For every hypothetical scenario you offer, a hypothetical solution can be also offered. And in some cases, a real-world and proven solution can also be offered.
Here's more about the Oregon process and how the scenario you raise is successfully addressed.
------------------------
Each ballot has a unique barcode specific to each voter, so once the ballot is received, election officials can verify the signature on that ballot envelope to make sure it matches the one on that voter’s registration. There are often multiple reviews to guarantee it’s a match — Druckenmiller said if someone questions the signature, two other people will review it; if they’re not sure, he makes the final call. If the signature doesn’t match, voters are notified and given the opportunity to remedy that, in what’s known as a “cure” process.
But once a signature is verified, the ballot is separated from the return envelope so the ballot can be tabulated. Along the way, there are layers of auditing to make sure the number of ballots received matches the tabulated numbers for the vote count. Many see mail-in ballots as more secure because there’s a paper trail, and so can’t be hacked.
Oregon election officials get updates from public records, like change-of-address notifications and death records, to check against the voter registration databases. “We use the Postal Service. When most of us move, we change our address, right?” Paul Gronke, a professor of political science and director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Portland, told me. “And so actually, vote-by-mail works really well and has very little deadwood. The rolls are very clean.”
John Lindback, the elections division director from 2001 to 2009 at the Oregon secretary of state’s office, told me clerks even used to check divorce records to see if any spouse had ever tried to force an ex-partner to vote against their will. They never found anything. (Source)
------------------------
If you want to prevent voter fraud, or at least reduce it to near-zero, it seems to me the Oregon vote-by-mail system is the way to do that. The experience is an item of record. A strong majority of Oregon voters of all political stripes prefer it. History shows the accuracy of the count is better than the old system of polling places where people used t cast their votes. The studies have been done. The evidence shows the Oregon system is a highly effective way to reduce voter fraud to near zero.
I know of no better way to reduce voter fraud than this. If you do, I'd love to hear it. What would work better? What system would reduce voter fraud to a level lower than that of Oregon?
Last edited:
