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I've always assumed it to be #2 combined with indiscriminate mail-in ballots if it were happening. Anecdotally, my non-citizen roommate received a ballot in Sea

I've always assumed it to be #2 combined with indiscriminate mail-in ballots if it were happening. Anecdotally, my non-citizen roommate received a ballot in Seattle. I'm genuinely asking: how do we know this? What is the mechanism by which this is known well enough to be strongly claimed with regularity? For #1, if that were happening, would it be documented somewhere that N people tried to vote and had already voted? If #2, would it be documented somewhere that an audit of verification procedures happened? Where would these be documented?

mindslight 9mo ago
The reasonable assumption is that mail in ballots are checked after they are mailed in, as they're being tallied. This avoids people voting in person plus mailing in, duplicating ballots, rolls changing before the election, etc. The only concern I see is that unilaterally mailing out ballots can induce fraud from new residents at the address filling out the ballots for the old residents - drastically lowering the bar from pretending to be someone else at a polling place, or even having to actively request ballots for someone else. > would it be documented somewhere that an audit of verification procedures happened? Where would these be documented? That you're asking this as open pondering rather than just straightforwardly researching your own state still feels quite leading. For the states I am familiar with, administering the voting rolls is the responsibility of the Secretary of State. They do generally perform audits, but you have to dig into the specifics of your own state if you want the exact answers of what has been audited - not just handwave vague feelings of how you personally not knowing must imply the worst possibility. This is what I mean about undermining trust in our public institutions. Specifically for your own example of your non-citizen roommate receiving a ballot, it seems that you should look up what your Secretary of State has to say about the matter. I'm guessing they've got a well-written FAQ page that lays out how such a ballot would be rejected.
- eudamoniac 9mo ago
  I don't really think voter fraud is a problem. I'm taking issue with the strong assertions without substantiation that it is definitely not happening. Maybe I could research all that, but you haven't, yet your comment earlier was very assertive that it is not happening. This tends to be always what happens in these discussions. I've seen posts like yours probably hundreds of times and never had the sources you are telling me to find included in the posts. That this is such a hot political topic would lead me to believe that these sources would have been compiled somewhere for easy verification. If they aren't, that is strange; if they are, why is it never posted?
  - mindslight 9mo ago
    I think your lack of understanding stems from seeing this primarily as a "hot political topic." Secretaries of State work to get this basic civic information out there, but they clearly do not have the reach of well moneyed political media that manufactures "just asking questions" topics out of whole cloth. For example, here are two links from the WA SOS that I found with 20 seconds of searching: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/frequently-asked-questions-about-elections https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/... https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/frequently-asked-questions-voting-mail https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/... If you've got questions about the integrity of your state's voting, then it's your own civic duty to seek out and understand these basic facts rather than spouting off FUD while demanding others to do the intellectual work for you, spoon feed you the results, and hope that you accept them. The failure of critics to do this basic work is exactly where these "strong assertions without substantiation" come from - the onus is on those making the argument that illegal immigrants are voting to do the basic work of understanding the states' existing systems and describe how exactly they believe this is happening.
    - eudamoniac 9mo ago
      Okay, but if you've got problems with voters believing false things, it's your civic duty to educate them, or your party will lose elections. Whether you think it's a hot political topic or not, many Trump voters think it is. They may be uninformed. Now you (a general interlocutor) can either inform them, or you can do what you've done here and say "nope you're wrong, go figure out why!" I'm generally supportive of the Republican party so I don't mind you doing the latter, but I have a feeling you would prefer the outcome of the former. I've literally never seen anyone do the former on this particular topic.
      - mindslight 9mo ago
        In general, if someone chooses to believe comforting falsehoods over inconvenient/frustrating/complex truths, I don't see how they can be particularly convinced otherwise. Especially by message board comments [0] - maybe some fantastic orator could do it in videos by using the same skills as politicians but "for good" rather than self-interest. In this discussion, I am still not sure - have I met your bar for informing you here, at least somewhat? I have answered some of the questions you posed, yet you seem to still be implying that I have not done enough work for you? In general it's going to be awfully hard to prove a negative, which is why I say it's the critics that need to meet the bar of proof rather than defaulting to undermining our public institutions. You say in your profile that you are "conservative minded", so surely you must appreciate that. [0] I've got this idea I've been chewing on that a fundamental part of the problem we're facing is that there is zero social context in online communication. The only thing you know about me is my comments, and those deep-dive into politics real fast. Whereas in meatspace you'd see more facets to me, and then if we touched politics it would start off at the surface level.

