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>A recent Washington Post analysis analyzed three states with all-mail elections — Colorado, Oregon and Washington — and found just 372 potential irregularities

by ipnon 6y ago

>A recent Washington Post analysis analyzed three states with all-mail elections — Colorado, Oregon and Washington — and found just 372 potential irregularities among 14.6 million votes, or 0.0025%.[0] They seem insecure, but they are not insecure. That is the problem. The perception that public elections are vulnerable to massive voter fraud is what drives these conspiracy theories, not the reality. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minuscule-number-of-potentially-fraudulent-ballots-in-states-with-universal-mail-voting-undercuts-trump-claims-about-election-risks/2020/06/08/1e78aa26-a5c5-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minuscule-number-of-...

ses1984 6y ago
Just because mail in ballots haven't been attacked doesn't mean they can't or won't. I'm all for more mail in ballots, just saying.
- ipnon 6y ago
  I would say the prevailing evidence suggests we can continue using them confidently, and the prevailing sentiment suggests we should begin to introduce measures that increase public trust in the validity of voting by mail and our elections in general.
  - ses1984 6y ago
    I think we can have both. Let's promote mail in voting while trying to come up with ways to secure it that doesn't disenfranchise people.
creddit 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co...
- ipnon 6y ago
  This is a great example of how voting by mail needs to be made even more secure so that all voters trust that elections are valid.
  - Covzire 6y ago
    Indeed. Here's the formula: 1) Quickly gloss over any real examples of voter fraud. 2) Don't acknowledge prominent Democrat concerns with them only a couple years ago. 3) Don't give any time to real and recent examples. 4) Do throw around the words of people who worry about mail in ballots, carefully pointing out they're all Pro Trump, Anti Muslim activist, some other view point CNN/NYT tells you that you hate. 5) Don't acknowledge any of the ways mail in ballots are objectively weaker and easier to compromise. Articles like this are themselves misinformation and propaganda.
    - ipnon 6y ago
      1) In North Carolina's 9th 2018 congressional district election, the campaign manager for the Republican candidate manipulated absentee ballots 2) I'm not arguing whether feigning concern is a political tactic, I'm arguing that vote by mail fraud a. exists, b. is so insignificant that it doesn't affect election outcomes, c. still needs to be combated because elections should be seen as irrefutably valid by all voters 3) You can read the facts about the example here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co... 4) Most voter misinformation on Facebook is perpetuated by Trump supporters according to the article. 5) I think all voters should be able to agree that elections, including voting by mail, should be as secure as possible. It seems that as of today, voting by mail is secure enough to warrant its use in general, and more specifically in our current situation where voting at in-person polling locations risks spreading Covid needlessly and would have a chilling effect on voters who fear they would contract Covid and die by visiting an in-person voting location. In fact, I would go so far to claim that the chilling effect from requiring all voting to take place in person during the Covid pandemic would distort the outcome of the election by magnitudes greater than what we would expect from even 10 or 100 times more vote by mail fraud than we have today. Forcing voters to risk their lives to cast their ballot disenfranchises them and is as reprehensible as their ballot being manipulated against their will.
mtgp1000 6y ago
Wait, so an outlet which is openly at odds with the current administration performed an investigation into claims made by the current administration, found the claims to be false, and we're just going to take the conclusion at face value? Nevermind the fact that this was conducted by journalists (i.e. non specialists who have a propensity for misreporting technical information). Conspiracy theory...what a convenient dismissal of a potentially genuine problem. All of our institutions are rife with abuse but we're supposed to believe voter fraud doesn't exist because WAPO says it doesn't and, more importantly, because Trump said it does... Edit: and they apparently looked at 3 states. Unqualified journalists should stay away from statistics or "fact checking" - at this point they are actively harming society with their piss poor, agenda driven "analyses".
- tzs 6y ago
  > Edit: and they apparently looked at 3 states. Unqualified journalists should stay away from statistics or "fact checking" - at this point they are actively harming society with their piss poor, agenda driven "analyses" Those are the 3 biggest states of the 5 that use primarily vote by mail. They contain ~80% of the vote by mail population.
  - mtgp1000 6y ago
    >The figure reflects cases referred to law enforcement agencies in five elections held in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, where all voters proactively receive ballots in the mail for every election. Oh I see, well, clearly, if officials aren't reporting on it then it's not happening. Wapo and blue check marks make it official. This logic isn't sound but people are happy to swallow hole anything anti-trump. Edit: not to mention Colorado, Washington, and Oregon probably don't harbor anywhere near the same number of illegal immigrants as do states like California and Texas where this would be more of a concern. In fact this whole debate is framed illegitimately. States like California automatically register voters when they receive IDs, they allow noncitizens of any legal status to obtain IDs, and we're supposed to pretend this isn't an avenue for illegal voting? Who's going to report these votes if they ostensibly conform to the California rules? But don't worry, Wapo and Huffpo will run their "analyses" and everything will come back squeaky clean. We all need to hold all of our sources accountable and examine them critically, even when they tell us what we want to hear.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
Did the study document what type of irregularities they could have missed? It is like claiming I have never been hacked because my logs never showed anything. If you really want to look at the issue, you need to approach it like a security audit. What is your threat model? What are the failure modes? What are the ways that there can be fraud without setting off red flags. Right off the bat, an issue with all-mail elections is coercion, and suppression. If the ballots all arrive in the mail at the house, someone can use coercion to make sure all the ballots are filled out as they wish. This is much harder to do in person. And that vulnerability popped up with less than a minute of thought. If approached from a security perspective, I am sure others would pop up. Now, after serious analysis, it may be concluded that the benefits outweigh the risks, but a serious analysis needs to be done.

