I think you're underestimating how exceedingly difficult it would be to correctly identify the people that you could steal their vote, and not get caught.
Picture it, if you try to vote for someone, and they also vote - in person, or requesting another ballot - that's trivially detectable.
You linked to a news story about double-voting being detected yourself. Said news story also identifies the causes behind double-voting:
1. Delays in inputting data about who had voted in real-time.
2. Poll workers overriding machines to submit ballots.
Is there any evidence that these things happened at scale during the general? I would expect that poll workers would be better-trained and that the election would be generally smoother than the primary.
In addition, that article makes no mention of nursing homes as a particular source of double votes.
For me the take away was there's no failsafe automated way to detect double-voting.
Since the ballots themselves become anonymous once removed from the envelopes, I'm not really sure at all how'd you notice double-voting, unless you're doing something to look for duplicate envelopes. I don't there's any automated invalidation of the previous ballot if you request multiple ballots (e.g., if some1 took your first one).
Maybe there are more rigerous systems in place than I realize, but I haven't read about it, if so.
Re nursing homes, the point there is you can be pretty sure if you take those ballots, you won't risk a double-vote.
Of course there's no failsafe automated way to detect double-voting. There's no failsafe automated way to detect anything. In fact, there's no failsafe way to detect anything.
But checking for duplicate envelopes is part of the process. That's how duplicate votes are found and thrown out of elections (see the Stokke case). Checking for voter eligibility is part of the process. That's how votes are invalidated (see the report I linked elsewhere in this thread).
There is no evidence that ballot fraud exists at a scale which affects elections in the United States. The fact that it exists at all is not a good enough reason to disenfranchise millions of people.
Taking tens of thousands of ballots (the number needed to swing the election) from nursing homes will absolutely cause detected double-votes. Not to mention that collecting those tens of thousands of ballots necessarily involves a large number of people. And when a conspiracy includes a large number of people, the chances that someone talks skyrockets.
That's not concrete enough for me to have any confidence duplicate ballots would reliably be rejected. Perhaps there is a robust process, but I haven't heard it.
We're a bit in the weeds though. To summarize top-level findings, for GA at least:
- The 2016 mail-in ballot rejection rate was 6.42% †
- The 2020 mail-in ballot rejection rate was 0.37%
That's a huge, surprising difference that deserves an explanation. The GA secretary of state has refused to audit those signatures.
One of the arguments against the need to do an audit is that observers from both parties had a chance to challenge the signatures when the ballots were opened. But, per reports (I believe in sworn affidavits), republican observers were often unable to do so. So why not allow an audit of the signatures?
One could argue, as you and several other commentators have, that signature verification does not matter.
But that is not following (for GA) at least the written law; it also, I would say, remains unconvincing.
Finally, I don't see what's unreasonable about asking a signature to match. That does not seem like an unfair burden to place on legitmate voters.
If GA wanted to build confidence in these results, I would recommend at least uploading a copy of all accepted ballot envelope signatures along with the on-file registration signature. I think it would then become obvious one way or the other if it was reasonable to accept the ballots.
† These are taken from the state of TX lawsuit, which I assume are correct
> If GA wanted to build confidence in these results, I would recommend at least uploading a copy of all accepted ballot envelope signatures along with the on-file registration signature.
...wouldn't that make it far easier for some malicious to steal the signature of thousands of people? Perhaps in the 2022 midterms or 2024 general election?
It's total rejection rate to total rejection, so that's apples-to-apples, right?
It is interesting that the GA SoS claims rejections in 2016 due to signatures was really low.
If that's true and 2020 is comparable, then we would not expect to see a significant number bogus signatures in an audit, which would provide reassurance to all observers.
Hence, in that case, I don't understand the reluctance to perform an audit.
They check the voter registration while they're opening the envelopes. If there's a double-vote detected, they pull that envelope to the side to investigate more, before they open it and count the vote.
Also, I really think you don't get the point of my first question to you.
How many false positives and false negatives do you think signature analysis would result in?
Because if you're trying to detect a fraudulent signature, and you have false positives, and you then don't count that vote, you have disenfranchised someone.
Perhaps you just mean that those envelopes should be pulled aside, and the state should go and track down the person and ask them if its really their signature?
> Perhaps you just mean that those envelopes should be pulled aside, and the state should go and track down the person and ask them if its really their signature?
Yes, in Georgia at least, that's the process that's supposed to be followed -- if the signature doesn't match, you mail the person, and then they have a chance to mail it back corrected.
This actually happened to me the first time I voted, in Oregon. Sort of stupidly, I signed my ballot with a nicer signature than my usual scribble. The sent the ballot back saying the signatures didn't match; I sent it back w/ my scribble. I'm not sure if the vote ended up counted or not...
Picture it, if you try to vote for someone, and they also vote - in person, or requesting another ballot - that's trivially detectable.
That didn't happen.