# Ballot harvesting: Is it a "safe" practice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 7, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767 "2018-12-07T22:38:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/1 "2018-12-07T22:38:15Z")
If I am not mistaken, the “ballot harvesting” approach (which is legal in California - not sure it’s legal anywhere else in the nation) - allows third parties to collect other people’s ballots and turn them in on behalf of the voters. Previously, only the voters themselves, or someone in the voter’s household, were permitted to do that. Doesn’t this open the door for various forms of tampering, though? How do you know the third party door-to-door knocker is not substituting their own pre-made ballots in lieu of the real voters’? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/2 "2018-12-07T22:57:35Z")
That’s, rather obviously, completely fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/3 "2018-12-07T23:37:36Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Doesn’t this open the door for various forms of tampering, though? No, it opens a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon for industrial scale harvesting/coercing of votes and selling them for lodgement by the highest bidder. Welcome to the new age of the America’s own Rotten Borough scheme. There is some democratic political entity somewhere that actually thought this is a really good idea, right? This didn’t just spontaneously explode onto the electoral statutes? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/4 "2018-12-07T23:56:10Z")
Well there’s some obviously “good” reasons for it. So you can help out those poor old people who can’t make it down to the mailbox. But there’s a bunch of ways to solve that problem that aren’t so prone to abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/5 "2018-12-08T01:19:34Z")
Doesn’t the California version require that the voter name who’s going to bring in the ballot when they request an absentee ballot? That’d curb a lot of the potential for abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/6 "2018-12-08T03:57:38Z")
It raises concerns, but I’m afraid that if it’s banned, the law will inevitably be written by rich suburban legislators who’ve never lived somewhere where they couldn’t send outgoing mail from the end of their driveway. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/7 "2018-12-08T05:27:29Z")
The USA’s playing at democracy continues to be a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/8 "2018-12-08T15:01:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Doesn’t the California version require that the voter name who’s going to bring in the ballot when they request an absentee ballot? That’d curb a lot of the potential for abuse. My wife dropped mine off for me, and I had to name her and sign the authorization section of the sealed envelope stating that she, specifically, would be dropping it off in my place. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/9 "2018-12-10T21:57:23Z")
When you have harvesting examples like [North Carolina 9th](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/republican-operative-faced-prior-allegations-of-election-fraud-in-disputed-north-carolina-district), you ponder the motivation and faux indignation of people claiming mass fraud from walk-up voters. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ballot-harvesting-is-it-a-safe-practice/825767/10 "2018-12-10T22:14:31Z")
In a sense, it’s implied that it is allowed in states that largely rely on voting by mail. Here in Washington state we drop our ballots in the mail or unmanned ballot boxes in the weeks leading up to the election. It’d be hard to enforce disallowing letting other people drop off your mail. The ballot design does require sealing and signing the outside envelope, which seems to align with California. California’s approach doesn’t seem as crazy to me with the signed authorization.