by ipnon 6y ago

ses1984 6y ago

Just because mail in ballots haven't been attacked doesn't mean they can't or won't. I'm all for more mail in ballots, just saying.

ipnon 6y ago
I would say the prevailing evidence suggests we can continue using them confidently, and the prevailing sentiment suggests we should begin to introduce measures that increase public trust in the validity of voting by mail and our elections in general.
- ses1984 6y ago
  I think we can have both. Let's promote mail in voting while trying to come up with ways to secure it that doesn't disenfranchise people.

creddit 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co...

ipnon 6y ago
This is a great example of how voting by mail needs to be made even more secure so that all voters trust that elections are valid.
- Covzire 6y ago
  Indeed. Here's the formula: 1) Quickly gloss over any real examples of voter fraud. 2) Don't acknowledge prominent Democrat concerns with them only a couple years ago. 3) Don't give any time to real and recent examples. 4) Do throw around the words of people who worry about mail in ballots, carefully pointing out they're all Pro Trump, Anti Muslim activist, some other view point CNN/NYT tells you that you hate. 5) Don't acknowledge any of the ways mail in ballots are objectively weaker and easier to compromise. Articles like this are themselves misinformation and propaganda.
  - ipnon 6y ago
    1) In North Carolina's 9th 2018 congressional district election, the campaign manager for the Republican candidate manipulated absentee ballots 2) I'm not arguing whether feigning concern is a political tactic, I'm arguing that vote by mail fraud a. exists, b. is so insignificant that it doesn't affect election outcomes, c. still needs to be combated because elections should be seen as irrefutably valid by all voters 3) You can read the facts about the example here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_congressional_district_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_North_Carolina%27s_9th_co... 4) Most voter misinformation on Facebook is perpetuated by Trump supporters according to the article. 5) I think all voters should be able to agree that elections, including voting by mail, should be as secure as possible. It seems that as of today, voting by mail is secure enough to warrant its use in general, and more specifically in our current situation where voting at in-person polling locations risks spreading Covid needlessly and would have a chilling effect on voters who fear they would contract Covid and die by visiting an in-person voting location. In fact, I would go so far to claim that the chilling effect from requiring all voting to take place in person during the Covid pandemic would distort the outcome of the election by magnitudes greater than what we would expect from even 10 or 100 times more vote by mail fraud than we have today. Forcing voters to risk their lives to cast their ballot disenfranchises them and is as reprehensible as their ballot being manipulated against their will.

mtgp1000 6y ago

Wait, so an outlet which is openly at odds with the current administration performed an investigation into claims made by the current administration, found the claims to be false, and we're just going to take the conclusion at face value? Nevermind the fact that this was conducted by journalists (i.e. non specialists who have a propensity for misreporting technical information). Conspiracy theory...what a convenient dismissal of a potentially genuine problem. All of our institutions are rife with abuse but we're supposed to believe voter fraud doesn't exist because WAPO says it doesn't and, more importantly, because Trump said it does... Edit: and they apparently looked at 3 states. Unqualified journalists should stay away from statistics or "fact checking" - at this point they are actively harming society with their piss poor, agenda driven "analyses".

tzs 6y ago
> Edit: and they apparently looked at 3 states. Unqualified journalists should stay away from statistics or "fact checking" - at this point they are actively harming society with their piss poor, agenda driven "analyses" Those are the 3 biggest states of the 5 that use primarily vote by mail. They contain ~80% of the vote by mail population.
- mtgp1000 6y ago
  >The figure reflects cases referred to law enforcement agencies in five elections held in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, where all voters proactively receive ballots in the mail for every election. Oh I see, well, clearly, if officials aren't reporting on it then it's not happening. Wapo and blue check marks make it official. This logic isn't sound but people are happy to swallow hole anything anti-trump. Edit: not to mention Colorado, Washington, and Oregon probably don't harbor anywhere near the same number of illegal immigrants as do states like California and Texas where this would be more of a concern. In fact this whole debate is framed illegitimately. States like California automatically register voters when they receive IDs, they allow noncitizens of any legal status to obtain IDs, and we're supposed to pretend this isn't an avenue for illegal voting? Who's going to report these votes if they ostensibly conform to the California rules? But don't worry, Wapo and Huffpo will run their "analyses" and everything will come back squeaky clean. We all need to hold all of our sources accountable and examine them critically, even when they tell us what we want to hear.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

Did the study document what type of irregularities they could have missed? It is like claiming I have never been hacked because my logs never showed anything. If you really want to look at the issue, you need to approach it like a security audit. What is your threat model? What are the failure modes? What are the ways that there can be fraud without setting off red flags. Right off the bat, an issue with all-mail elections is coercion, and suppression. If the ballots all arrive in the mail at the house, someone can use coercion to make sure all the ballots are filled out as they wish. This is much harder to do in person. And that vulnerability popped up with less than a minute of thought. If approached from a security perspective, I am sure others would pop up. Now, after serious analysis, it may be concluded that the benefits outweigh the risks, but a serious analysis needs to be done.