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What could go wrong? Volunteers go door-to-door ‘ballot harvesting’ in Colorado

j-mac

j-mac

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DENVER — It’s harvest time in Colorado, and not just for pumpkins. Concerns are running high over door-to-door campaign workers asking voters for their mail-in ballots in what is known as “ballot harvesting.”Now that all-mail voting is the law of the land in Colorado, the challenge for campaigns is to persuade voters to drop off or mail in their ballots — or hand them to the foot soldiers who turn up on their doorsteps offering to do it for them.


“These are totally unauthorized people coming to the door and gathering ballots and doing whatever they want to them,” said Marilyn Marks, president of the Aspen-based Citizen Center, which focuses on election integrity.
“If I have collected your ballot, I could do the honest thing and put it in the mail for you, or take it to the clerk’s office and drop it off — or I could look inside, open it gently, see how you voted, and if I didn’t like it, I could make some changes,” said Ms. Marks. “Or the other thing I could do, if I don’t like the way you’re voting, I could throw your ballot in the trash can.”

Read more: 'Ballot harvesting' by Colorado campaign workers raises vote abuse fears - Washington Times
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Yeah, nothing could go wrong here....OMG, are you kidding me?
With just two weeks until the 2014 midterm elections, there are warnings that a new Colorado law has opened the door to possible voter fraud in a critical Senate race.
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About 16 months ago, the Democratic governor signed an election law which allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then turn them over to collectors. Critics say this could lead to voter fraud, and they allege it was pushed through the state Legislature to keep Democrats in power.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/10/21/michelle-malkin-blasts-colorado-law-voter-fraud-frankenstein
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This is absurd....
 
God forbid people walk out to their damn mailbox!
 
A couple of years ago down here in Tucson we found a Democrat GOTV crew at a retirement home specializing in dementia care "helping" residents fill out their ballots. I was actually involved in one of the campaigns that year and while we won at the polls we got massacred in the mail in ballots.
 
Lutherf said:
A couple of years ago down here in Tucson we found a Democrat GOTV crew at a retirement home specializing in dementia care "helping" residents fill out their ballots. I was actually involved in one of the campaigns that year and while we won at the polls we got massacred in the mail in ballots.
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I think I remember hearing something about that....But if I know libs like I do, I am sure that the usual response will be something like you can't prove that it happened so it didn't....argh...This is so damned frustrating.
 
j-mac said:
Yeah, nothing could go wrong here....OMG, are you kidding me?



This is absurd....[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]
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I wonder if anyone will ever actually prove serious fraud or continue with the maybe's and could be's?
 
Supposedly ultra-liberal California doesn't allow anything like this. All mail-in ballots must be delivered to the county registrar of voters, no exceptions. I've never delivered one in person, but I'm fairly sure that they ask for ID from those who do.
 
j-mac said:
I think I remember hearing something about that....But if I know libs like I do, I am sure that the usual response will be something like you can't prove that it happened so it didn't....argh...This is so damned frustrating.
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If you question them you're "suppressing the right to vote" for these poor old folks. Some of these people were so far gone that they didn't even recognize their kids and wouldn't be able to complain about the ballot even if they knew they had filled one out.
 
Lutherf said:
A couple of years ago down here in Tucson we found a Democrat GOTV crew at a retirement home specializing in dementia care "helping" residents fill out their ballots. I was actually involved in one of the campaigns that year and while we won at the polls we got massacred in the mail in ballots.
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So far we have had or believed we had integrity in our election system. That the results of elections were fairly tabulated. But what happens when the electorate loses trust in the system? Elections become meaningless.
 
Boo Radley said:
I wonder if anyone will ever actually prove serious fraud or continue with the maybe's and could be's?
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Well, first you'd have to define what proof you'd accept, and what constitutes "serious"....
 
DifferentDrummr said:
Supposedly ultra-liberal California doesn't allow anything like this. All mail-in ballots must be delivered to the county registrar of voters, no exceptions. I've never delivered one in person, but I'm fairly sure that they ask for ID from those who do.
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We had a guy in the Phoenix area just get caught on a security camera dropping off a box of hundreds of ballots.

Arizona primary ballot box stuffing caught on tape

You can't accuse him of doing anything wrong because maybe he was just dropping off ballots from his family or something but it sure looks a lot like "harvesting" at face value.
 
Perotista said:
So far we have had or believed we had integrity in our election system. That the results of elections were fairly tabulated. But what happens when the electorate loses trust in the system? Elections become meaningless.
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Right.

