Concerning Ballots that “Appear out of Nowhere”
I’d like to discuss mail-in ballots and voter fraud a bit. There’s a lot of disinformation around in general, especially now that the votes are being tallied.
In response to those who imply some mass conspiracy regarding voter fraud, or that large amounts of ballots that “appear out of nowhere” are somehow due to malfeasance:
(1) Mail-in ballots were expected to skew liberal since Republicans have in general been skeptical of the pandemic and conditioned by their representatives to doubt and disrespect the voting option our military has relied on since the civil war. Cynicism and attacks on mail-in ballots are usually sourced to disinformation campaigns by fringe sites, and repeated by sites also owned by the same entities. This goes for left and right disinformation, e.g., the “bounties on troops” ended up not having sufficient information to back it up but had made traction on enough “local” news sites (owned by monolithic entities) that it echo chambered up to larger venues. It just so happens that at the moment fringe right media is more susceptible to the problem. Murdoch’s many entertainment “news” sources come to mind. NY Times, relatively center-left as it is, investigated it should you be interested.
Report after study after report indicate that while voter fraud happens every so often with mail-in ballots, it’s statistically insignificant and always acted upon with steep punishment. The consequences for voter fraud are dire. Even when Barr, our Attorney General, tries to paint it as a fraudulent activity, his examples are generally inaccurate or lies. The only notable voter fraud that happened this cycle was California’s Republican Party putting out fake drop boxes for ballots. Most others stories this cycle turned out to be hoaxes or discarded, improperly filled out ballots from 2018. You know, like the lies told by Trump’s children who for some reason hold unqualified and nebulous positions in the White House: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5fa3a50dc5b660630aee5452
We can’t prove a negative: I can’t prove there’s not a teakettle amidst the rocky debris of Saturn’s belt. But given our understanding of the world and no evidence to indicate a substantial possibility, we can safely rule out that beyond “reasonable” doubt there is no tea kettle whistling through the magnetosphere. There is no evidence to show widespread voter fraud from investigations conducted time and time again. We have to trust our public servants.
(2) The way votes are counted would make it incredibly difficult to fabricate as they work in politically disparate pairs or teams.
(3) This general discourse is obscenely disrespectful to our poll workers who volunteer their lives to supporting the democratic process. It’s indicative of a pretty damned unhealthy mindset to assume the worst in people, and I will go to bat for these folk any time of the week. This is honestly my main gripe and why I’m saying anything at all. I’d really prefer not marching to our poll workers with weapons and threatening their lives over propaganda tweeted by our president and his administration to obstruct our democracy, if possible.
(4) It’s a bit bizarre to j’accuse a system where our Senators had several opportunities to increase funding to voter security practices but purposely neglected to do so.
Republican lawmakers across the very cities we’re waiting on now denied states permission to start counting mail-in ballots early to prevent delay with such increased numbers.
Our right-leaning leadership constructed these shortcomings, it would appear, to de-legitimize the process. It’s honestly super frustrating to just watch the spiteful feet dragging happen in my home state. Counting votes isn’t partisan. Are there left-leaning examples of similar voting obstruction? Perhaps, but I certainly haven’t seen any evidence of it — that tea kettle still isn’t in Saturn’s ring.
(5) Honestly, with my info security background, I’m significantly more concerned about our booth voting. They’ve been underfunded and neglected for so long that their software security is really coming to a head.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/election-security-americas-voting-machines/ https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-08-17/relying-electronic-voting-machines-puts-us-risk-security-expert-says
But the likelihood of tampering on those is significantly skewed to external influences, not internal. Still, something I wish we’d invest in and resolve. Mail-in ballots are significantly more secure than those systems described because they always leave a paper trail.
—
Anyway, those are my hot takes on voter fraud in the US and my apprehension for partisanship concerning counting votes of our military, the elderly, and people understandably concerned during a global pandemic exercising their rights. We’ve seen no credible evidence of fraud to provide reasonable doubt of our institutions. Even if there was fraud, we thoroughly investigate any and all cases that arise and punish those involved. Let’s trust the people and our public servants. Except Newt Gingrich.