mindslight 9mo ago

The reasonable assumption is that mail in ballots are checked after they are mailed in, as they're being tallied. This avoids people voting in person plus mailing in, duplicating ballots, rolls changing before the election, etc. The only concern I see is that unilaterally mailing out ballots can induce fraud from new residents at the address filling out the ballots for the old residents - drastically lowering the bar from pretending to be someone else at a polling place, or even having to actively request ballots for someone else. > would it be documented somewhere that an audit of verification procedures happened? Where would these be documented? That you're asking this as open pondering rather than just straightforwardly researching your own state still feels quite leading. For the states I am familiar with, administering the voting rolls is the responsibility of the Secretary of State. They do generally perform audits, but you have to dig into the specifics of your own state if you want the exact answers of what has been audited - not just handwave vague feelings of how you personally not knowing must imply the worst possibility. This is what I mean about undermining trust in our public institutions. Specifically for your own example of your non-citizen roommate receiving a ballot, it seems that you should look up what your Secretary of State has to say about the matter. I'm guessing they've got a well-written FAQ page that lays out how such a ballot would be rejected.

eudamoniac 9mo ago
I don't really think voter fraud is a problem. I'm taking issue with the strong assertions without substantiation that it is definitely not happening. Maybe I could research all that, but you haven't, yet your comment earlier was very assertive that it is not happening. This tends to be always what happens in these discussions. I've seen posts like yours probably hundreds of times and never had the sources you are telling me to find included in the posts. That this is such a hot political topic would lead me to believe that these sources would have been compiled somewhere for easy verification. If they aren't, that is strange; if they are, why is it never posted?
- mindslight 9mo ago
  I think your lack of understanding stems from seeing this primarily as a "hot political topic." Secretaries of State work to get this basic civic information out there, but they clearly do not have the reach of well moneyed political media that manufactures "just asking questions" topics out of whole cloth. For example, here are two links from the WA SOS that I found with 20 seconds of searching: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/frequently-asked-questions-about-elections https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/... https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/frequently-asked-questions-voting-mail https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/... If you've got questions about the integrity of your state's voting, then it's your own civic duty to seek out and understand these basic facts rather than spouting off FUD while demanding others to do the intellectual work for you, spoon feed you the results, and hope that you accept them. The failure of critics to do this basic work is exactly where these "strong assertions without substantiation" come from - the onus is on those making the argument that illegal immigrants are voting to do the basic work of understanding the states' existing systems and describe how exactly they believe this is happening.
  - eudamoniac 9mo ago
    Okay, but if you've got problems with voters believing false things, it's your civic duty to educate them, or your party will lose elections. Whether you think it's a hot political topic or not, many Trump voters think it is. They may be uninformed. Now you (a general interlocutor) can either inform them, or you can do what you've done here and say "nope you're wrong, go figure out why!" I'm generally supportive of the Republican party so I don't mind you doing the latter, but I have a feeling you would prefer the outcome of the former. I've literally never seen anyone do the former on this particular topic.
    - mindslight 9mo ago
      In general, if someone chooses to believe comforting falsehoods over inconvenient/frustrating/complex truths, I don't see how they can be particularly convinced otherwise. Especially by message board comments [0] - maybe some fantastic orator could do it in videos by using the same skills as politicians but "for good" rather than self-interest. In this discussion, I am still not sure - have I met your bar for informing you here, at least somewhat? I have answered some of the questions you posed, yet you seem to still be implying that I have not done enough work for you? In general it's going to be awfully hard to prove a negative, which is why I say it's the critics that need to meet the bar of proof rather than defaulting to undermining our public institutions. You say in your profile that you are "conservative minded", so surely you must appreciate that. [0] I've got this idea I've been chewing on that a fundamental part of the problem we're facing is that there is zero social context in online communication. The only thing you know about me is my comments, and those deep-dive into politics real fast. Whereas in meatspace you'd see more facets to me, and then if we touched politics it would start off at the surface level.