting all people vote; a century later, they're still getting elected (though of course they have a somewhat different character now that they have to appeal to people who aren't even male landowners...)
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  >If making it easier to vote hurts the Republican Party, then presumably it's on the Republican Party to make itself more appealing to people. You could turn this around since its possibly that people who wouldn't normally vote but would vote if they could do a mail in ballot are probably less informed. The Republican Party is afraid that people who are less informed are more likely to vote for the Democratic Party.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    > are probably less informed. How did you get there? I'd assume a lot of people who don't vote in the US don't vote because in many states it is awkward if one has a job. Also, it doesn't matter how informed voters are; in a democracy they are supposed to be able to vote.
    - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wry_discontent 6y ago

People complaining about voter fraud shouldn't be taken seriously. If you cared about the integrity of US elections, voter fraud isn't where you'd start. It's a fraction of a percent compared to the election rigging that happens in the open. Campaign finance makes a mockery of the campaign process. Voter id laws disenfranchise more people than fraudulently vote. Gerrymandering creates unfair advantages with malicious boundaries. Regular closing of the polls disenfranchises more people than vote fraudulently. Voter fraud might be a problem, but it's minuscule compared to fraud of the elections themselves.

DevX101 6y ago
If vote by mail is secure enough for Utah, Oregon, and citizens over the age of 65, it's secure enough for everyone.
- samfriedman 6y ago
  Not to mention our military.
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  All of Colorado, as well.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mcculley 6y ago
I did some analysis of vote data in Florida and found some fraud: https://enki.org/2018/12/07/finding-unusual-voters/ https://enki.org/2018/12/07/finding-unusual-voters/ I'm not convinced it is large scale enough to sway an election. It's mostly just a failure of the counties to coordinate with each other to prevent double votes. Florida has had unrestricted absentee ballot voting by mail since 2002. Over 2.5 million Florida voters used it in the last two elections, so I think the recent noise about voting by mail is just a distraction. I do think we need better coordination across the states. I am convinced that there are people with residences in multiple states getting more than one vote. Unfortunately, not all of the states are as transparent as Florida is with the vote data.

soco 6y ago

We vote by mail in Switzerland every few months, for decades already. No major issues... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland#Mail-in_ballots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland#Mail-in_...

aSplash0fDerp 6y ago

John Oliver summed this up pretty well. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-nEHkgm_Gk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-nEHkgm_Gk It looks like the age of Independent candidates is upon US. The existing burdens/obligations prevent the existing parties from seeing the future.

aSplash0fDerp 6y ago
Whoops! Shouldn't have mentioned Independant. The defenition of puppet is someone else dictating the words and actions, so if your not amazed currently, you're just not a fan of puppet shows.

ikeyany 6y ago

> The opposition to mail voting is anchored by Republicans in states that don't offer wide access to mail voting already. The president has made it clear that despite voting by mail himself multiple times, he does not support wide expansion of the practice. Occam's Razor apllies here.

tw000001 6y ago
>The president has made it clear that despite voting by mail himself multiple times, he does not support wide expansion of the practice. If we take off our hate-goggles here, this really isn't the gotchya that journalists want you to think it is. One can be qualified to legally vote by mail and do so while also claiming that overall the system is broken.
- tkzed49 6y ago
  I fail to see what would justify one able-bodied individual being able to vote by mail and others not. If he believes that the system unjustly qualifies him to do so, then shouldn't he, out of principle, not exploit it? Shouldn't the leader of a country exemplify their principles?
- ikeyany 6y ago
  Did you read the very next paragraph in the article after what I quoted? The claims were based on bogus evidence. Not everyone who disagrees with you has "hate" in them.

slovette 6y ago

I've been voting by mail in Colorado for at least three years of memory, and I've seen zero reports of any systemic issues. Utah and Oregon are the same from what I know. Both Germany and Switzerland have mail voting, and there isn't any strong statistical data showing an abundance of voter fraud. However, this doesn't stop my rural farming parents from screaming about rampant voter fraud and "The Dumb-o-crats" trying to take advantage of the system. Yes, they also live in Colorado and vote by mail. The propaganda works, even on decent people. We have a HUGE misinformation issue to solve in this country before any complex issue like our voting system can ever be talked about seriously. Those of us that put real work effort into being properly informed, know the real issue is turn-out and how voting by mail enables polling to have MUCH MUCH higher turn-out. This is a problem for one of those parties that have been able to hang onto power through less than ethical means of manipulation and reducing voter turn-out from population bases they look down their nose at. This isn't my opinion, its fact. It's strategically brilliant by them and their playbook is exceptionally effective. And THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS. People like my folks are good, decent people. But they're intellectually lazy and are victims to the propaganda machine that runs across their televisions every day. If vetted information was presented in an easy-to-relate way, they would see what I see. But somehow Trump and the right have figured out a single childish label for complex societal issues chanted over and over again, mentally over-powers the thousands of hours living a life of the exact opposite. It's shocking how well the right has dialed in their messaging. My parents work in the trees and fields, under the hot sun, nearly every day in the summer next to the same people they'll later chant are ruining their "American Prosperity." They nearly bankrupted themselves, keeping these same workers paid during COVID, because they weren't going to let them go hungry or lose their homes. But they'll talk about the rampant welfare state and the need to gut it over dinner. Somehow, they don't relate what they see in politics with what they're living every day. It's like it's two different worlds for them, and I'm dumbfounded by how the propaganda has created that reality within them. Voting issues, welfare, and/or any single issue directive won't overpower this reality we live in now. We HAVE to solve this information issue first.

every 6y ago

There are over 3000 counties or equivalents in the US and each one has their own particular take on the mail-in process. This isn't where I would start if I wanted to influence the tallies beyond a strictly local level...

mnm1 6y ago

This isn't a debate. Many states have had mail in ballots for decades and some use them exclusively. This is established practice and we know that suspected fraud cases occur extremely rarely. Just because our idiot president and his even dumber followers think something stupid is an issue doesn't make it so.