4 ms·

When I voted by mail in California, the government sent me updates when my ballot was received and counted. If somebody was going around stealing identities to

When I voted by mail in California, the government sent me updates when my ballot was received and counted. If somebody was going around stealing identities to vote fraudulently, wouldn’t they be running the risk that every person they voted for could discover that a vote was cast in their name, triggering an investigation? Voter fraud is a serious crime, and unlike other similar crimes (like a fake credit application), the perpetrator doesn’t stand to make $$$$ for each act. They need to commit the crime at scale to change the result. If this form of fraud were happening en masse, surely there’d be tons of evidence of it? If campaign workers were going around trying to bribe people to vote, some of the people they are trying to bribe might unexpectedly be supporters of the other candidate, and would have a strong incentive to collect evidence of the bribery attempt and report it. It would make for some very interesting hidden camera videos and would be explosive news in the modern political environment.

Bancakes 5y ago
They can use deceased people probably. I've heard of such cases in eastern europe for fraud.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  There’s documentation when people die. Someone in could check and see that those people voted (in a somewhat automated way), then trigger an investigation where authorities look up what address were those ballots mailed to. Again, seems very risky (at least in the US where elections are litigated and governments are scrutinizing individual votes in close elections to find cases like this). I’m not saying it never happens, but rather that it’s easy enough to discover that people who do it have a decent change of getting caught. That constraints how widespread the issue can be.
  - Bancakes 5y ago
    So assuming the scheme only works when everyone is in on it, would you be the one who reports it and gets punished and vilified? And who would you report it to? I'm not from thw US, and it brings a hopeful smile that conspiraces seem solvable over there.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > There’s documentation when people die. And political parties have access to records of who voted. If bunches of dead people were voting, someone would have both the information and the incentive to make hay about the readily available concrete proof, most notably, political parties pushing voter ID requirements. Since they aren't doing that, it's pretty clear that isn't happening.

Bancakes 5y ago

They can use deceased people probably. I've heard of such cases in eastern europe for fraud.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
There’s documentation when people die. Someone in could check and see that those people voted (in a somewhat automated way), then trigger an investigation where authorities look up what address were those ballots mailed to. Again, seems very risky (at least in the US where elections are litigated and governments are scrutinizing individual votes in close elections to find cases like this). I’m not saying it never happens, but rather that it’s easy enough to discover that people who do it have a decent change of getting caught. That constraints how widespread the issue can be.
- Bancakes 5y ago
  So assuming the scheme only works when everyone is in on it, would you be the one who reports it and gets punished and vilified? And who would you report it to? I'm not from thw US, and it brings a hopeful smile that conspiraces seem solvable over there.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > There’s documentation when people die. And political parties have access to records of who voted. If bunches of dead people were voting, someone would have both the information and the incentive to make hay about the readily available concrete proof, most notably, political parties pushing voter ID requirements. Since they aren't doing that, it's pretty clear that isn't happening.