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I actually wonder how viable it would be to devise a targeted ballot spoiling attack. Picture this: Have a canvasser or harvester pick up mail in ballots. The

I actually wonder how viable it would be to devise a targeted ballot spoiling attack. Picture this: Have a canvasser or harvester pick up mail in ballots. They take it to a safe house and open the envelopes. If it’s a vote for the candidate they don’t like, put marks on it so it doesn’t get counted. Place it in a new return envelope. You’ve just cancelled that person’s vote. If someone checked that their vote was counted they wouldn’t be able to see that it was spoilt. You could potentially just throw away the ballot too, I doubt most people check that they were actually received. But it does seem slightly more likely to raise eyebrows. I’m sure you could chalk it up to just getting lost at the post office.

psadauskas 5y ago
In Colorado, the return envelope has a unique barcode and has to be signed on the outside. Not fullproof, since they could print a new envelope with the same code and forge the signature, but not as easy as just having a stack of return envelopes to use.
dlp211 5y ago
You can't just return your ballot in any envelope, you'd have to have access to excess return envelopes which is a tall task. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by adding marks invalidating the ballot. If you fill out a ballot incorrectly, the poll workers will notify you that there are issues with your ballot.