[EL] Accepting the results of the election

[Jon Sherman]

Re: Indiana. The Indiana General Assembly doesn't seem to have thought much
of the risk of absentee ballot fraud because it exempted absentee voters
from the ID requirement so they don't have to supply copies of their ID. By
contrast, Wisconsin and Alabama's voter ID laws cover both in-person and
absentee voting but I believe they're the only 2 strict photo ID states
that have done so.

More to the point though, what would thousands of instances of absentee
ballot fraud look like? Absentee ballots are mailed out. Do you imagine
that a small band of 25-50 co-conspirators would receive/collect these
ballots from thousands and thousands of addresses to which the ballots were
mailed? Do you imagine they're all being mailed to a few central locations
such as abandoned warehouses or commercial properties or apartment
buildings or just single residences and no one in the Secretary of State's
office will notice that hundreds or thousands of absentee ballots are being
mailed to single apartment buildings or commercial properties or
warehouses? SOS offices seem pretty vigilant about investigating that kind
of mass registration at one location because it's so unusual and rare. Or
do you imagine there are thousands and thousands of co-conspirators each of
whom is casting an extra fraudulent absentee vote in addition to their own
ballot?

You must know that under federal law, every registration form from a
first-time mail-in registrant must survive a HAVA match *or* satisfy the
HAVA ID requirement. If you're matched, you're exempt from the ID
requirement; if there's a non-match, then you must submit or present a copy
of your current and valid photo ID or a copy of a valid ID that shows your
name and current address such as a bank statement, utility bill, government
document, etc. All registration forms are matched against the BMV or SSA's
records. How easy or hard do you think it would be to falsify thousands and
thousands of registration forms with the Indiana DL/ID # or SSN for a
person who is already in the BMV and/or SSA databases? Or do you imagine
the co-conspirators will have previously submitted the forged paperwork to
add false names to the BMV and SSA databases? Or do you imagine the
co-conspirators are impersonating real individuals who are already in the
BMV and SSA databases and their actions will be able to evade the attention
of thousands and thousands of those actual individuals, their household
members, relatives, etc.? Or instead of obtaining exemption from the HAVA
ID requirement by way of a BMV or SSA database match, do you imagine these
people will simply not be in the BMV and SSA databases (such that there is
a non-match with whatever numbers are supplied on the registration form)
and the co-conspirators will mail in fraudulent HAVA ID for thousands and
thousands of false names? And these fictitious individuals will be
associated with real addresses but the confirmation mailers sent out to
these thousands of real addresses will not be returned as undeliverable?


To be fair, I do know of at least one instance of registration and voting
fraud in Indiana's recent history:
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/05/former-indiana-secretary-state-charlie-white-begins-home-detention-sentence/73388328/


I can't wait to see the results of the investigation in Indiana.


On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 10:59 AM, <JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:

> Regarding your questions of me:
>
> (1) First, as I have pointed out, liberals and Democrats have refused to
> accept the results of the 2000 election and no liberal or Democrat, or
> anyone one in the media that I know of, have been "horrified" or considered
> that a dire threat to Democracy.  You say that that refusal is justified
> and I understand that that is the position of the left.  But it would have
> been absurd to expect that Gore must accept the results of the election,
> without doing a recount in Florida, just as it is absurd to expect Trump to
> agree to do this either.  Yes I do think there is a gross double standard
> at play here.
>
> By the way, here are a few more elections where Democrats refuse to accept
> the results of.
>
> Click here: 8 Times Liberals Claimed An Election Was Stolen Or Rigged
>
> (2) Yes, I agree with your point that voter fraud can be committed without
> registration fraud.  But one way to commit voter fraud is to commit
> registration fraud first.  What you do is register a fictitious person and
> then vote them either at the polls or by absentee ballot.  A voter ID
> requirement can stand in the way of voting the fraudulent registration by
> someone showing up at the polling place but this does not prevent voting by
> absentee. So in this instance, the fraudulent registration is the precursor
> to the voter fraud.
>
> And whether there is evidence of recent rigging or stealing of elections,
> you could start with all the Democrats and liberals who claim there is, in
> the link above.
>
> For my part, it is uncontestable that there has been vote fraud in our
> country that has effected the outcome of elections, including possibly
> the Presidency (see Nixon loss in 1960 as a result of vote fraud in
> Illinois).  I have done a number of recounts where there was vote fraud
> that effected the election and the people involved were prosecuted. I do
> think that our election laws have significantly reduced the incidents of
> this but the concerted attack on these fraud prevention laws raises the
> specter the historic voter fraud will raise its ugly head again.  So,
> unlike the Democrats, I want to continue with these fraud prevention
> measures.
>
> Obviously, you and others have set the bar much higher by demanding
> evidence right now of voter fraud that is actually occurring today.  Well,
> little voting is occurring yet and, if voter fraud occurs, it can effect an
> election and there is no going back.  So I support reasonable fraud
> prevention measures to prevent that from happening. I believe that advanced
> registration and voter ID requirements, among others, are in that category.
> Jim Bopp
>
> In a message dated 10/20/2016 9:33:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> kogan.18 at osu.edu writes:
>
> Jim,
>
>
>
> As others have already pointed out, it seems strange to draw some sort of
> comparison between Democratic complaints about the 2000 election and
> Trump’s claims that the election is “rigged” via voter fraud. If your
> standard for judging the fairness of election outcome is whether the winner
> of the vote count is the person most voters intended to support, than there
> is clear evidence that Gore should have actually won and lost only
> because the poor ballot design in Palm Beach County. By contrast, there has no
> evidence that there is voter fraud on a scale anywhere approaching what
> would be needed to have altered the outcome of any (recent) presidential
> election. To claim that one set of concerns (backed up by empirical
> evidence) and the other (backed up by conspiracy theories and innuendo) are
> somehow comparable seems pretty disingenuous.
>
>
>
> I can’t speak for others, but what I found equally problematic is your
> claim that “thousands of instances of voter registration fraud in 56 of our
> 92 counties that is *obviously a precursor* to massive voter fraud”
> (emphasis added). If by obviously a precursor, you meant that logically
> registration fraud must chronologically precede voter fraud (which you
> later implied was what you meant), that is simply inaccurate. There could
> be voter fraud without registration fraud (e.g., an employee at a nursing
> home takes the absentee ballots of the legally registered seniors citizens
> who live there and fills them out without their permission). If you meant
> that massive voter fraud always happens when there registration fraud as an
> empirical matter, which was how I originally interpreted your statement,
> than that is also not true, for the reasons that Rick laid out earlier.
>
>
>
> Vlad Kogan
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Jon Sherman
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