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It's the same reason why voting via mail is very hard to exploit. Voting functions as a secure handshake (register to vote via mail, government sends confirmati

It's the same reason why voting via mail is very hard to exploit. Voting functions as a secure handshake (register to vote via mail, government sends confirmation, government sends ballot, you send ballot back, government sends confirmation of vote) and requires you to sign it with some identifying information like a signature. There might be some individuals trying to cheat the system at the family level, but trying to cheat it at a larger scale requires you to do so at a point of collection. It also becomes very easy to find this sort of tampering by sending voters a way of confirming who they voted for.

wahern 6y ago
One of the most egregious incidents of proven voting fraud in recent American history may have been by Leslie McCrae, a hired political operative: 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-... He exploited the absentee (mail-in) ballot system. OTOH, he was caught precisely because to exploit the system he had to directly or indirectly expose himself to many people in the county--the people whose absentee ballots he was fraudulently collecting. Eventually someone put 2+2 together and the scheme was discovered. OTOOH, apparently he had been doing it for many years before he got caught. More info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCrae_Dowless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCrae_Dowless
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  A more traditional voting system would have the same problem. He'd instead just put himself at a polling location and do the same trick there. The fact that he had to pay people to collect individual absentee ballots means this sorta fraud is very hard to scale, easy to beat with some basic education and easily identifiable. Of course a lot of this goes out the window if you're doing it to help a party and that party has zero integrity but at least if one voting individual brings up an issue it can cause a ripple effect. Part of the problem is also that we don't seem to take absentee ballots as serious as we do when we have full vote by mail.

wahern 6y ago

One of the most egregious incidents of proven voting fraud in recent American history may have been by Leslie McCrae, a hired political operative: 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-... He exploited the absentee (mail-in) ballot system. OTOH, he was caught precisely because to exploit the system he had to directly or indirectly expose himself to many people in the county--the people whose absentee ballots he was fraudulently collecting. Eventually someone put 2+2 together and the scheme was discovered. OTOOH, apparently he had been doing it for many years before he got caught. More info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCrae_Dowless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCrae_Dowless

fzeroracer 6y ago
A more traditional voting system would have the same problem. He'd instead just put himself at a polling location and do the same trick there. The fact that he had to pay people to collect individual absentee ballots means this sorta fraud is very hard to scale, easy to beat with some basic education and easily identifiable. Of course a lot of this goes out the window if you're doing it to help a party and that party has zero integrity but at least if one voting individual brings up an issue it can cause a ripple effect. Part of the problem is also that we don't seem to take absentee ballots as serious as we do when we have full vote by mail.