# How exactly is this voter fraud thing supposed to work anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 17, 2016, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813 "2016-10-17T10:09:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/61 "2016-10-18T06:34:34Z")
Aspenglow, you might want to listen to this [538 podcast on the rarity of voter fraud in the US](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voter-fraud-is-very-rare-in-american-elections/?ex_cid=podinline). Or, you could wade through the 50-page thread on the subject we’ve been running for the past 5 years. Or has it been 9 years?. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/62 "2016-10-18T12:37:55Z")
Seemingly forgotten in the justifiable outrage over the attack on a GOP office in NC is that there were completed absentee ballots that got destroyed in the blaze. Just what were these ballots doing in there in the first place? [Here is a plausible explanation, and it isn’t pretty.](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/17/1583672/-This-is-why-a-political-office-would-have-a-bunch-of-completed-absentee-ballots) > [@](#): > > There were vote harvesters — people who would stake out specific neighborhoods and ‘vote the people’ in those neighborhoods. And it worked one of two ways. At the time in Texas, the county was required to publish a list of the people who had requested and been sent an absentee ballot within 72 of the request being granted. In those cases, the vote harvesters would know when those ballots were expected to arrive, and they’d arrive at the same time with an offer to ‘help’ the voter fill out the ballot. > > Sometimes the vote harvesters cajoled or coerced the voter to vote the way the harvester wanted. Sometimes the harvester just filled out the ballot without regard as to who the voter wanted to vote for. And then, the harvester who was so nice to come over and help get the ballot filled out would offer to mail the ballot for the voter. The harvester would then leave with the completed/signed ballot. > > Other times, the vote harvesters would be the ones who requested the absentee ballot in the first place. According to the Observer stories, there was one vote harvester who signed out thousands of absentee ballot applications only to have those applications come back with suspiciously similar signatures. In those cases, the harvester knows when the applications are submitted and knows when the ballot should show up in the mail. So he just stakes out the mailboxes until the mail comes and steals the ballot out of the mail, voting it without the voters knowledge. This is how voter fraud is done in one area, and it dwarfs by several orders of magnitude the “problem” of voter impersonation. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/63 "2016-10-18T12:51:17Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Aspenglow, you might want to listen to this [538 podcast on the rarity of voter fraud in the US](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voter-fraud-is-very-rare-in-american-elections/?ex_cid=podinline). The same people who claim that they’re the ones who understand economics, unlike those stupid liberals, are often the ones who make a big deal about voter fraud despite the fact that economics suggests it’s one of the least likely crimes a person would ever commit. A person’s willingness to commit a crime, assuming they are not psychotic, is generally tied to their perception of the potential gains offset by the potential for apprehension and punishment. Voter fraud is just about the lowest-gain crime you could possibly engage in; you go through considerable effort to add one vote in an election that is virtually certain to not be decided by one vote, despite the fact that you could be charged and convicted of a crime. It’s the equivalent of committing armed robbery to steal a used beer bottle. It should be plainly obvious that not only is it not a widespread problem,\* it never will be\*. Where elections can be finagled with is when it’s possible for a **small** group of people to change the results by \*\*many \*\*votes. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/64 "2016-10-18T14:09:22Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > I will be a poll worker on election day for the first time. I am just one person, but I will do my part to make sure everyone is who they say they are, and that no one is intimidated while trying to vote. It’s going to be a very long 16 hour day. I live in a very small “village” of just 3,600 people so I imagine some parts will be boring as hell. First time poll worker here too. Yes, it’s going to be a long day, but I’m happy to do it. Democracy depends on poll worker volunteers, and I’m getting pretty sick and tired of people implying we’re lazy, stupid, corrupt, etc. I’m beginning to think most of the people who are screaming about potential voter fraud (voters getting back in line to vote again and again? seriously?) have never actually gone to a polling place to vote. It just doesn’t work that way. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/65 "2016-10-18T16:14:31Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The same people who claim that they’re the ones who understand economics, unlike those stupid liberals, are often the ones who make a big deal about voter fraud despite the fact that economics suggests it’s one of the least likely crimes a person would ever commit. > > A person’s willingness to commit a crime, assuming they are not psychotic, is generally tied to their perception of the potential gains offset by the potential for apprehension and punishment. Voter fraud is just about the lowest-gain crime you could possibly engage in; you go through considerable effort to add one vote in an election that is virtually certain to not be decided by one vote, despite the fact that you could be charged and convicted of a crime. It’s the equivalent of committing armed robbery to steal a used beer bottle. It should be plainly obvious that not only is it not a widespread problem,\* it never will be\*. > > Where elections can be finagled with is when it’s possible for a **small** group of people to change the results by \*\*many \*\*votes. Very well put. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/66 "2016-10-18T16:18:23Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > I know Indiana went for Obama in 2008 and I recognize that Pence is not a beloved figure in Indiana. But in _this_ election, Trump seems comfortably ahead there. There are other items on the ballot besides President. In particular, ex-Governor Evan Bayh (D) is favored, by a narrow margin, to become U.S. Senator from Indiana. This is a must-win race if the Democrats are to fulfill their dream of winning 50 Senate seats. The difference between {Hillary + 50 Senators} and {Hillary + 49 Senators} might be quite significant. