I early-voted

[ghostjmf]

1st time Mass allowed it.

Last time I early-voted was as an absentee Ohioan, back when Mass disenfranchised students as some kind of alien 5th-column (yeah, Mass; Cambridge MA at least, where I was living).

I don't like that my early ballot will be tallied at the very end of the count, along with the absentees, but that's how they're doing it. Presidential race is I hope not in contest in Mass, but several important local ballot Qs are.

[jaybee]

We early voted yesterday. Walked in. Signed in. Voted. Done. Under 5 minutes, probably under 3.

While I was there took a look at the process from the viewpoint of "How do you cheat the system and vote more often". The simple answer is: You can't. At least, not in any large numbers. It would take multiple fake ID's - ID's that are from registered voters in any particular voting district, multiple voting locations and lots of time. Not sure if the same process is followed everywhere but we show an ID, our name gets checked against the voter register for our area and we get a one-time use number that is entered into the voting machine to start the process. Name can only be used once. ID can only be used once. Voter registration can only be used once. Number can only be used once.

Any talk of widespread voter fraud is complete BS.

[BackInTex]

Any talk of widespread voter fraud is complete BS.

Sure, any spur of the moment fraud. But has you pointed out, once a registration is in, you only need an ID to match that registration IF ID IS REQUIRED. If no ID is required, then every and any registration is up for picking. So with a concerted effort to get many improper registrations in, keeping track of those names and addresses, it would be easy, even easier with early voting since you don't have to vote all your registrations the same day.

[jaybee]

Any talk of widespread voter fraud is complete BS.

Sure, any spur of the moment fraud. But has you pointed out, once a registration is in, you only need an ID to match that registration IF ID IS REQUIRED. If no ID is required, then every and any registration is up for picking. So with a concerted effort to get many improper registrations in, keeping track of those names and addresses, it would be easy, even easier with early voting since you don't have to vote all your registrations the same day.

Definitely if there is no ID required than it becomes easier but being realistic I still cannot see a path to where there would be anything more than a few, random fraudulent votes. I'd welcome any insight as to how a significant amount of fake votes could happen. Question for all: What form of ID, if any is required when you go to vote? I mean, are there parts of the country where you can walk in, say "I'm John Smith". They look up their records and ask, "Are you the John Smith who lives at 123 ABC lane?" You say "yes" and get to vote???

As I am seeing it:

1. There is only going to be one vote granted to any one name listed in the voter registration. Once I voted, anyone who tried to vote as Jaybee would not get past the very first phase - no matter what the location as all the records are tied together.
2. I also could not return to the same voting location, even on another day. Sure, you could try, but the odds of getting caught simply by being remembered would go way up.
3. There are 6 or 8 early voting locations in my area and about 2 weeks of time to early vote. There are also more early voting locations all over the country that could be traveled to. But you are getting into a serious time-sink of what would be necessary to travel to may different locations.
4. And, at whatever location you went to, you would have to have the use of a name that is on those registered voter roles in that district.
5. So you have to have a valid list of names, probably with at least some form of name-matching fake ID. You also need some time and the ability to travel at least a bit. That moves it out of the 'easy' process to something more complex.
6. More complex means that more people placing false votes will need to be involved to generate any significant fake vote numbers. For a national election, that translates into thousands of people running the voting scam.
7. Which makes for the big kicker: With thousands of people involved it's a statistical certainty that somebody will get caught or somebody will decide that they didn't get paid enough to fraudulently vote and blow the whistle on the process. In short, it's going to come out. Which hasn't happened.
8. Other than some form of hacking into the voting records to either make vote changes or insert fake votes, I just can't see how widespread voter fraud can happen. I don't know much about the ways to hack into the system, but since our voting process is divided into thousands of independent, local units that then feed into a bigger system it doesn't seem like it would be an easy or likely process.

It's pretty obvious where I stand on this current election and the 'potential' fraud issue with votes. When I see Trump stand up and announce that the election is 'rigged' I can only see three possible rationales for him saying this:

1. He thinks our current voting process is truly a rigged system and is flawed.
2. He sees the polls, feels that he's going to lose and is using this as an 'out' to contest the election and not be labeled a loser.
3. He's setting up the ground work for a non two-party system or wants to otherwise disrupt our election process.