The only way to fix it after that is to simply stop having public elections and just let the Politburo make sure the "right" candidates get placed in the right offices.
 
j-mac said:
Well, first you'd have to define what proof you'd accept, and what constitutes "serious"....
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No, I don't think so. All you have to do is show a case where significant fraud was actually found that is verifiable. No one should accept talking head said there was. But a clear case with documented evidence. To my knowledge no such example exists.

And let's not forget republicans actually stated the purpose was voter suppression. Democrats did have to do that. ;)
 
Boo Radley said:
No, I don't think so. All you have to do is show a case where significant fraud was actually found that is verifiable. No one should accept talking head said there was. But a clear case with documented evidence. To my knowledge no such example exists.

And let's not forget republicans actually stated the purpose was voter suppression. Democrats did have to do that. ;)
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Can we see what is reported after the election? Or do I have to show one before the election for you to even consider that this is a bad idea?

And what the hell are you talking about Republican stated purpose? Please at least try to put together a coherent sentence and thought.
 
Boo Radley said:
I wonder if anyone will ever actually prove serious fraud or continue with the maybe's and could be's?
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I might not be able to prove someone put in a fish in my tub, but it sure smells like one.
 
Lutherf said:
We had a guy in the Phoenix area just get caught on a security camera dropping off a box of hundreds of ballots.

Arizona primary ballot box stuffing caught on tape

You can't accuse him of doing anything wrong because maybe he was just dropping off ballots from his family or something but it sure looks a lot like "harvesting" at face value.
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Sounds like Arizona's laws are a bit lax, too. California lets you drop of someone else's mail-in ballot at the registrar's office, but they won't accept it unless the voter has signed the envelope.

So far there have been no reports of fraud within this system.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
Sounds like Arizona's laws are a bit lax, too. California lets you drop of someone else's mail-in ballot at the registrar's office, but they won't accept it unless the voter has signed the envelope.

So far there have been no reports of fraud within this system.
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Out of curiosity, what do they verify the signature against?
 
Lutherf said:
We had a guy in the Phoenix area just get caught on a security camera dropping off a box of hundreds of ballots.

Arizona primary ballot box stuffing caught on tape

You can't accuse him of doing anything wrong because maybe he was just dropping off ballots from his family or something but it sure looks a lot like "harvesting" at face value.
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It is funny to see that LaFaro is auditioning to be the next James O'Keefe.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
My guess would be the voter registration form they have on file. People going to the polls also have to print their names in a ledger and sign it.
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At the poll I have to show ID and sign the roll book before I get a ballot. If someone has already voted using my name I can verify the signature right there. With a mail in ballot, however, I probably won't even know if someone else has submitted one in my name and won't be able to verify the signature unless someone reports the discrepancy and contacts me. While a mail in ballot envelope needs to be signed the ONLY verification I'm aware of is that the ballot is mailed to my registered address.
 
Lutherf said:
Right.

The only way to fix it after that is to simply stop having public elections and just let the Politburo make sure the "right" candidates get placed in the right offices.
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Not exactly what I meant. If ballot manipulation becomes wide spread, no one will know if the one who received the most votes actually won. If our election system become mistrusted due to shenanigans that bring about pre-determined results instead of the actual results...that is more what I was getting at.
 
Lutherf said:
At the poll I have to show ID and sign the roll book before I get a ballot. If someone has already voted using my name I can verify the signature right there. With a mail in ballot, however, I probably won't even know if someone else has submitted one in my name and won't be able to verify the signature unless someone reports the discrepancy and contacts me. While a mail in ballot envelope needs to be signed the ONLY verification I'm aware of is that the ballot is mailed to my registered address.
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Which probably has something to do with why California counts the mail-in ballots only when the race is close enough for them to affect the outcome. Apart from that, ballots are printed on watermarked card stock (and use calibration ink marks), so they're not exactly easy to forge.
 
Perotista said:
Not exactly what I meant. If ballot manipulation becomes wide spread, no one will know if the one who received the most votes actually won. If our election system become mistrusted due to shenanigans that bring about pre-determined results instead of the actual results...that is more what I was getting at.
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Yeah. I was just extrapolating.;)
 
DifferentDrummr said:
Which probably has something to do with why California counts the mail-in ballots only when the race is close enough for them to affect the outcome. Apart from that, ballots are printed on watermarked card stock (and use calibration ink marks), so they're not exactly easy to forge.
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I'm not particularly concerned with forged ballots but ballots that are filled out fraudulently, coercively or without the full knowledge of applicable voter are a concern.
 
Lutherf said:
A couple of years ago down here in Tucson we found a Democrat GOTV crew at a retirement home specializing in dementia care "helping" residents fill out their ballots. I was actually involved in one of the campaigns that year and while we won at the polls we got massacred in the mail in ballots.
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Did the residents have state approved ID? I understand that it prevents all voting irregularities.
 
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