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/67 "2016-10-18T16:34:36Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > :smack: > > Over on this site of the puddle, using archaic methods such as paper & pencils, providing ready access to cardboard ballot boxes and no voter ID we would have reasonable expectations to complete the voting process in 15 minutes or less with negligible instances of fraud. > > Ain’t it just amazing what can be achieved in technically developed democracies nowadays? :smack: and :rolleyes: back at ya. I’m looking at my sample ballot in suburban Chicago to decide who I’m voting for in 86 offices and what I’m voting for in three referenda. President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, State Comptroller\*, State Senate, State House, several county offices, and more judges than you can shake a stick at. It’ll take 15 minutes to fill out and double-check the ballot on a machine even having figured out who/what I’m voting for in every race before I get to the polling place. No way in Hades to count the ballots of, for example, a million people in suburban Cook County with all those offices in any reasonable time-frame without machines. \*An office that IMHO should be merged with State Treasurer, but it hasn’t been yet. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/68 "2016-10-18T17:02:41Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Aspenglow, you might want to listen to this [538 podcast on the rarity of voter fraud in the US](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voter-fraud-is-very-rare-in-american-elections/?ex_cid=podinline). > > Or, you could wade through the 50-page thread on the subject we’ve been running for the past 5 years. Or has it been 9 years?. I don’t seem able to successfully convey that _I_ am not concerned about voter fraud, especially by impersonation, and I already understand **Rick Jay** ’s well-made points. Have for a long time. I’m aware of the studies and of course understand the “lowest gain crime” aspect of voter impersonation fraud. Also, I worked elections for years as an elections official and have first-hand knowledge of how challenging it would be to pull off voter impersonation fraud, at least in the venue where I worked. No argument here! _That’s why I was surprised when someone cited me to the two links about Indiana_. It looks like a significant investigation. It also appears it will yield little in the way of actual voter impersonation fraud. But those are credible news sources, are they not? There are spooky mentions of swarthy people with sinister-sounding Arab-y names, and I can easily see how some people will immediately assume, based solely on the fact of an investigation, that fraud took place. The whole thing seems weird to me. I had hoped someone might have more intimate information on the situation, so I could _better defend against misguided views on voter fraud_ – along with exactly the same information to which you are citing me. Thanks to everyone who responded, all the same. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/69 "2016-10-18T17:04:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > There are other items on the ballot besides President. > > In particular, ex-Governor Evan Bayh (D) is favored, by a narrow margin, to become U.S. Senator from Indiana. This is a must-win race if the Democrats are to fulfill their dream of winning 50 Senate seats. The difference between {Hillary + 50 Senators} and {Hillary + 49 Senators} might be quite significant. That’s a good point, for sure. Just the method stated in the news stories seems such a stupid, clumsy way to accomplish the goal. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/70 "2016-10-18T23:42:27Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > If we had voter ID laws this would be a non-issue. > Just sayin’ Voter ID doesn’t stop people from voting more than once. Election ink, OTOH, is a dirt cheap way of preventing people from voting more than once. Unfortunately, election ink doesn’t make voting difficult for certain groups of citizens, so it’s not interesting to Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/71 "2016-10-19T00:48:28Z")
Let me see if I got this. Il Douche says the election is crooked, rigged, voter fraud means he has no fair shot. OK. When did he find this out? He’s been running for a year, and someone _just_ told him forget it, you’re toast, because ACORN? As someone who has long observed the Democrats in action, its just plain silly. They couldn’t pretend to be evil long enough to pull off such a conspiracy and get away with it. Shit, the \*Republicans \* have a tough time doing that, and they actually _are_ evil! ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/72 "2016-10-19T07:47:21Z")
[Here’s](http://datechguyblog.com/2016/10/14/when-the-pro-hillary-guy-knocks-at-your-door/) a tale of voter fraud in Florida, taking advantage of a Spanish-speaking resident’s inability to read English. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/73 "2016-10-19T09:06:31Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > [Here’s](http://datechguyblog.com/2016/10/14/when-the-pro-hillary-guy-knocks-at-your-door/) a tale of voter fraud in Florida, taking advantage of a Spanish-speaking resident’s inability to read English. That’s not a tale of voter fraud, it’s a tale of silliness because that’s not how absentee ballots work. The campaigner was a twit - but he can do nothing useful with that pledge and signature. There’s no way to transform it into a vote for Hillary. There’s no way to get an absentee ballot from it. The only thing he can do with his paperwork is to take it back to campaign headquarters, where another volunteer will enter it into the database and then think that a likely Hillary voter lives at her address. That’s it. The state of Florida doesn’t care about that paper. His actions aren’t voter fraud. Stupid and (if the storyteller is to be believed) deceitful - but not voter fraud. ---
