We have no way to know what actually happened because all we have is an O'Keefe video and we know those are completely unreliable. In the past they have actively portrayed something as happening that did not in fact happen the way he portrayed it. That may very well be the case here. Somebody earlier pointed out, for example, that they check the ballots when you turn them in, not when you get them... If that's so, then the whole video is totally meaningless. But I'm not going to waste time speculating about what the scam may be this time. We've been fooled enough times by this guy. He doesn't get any more chances.
One note though, of course fraud happens every election. In every national election there has ever been anywhere in the world there has always been some amount of fraud, and no matter what procedures we implement there will always be some fraud in the future. You can't reduce it to zero more than you can reduce any other kind of crime to zero no matter what you do. But, what matters isn't just "is there any crime" it is "what is the crime rate", and despite the frequent media coverage, by all indications voter fraud appears to make up an incredibly small percentage of votes cast. No matter what happens, you will continue to see stories on the news about voter fraud regularly for as long as the audience tunes in to those stories. That doesn't mean it is a significant problem. In a nation of 311 million there are incidents of every possible crime no matter if the crime rate is virtually zero or if it is high.
Now, even with a statistically minor problem like voter fraud, we should take reasonable measures to prevent it. For sure. But some politicians in both parties, but especially on the right, are trying to use the hysteria over voter fraud to force through measures that really are designed to give them personally an artificial advantage in the elections. For example, focusing on removing dead people from the registration database it easy and doesn't hurt anybody. I have no problem at all with that. Even requiring a valid photo id, no problem there. You do those two things and you have done everything you can do to prevent fraud in the polling place. But, many politicians are trying to go way beyond that. For example, some states are now planning to require not just that you have a valid ID, but that the ID be issued by the state you're in and that it have your current address. That does nothing at all to make the process more fraud proof. If you are registered there and have a valid ID, you're supposed to be voting and you can only vote one time and only where you're registered, regardless of whether you forgot to update your address with the DMV last time you moved. The reason they're pushing for those kinds of extra requirements are because they have calculated that it will skew the next election in their favor. Maybe a Democratic politician represents a district where the elderly tend to vote Republican, so he supports that measure because he knows that many people living in retirement homes that don't drive any more don't bother updating their ID, so they wouldn't be able to vote. Maybe a Republican represents a district where part of it is poorer and mostly uses public transportation and that part votes for Democrats, so he supports the measure because he knows that people who don't drive aren't required to update their driver's license when they move, so he knows that fewer people from that community will end up being able to vote.
We can take steps to prevent fraud, but anytime you let politicians change the way voting works you need to be ultra cautious. In my view the radical overblowing of the threat of voter fraud is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate you into throwing that caution to the wind and in your frenzy to rectify this largely fictional problem, to overlook the fact that they are rigging the elections in their own favor. Don't fall for it. Get your information about how serious voter fraud is from neutral studies, not O'Keefe videos and Fox headlines. Think about what is the absolute smallest change that would prevent that fraud, don't just jump on the bandwagon of anybody claiming they want to address voter fraud.