I find choice #1 disturbing simply because for something this important, if you truly believe that the election is rigged, you announce this with some reasoning behind it. "The election is rigged because we have found this evidence....." Pretty easy. Makes sense. Supports your position. I'll go so far to say that it would be stupid for Trump to withhold election fraud proof at this point as it would certainly help his cause. Which puts choice #1 in the area of a delusional, paranoid conspiracy believer. Not exactly Presidential material in my book. Choice #2 seems very likely. Simple. Easy. And fits the personality. Again, not the personality that I would choose to be my President. Choice #3 could actually do some good as it would highlight the flaws in our current election system. But choice #3 turns things from 'trying to get elected' into 'trying to fraudulently manipulate the system'. Again, not the mindset or agenda of someone who will be running our country.

That's it. I voted. I'm going to work now.

[BackInTex]

Which puts choice #1 in the area of a delusional, paranoid conspiracy believer. Not exactly Presidential material in my book.

Point of clarification needed here. You are still talking about Trump, right?

....part of a vast right-wing conspiracy....
......part of a vast right-wing conspiracy....
..........part of a vast right-wing conspiracy....
..............part of a vast right-wing conspiracy....
...............................part of a vast right-wing conspiracy....

[ghostjmf]

We have no ID check in Somerville MA. Never had it when I lived in Cambridge MA. When I voted absentee from Ohio, they mailed me a ballot at my request.

We get a census every year in Somerville. On it is a warning that you could get dropped from the voter rolls if you don't fill it out. Also, not voting in the last election can get you dropped from the rolls.

For voting on election day, I show up at the right ward's polling place & give them my address. Then they ask me to give my name; they've never asked "are you so & so?". Then they give you a long flat paper ballot. On which you fill in a hollow arrow with a dark-writing-substance writing-implement (they don't differentiate pen from pencil, in my memory). Before you are allowed to feed your paper ballot into the box that reads it, you go through this same procedure w/ a separate group of people.

I heard in an interview with the Mass head-of-these-things, Frank Galvin, that while these boxes read your ballot as it goes in, they don't disgorge the results until the polls are closed.

Could someone impersonate me in this? They could. They never have. I know this because my name is always found w/o a "voted already" mark. If you were trying to impersonate someone in order to steal their vote, you'd better start with someone you know is registered, for one thing.

The early-voter procedure started the same, but I got a folded-up ballot, an envelope to put it in, & the instruction to drop it in the correct ward's box, since I was voting at City Hall, not the usual place. I assume this will have to be read by hand, unless they have a machine you can feed previously-folded ballots into. I should check.

And I remember the election-day ballots recently as having "fill in the (hollow) arrow" for your choice. Whereas this early-voter ballot had a simple "fill in the circle".

The "read by hand" & "only read at the end of polling day" are the aspects of early voting I don't like.

[silverscreenselect]

Any talk of widespread voter fraud is complete BS.

Sure, any spur of the moment fraud. But has you pointed out, once a registration is in, you only need an ID to match that registration IF ID IS REQUIRED. If no ID is required, then every and any registration is up for picking. So with a concerted effort to get many improper registrations in, keeping track of those names and addresses, it would be easy, even easier with early voting since you don't have to vote all your registrations the same day.

Realistically, in-person fraud is most effective in local elections when a small number of votes at a small number of locations could swing a result for city councilperson or county commissioner. We have counties in Georgia with 10-20K residents, so you can guess what the turnout is at those elections (most of them have a sole county commissioner). To manipulate a large-scale vote would require the concerted participation of a substantial number of people, and the chances of keeping that a secret for very long would be mighty slim.

On the other hand, I'd be most concerned about cyberfraud. When I voted last week, the vote was completely electronic. I clicked on the touchscreen for my selections and hit the enter button when I was finished. A small number of hackers might well be able to manipulate the results, especially in states that don't have the most up-to-date security measures.