**Author:** ![crucible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@crucible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crucible)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/74 "2016-10-19T10:20:19Z")
Let us consider a real situation, Florida 2000. The Presidency of the USA might have been decided by falsely submitting 538 absentee ballots. that is where I see the easiest path to voter fraud – absentee voting. The recent firebombing of the Orange Co., NC Republican campaign office yielded a series of odd statements. First, a Republican spokesperson, when asked, said that none of the completed absentee ballots were harmed in the attack. Then, when pressed…no completed absentee ballots were stored at that location. Then…‘the Republican party does not collect completed absentee ballots’… While the effort to accomplish anything significant on a national level seems out of proportion to the benefit, local and state elections might be swung by a few dozen to a few thousand faked ballots. Once one party is entrenched in a state, say, with 90% of the counties having a Republican head of the Board of Elections, any darned thing seems possible, like Florida 2000. Now, that said, are Republicans prone to election fraud? I never thought so in the past, but, in my opinion, Trump’s constant claim that the election is rigged is, besides being a call to try to intimidate Democrat voters, a suggestion that since Democrats are horrible people and are rigging the election, it is perfectly okay for Republicans to respond in kind… ---
**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:** [October 19, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/75 "2016-10-19T13:40:07Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > :smack: and :rolleyes: back at ya. Well the principal issue being the necessity/availability/cost of election infastructure like mains power, and machines and presumably technical support onsite limits the rate the populace can cast votes, causing excessive delays that dissuade and disenfranchise. That can’t be good, even if it wasn’t a targeted tactic. When you finally get to the polling booth I accept the point that across the states many US voters have a wide range of matters for deliberation … which is not to overlook the fact we can have some [oversized ballot](http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/sara-anderson-examines-the-upper-house-ballot-paper-for-the-news-photo/539715799#sara-anderson-examines-the-upper-house-ballot-paper-for-the-nsw-state-picture-id539715799) papers here either: And why the rush to collate the votes? They are stored securely and unlikely to suffer water damage or spontaneously combust, no? Will Cook County go into meltdown if the counting of votes for say the referendums or judicial officers doesn’t commence until a couple of days after the election? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/76 "2016-10-19T14:07:50Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > Well the principal issue being the necessity/availability/cost of election infastructure like mains power, and machines and presumably technical support onsite limits the rate the populace can cast votes, causing excessive delays that dissuade and disenfranchise. That can’t be good, even if it wasn’t a targeted tactic. > > When you finally get to the polling booth I accept the point that across the states many US voters have a wide range of matters for deliberation … which is not to overlook the fact we can have some [oversized ballot](http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/sara-anderson-examines-the-upper-house-ballot-paper-for-the-news-photo/539715799#sara-anderson-examines-the-upper-house-ballot-paper-for-the-nsw-state-picture-id539715799) papers here either: > > And why the rush to collate the votes? They are stored securely and unlikely to suffer water damage or spontaneously combust, no? Will Cook County go into meltdown if the counting of votes for say the referendums or judicial officers doesn’t commence until a couple of days after the election? You mean the ballots should be “stored” & counted several times? Nope. The machines used here in Harris County are pretty sturdy. They are not connected to the internet. I now vote by mail because the county clerk offered to send me a ballot after I hit a certain birthday. But I have confidence in the machines we use now–just as I had confidence in the ones used when my mother was an election judge, many years ago. We’re out of hurricane season now, so power failures won’t be a problem. (I’m envisioning voting by kerosene lantern, quill pens scritching on the parchment as the sheep _baaaa_ outside. How quaint!) ---
**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:** [October 19, 2016, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/77 "2016-10-19T21:26:45Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > You mean the ballots should be “stored” & counted several times? Nope. No. Here we have a ballot paper for House of Reps, a separate ballot for the Senate, a separate ballot for any plebiscite in the offing. Using preference voting it is necessary to count/allocate ballots multiple times but the plebiscites are binary choices. Counting a ballot paper as complex as the one linked above takes time and final declarations aren’t announced for some time, usually a couple of weeks after the poll. ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/78 "2016-10-19T21:55:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Other times, the vote harvesters would be the ones who requested the absentee ballot in the first place. According to the Observer stories, there was one vote harvester who signed out thousands of absentee ballot applications only to have those applications come back with suspiciously similar signatures. In those cases, the harvester knows when the applications are submitted and knows when the ballot should show up in the mail. So he just stakes out the mailboxes until the mail comes and steals the ballot out of the mail, voting it without the voters knowledge. Stakes out the mailboxes? So they follow the mailman around each day when they expect the ballots to show up? Doesn’t this cause an issue when an entire neighborhood of people found out they can’t vote at the polling place because they already voted by absentee ballot, which they never requested or knew about? All of these schemes seem to have gaping holes in them. Now, I have worked as a GOTV worker for the local Democratic office. We collected absentee ballots and hand-delivered them to the registrar’s office. I had a few people fill them out right in front of me, but I would not help them in any way, or look over their shoulder. (a few showed it to me anyway, as a show of camaraderie) I never thought anyone would consider what I was doing was voter fraud. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/79 "2016-10-19T22:57:07Z")
Well, you admitted that they _showed_ them to you. You didn’t\* stop \*them from engaging in a criminal act. What, you weren’t armed? ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813/80 "2016-10-19T23:01:53Z")
Showing someone else your vote is a criminal act? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-is-this-voter-fraud-thing-supposed-to-work-anyway/768813.md?page=5)