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There is no magic here. Ballots have no identifiers attached to them. Fraudulent ballots are indistinguishable from real ballots. Envelopes do have identifiers

There is no magic here. Ballots have no identifiers attached to them. Fraudulent ballots are indistinguishable from real ballots. Envelopes do have identifiers attached to them but are separated from ballots. It is not always necessary to submit envelopes with ballots, and batch integrity is not necessarily maintained or useful based on batch size. False registration and/or false voting can produce fake ballots. Ballot-level fraud resolution diminishes to zero, by design, in the existing system in order to preserve a degree of voter anonymity. Without registration or voting resolution, there is a very limited check on fraud, including high likelihood of surplus of in-circulation empty ballots. please explain your position in this context.

troyvit 2y ago
I wish people would've responded to you instead of down-voting you. I've heard those arguments, but the thing is there are several cases around the country right now where ballot-level fraud _was_ caught[1]. Without doing any research I'll say that while it's easier to generate a bogus ballot than it is to generate a bogus hundred dollar bill, it just doesn't scale to the point where it's useful. It's a pain in the ass to get your hands on enough ballots, fill them out, and deliver them to a drop box or whatever. You can't just pull up with a wagon full of ballots and drop them off. How much is it worth to somebody to flip a county? Which county do you flip? How many ballots will you need to flip it? What's the risk/reward ratio like? [1] https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-fraudulently-filled-by-usps-employee-friend/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-frau...
lmm 2y ago
So what's the scenario where a voter ID check makes a difference - specifically, where an ID check eliminates more fake votes than it disenfranchises genuine voters? The ID check is presumably still attached to the envelope rather than the ballot, right? (Otherwise you have massive deanonymity problems). If there is fake voter registration happening, presumably obtaining fake IDs by the same methods is just as easy. I'm sure a certain amount of e.g. individuals submitting their dead relatives' ballots happens - but anyone doing that can probably grab their relative's ID too, and go to two polling stations. I doubt any large-scale partisan fraud via in-person submission at polling stations is going on, because it's impractical to make that happen while keeping it secret - the only way it could happen would be with widespread official collusion, and again in that case an ID check wouldn't move the needle.
- the_optimist 2y ago
  The ID check is productive at 1) registration - ensure eligibility and 2) at ballot casting - ensure the voter is registered and unique. The match will inherently enumerate voters. Your outside assumptions that a) id requirements disenfranchise voters and b) official collusion is the “only way” are structurally and by evidence unfounded. In your argument they provide only hand-wavy service for an otherwise unsupported conclusion.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > The ID check is productive at 1) registration - ensure eligibility and 2) at ballot casting - ensure the voter is registered and unique. How does checking an ID ensure eligibility better than what's already done? And similarly for ballot casting - how would IDs make a better uniqueness/registration check than what we have? > a) id requirements disenfranchise voters and b) official collusion is the “only way” are structurally and by evidence unfounded It's well documented that many legitimate voters do not have IDs. And it's widely accepted that large-scale in-person voter fraud is not happening and there's no real plausible way for it to happen; if you want to claim that it is or it can, the onus is on you. > In your argument they provide only hand-wavy service for an otherwise unsupported conclusion. Please grow up. The over-the-top rhetoric doesn't make you more convincing, quite the opposite.
    - the_optimist 2y ago
      There is little-to-zero validation or uniqueness check currently, and there are near-zero verifiable data points. We can count envelopes/ballots and eyeball signatures, and there is batch-level attachment between the two. Everything else is “trust me bro”-level security, relying on the assumption of a non-existent high-security environment. Papers referring to voter ID disenfranchisement rest almost entirely on address-field-correctness deficiency (people move), which is a minimal problem other fields requiring human resolution. To nurture your aside: People who achieve things identify the factual and structural nature of problems. Articulation is a scale factor. Good luck!

troyvit 2y ago

I wish people would've responded to you instead of down-voting you. I've heard those arguments, but the thing is there are several cases around the country right now where ballot-level fraud _was_ caught[1]. Without doing any research I'll say that while it's easier to generate a bogus ballot than it is to generate a bogus hundred dollar bill, it just doesn't scale to the point where it's useful. It's a pain in the ass to get your hands on enough ballots, fill them out, and deliver them to a drop box or whatever. You can't just pull up with a wagon full of ballots and drop them off. How much is it worth to somebody to flip a county? Which county do you flip? How many ballots will you need to flip it? What's the risk/reward ratio like? [1] https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-fraudulently-filled-by-usps-employee-friend/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/06/mesa-county-mail-ballots-frau...

lmm 2y ago

So what's the scenario where a voter ID check makes a difference - specifically, where an ID check eliminates more fake votes than it disenfranchises genuine voters? The ID check is presumably still attached to the envelope rather than the ballot, right? (Otherwise you have massive deanonymity problems). If there is fake voter registration happening, presumably obtaining fake IDs by the same methods is just as easy. I'm sure a certain amount of e.g. individuals submitting their dead relatives' ballots happens - but anyone doing that can probably grab their relative's ID too, and go to two polling stations. I doubt any large-scale partisan fraud via in-person submission at polling stations is going on, because it's impractical to make that happen while keeping it secret - the only way it could happen would be with widespread official collusion, and again in that case an ID check wouldn't move the needle.

the_optimist 2y ago
The ID check is productive at 1) registration - ensure eligibility and 2) at ballot casting - ensure the voter is registered and unique. The match will inherently enumerate voters. Your outside assumptions that a) id requirements disenfranchise voters and b) official collusion is the “only way” are structurally and by evidence unfounded. In your argument they provide only hand-wavy service for an otherwise unsupported conclusion.
- lmm 2y ago
  > The ID check is productive at 1) registration - ensure eligibility and 2) at ballot casting - ensure the voter is registered and unique. How does checking an ID ensure eligibility better than what's already done? And similarly for ballot casting - how would IDs make a better uniqueness/registration check than what we have? > a) id requirements disenfranchise voters and b) official collusion is the “only way” are structurally and by evidence unfounded It's well documented that many legitimate voters do not have IDs. And it's widely accepted that large-scale in-person voter fraud is not happening and there's no real plausible way for it to happen; if you want to claim that it is or it can, the onus is on you. > In your argument they provide only hand-wavy service for an otherwise unsupported conclusion. Please grow up. The over-the-top rhetoric doesn't make you more convincing, quite the opposite.
  - the_optimist 2y ago
    There is little-to-zero validation or uniqueness check currently, and there are near-zero verifiable data points. We can count envelopes/ballots and eyeball signatures, and there is batch-level attachment between the two. Everything else is “trust me bro”-level security, relying on the assumption of a non-existent high-security environment. Papers referring to voter ID disenfranchisement rest almost entirely on address-field-correctness deficiency (people move), which is a minimal problem other fields requiring human resolution. To nurture your aside: People who achieve things identify the factual and structural nature of problems. Articulation is a scale factor. Good luck!