[Pastor Fireball]

Steaming marmalade turd with a rubber band wrapped around it Donald Drumpf is technically right. This election is rigged... but it's his supporters who have been caught trying to rig the election. Three Drumpf supporters in Des Moines. As I stated on Bob Juch's Facebook page earlier this week, this is what is called "a self-fulfilling prophecy"--like how Republicans say that the government doesn't work, then Republicans run the government and make the government not work.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... igged.html

And rigging the election in order to un-rig the election is a lame ass excuse. That's like naming a pyromaniac to be the chief of your fire department. He's not solving the problem. He's making it ten times worse.

[ghostjmf]

According to all the radio programs I've heard on the topic, paper ballots, including those read by some kind of Scantron system as I assume Somerville's election-day ballots are, are the safest way to avoid fraud. Electronic machines are easiest to rig. Luckily they're not connected to the internet anywhere in the US, we're told. But they are riggable by local people working their evil wiles on them. Electronic machines that also disgorge paper receipts, telling the voter "this is how you voted" are considered a better deal. The voter can complain immediately if the receipt doesn't agree with what they thought they did.

Electronic machines that give a simple # of voters, on a paper receipt, to the poll workers, can be used to see if the records agree with their paper records of # of attendees. Even if the machines are electronic or mechanical, they've got poll workers tallying voters on paper.

A far easier way to voter fraud was possibly what was encountered by my brother in one of the GW Bush elections, I believe the 2nd one. Brother lives in the only Democratic part of a state Republicans thought they owned. Brother shows up at polls to be told his name is not on the rolls. Maybe it was some simple error, on their part or his, but it hasn't happened before or since. At any rate, they sent him about 6 different places before he was miraculously found to be registered after all.

Just to spell it out, knocking people off the rolls at random in that part of the state was likeliest to knock off Democrats. And it would have been done well ahead of time, not on election day.

They gave him an absentee ballot to vote on, which he wasn't too happy about either, because they're only tallied after everything else. A lot of people, being told they were not registered, will just give up. They don't have the time or the energy to hunt this down on a day when nobody they're talking to has any time for them.

[jarnon]

Question for all: What form of ID, if any is required when you go to vote?

In Pennsylvania, the first time you vote at a location, you have to show a photo ID. So if somebody tried to scam the election by registering multiple times, he'd need just as many fake IDs.

After the first time, you just say your name and address and sign the book. So a scammer could try to vote using the name of somebody who moved away or died. The poll watcher can compare his signature with the signature from the original registration, which is printed in the book. The voter can see it too, so he could fake it if he's a good on-the spot forger.

Pennsylvania passed a law requiring photo ID for everyone in 2012. Problem was, they allowed IDs that were common in rural areas, but not IDs used in cities and by minorities. So the court threw it out. It didn't help that a Republican leader said voter ID would ensure Romney wins Pennsylvania.

Donald Drumpf is technically right. This election is rigged... but it's his supporters who have been caught trying to rig the election. Three Drumpf supporters in Des Moines.

I heard about this too. One woman who was caught said she voted twice because she was sure the rigged system wouldn't count a single vote. A self-fulfilling prophesy, all right.

[ghostjmf]

SSS: I've heard interviews where the experts state that no voting machines are on the internet. I dunno how they know that; probably by studying the rules in every state. That's why they're the experts? So the machines can't be hacked by outside forces. The electronic machines are on some kind of system, though, that makes them hackable by locals-in-the-know.

There's historically been "machines don't work" suspected as fraud, subterfuge. The hack on these was not to amass votes, just to take the machines out of circulation when they were needed, even when they'd passed prior tests. The idea is that people who can't afford the time to wait in lines (for a working machine) can be discouraged that way. And, of course, the idea is that people who can't afford the time are poorer people, people with kids in daycare, who are suspected of not being Republicans.

Which doesn't play out in current election, apparently, if they're white poorer people, with or without the kids in daycare.

[earendel]

In Kentucky, particularly in the eastern counties, there is a demonstrated pattern of vote fraud - actually it's vote buying. Voters are paid to vote a certain way, and some voters have been seen waiting around to see if the price will go up. The going rate seems to be $50.

http://kycir.org/2016/11/03/how-kentuck ... te-buying/