Two Men Charged With Submitting >8000 Fraudulent Voter Registrations in Attempt to Get One Elected Mayor

Carlos Montenegro was running for mayor of Hawthorne, an 85,000-person city in South Central L.A.

City News Service reports:

A man who tried to run for mayor in Hawthorne pleaded not guilty Tuesday in connection with an alleged voter fraud case in which thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications were allegedly submitted on behalf of homeless people, a fraud effort that prosecutors allege was being funded by the criminal gang MS-13.

Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro—also known as Mark Anthony Gonsalves—is charged with 18 felony counts of voter fraud, 11 felony counts of procuring a false or forged instrument, two felony counts of perjury and one felony count of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, along with nine misdemeanor counts of interference with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Montenegro, 53, allegedly submitted more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications between July and October, as well as allegedly falsifying names, addresses and signatures on nomination papers under penalty of perjury to run for mayor in Hawthorne….

You can read the Criminal Complaint for more (and there was more); see especially pp. 1-3.

I haven't been closely following the various recent allegations of voting irregularities, whether allegedly fraudulent or simply erroneous; but to the extent there doubtless were some irregularities somewhere in the country, I've seen no evidence that they actually swung any particular election (Presidential or otherwise). Still, elections in smaller districts are routinely decided by a few dozen votes or less (right now there's an under-50-vote margin in one of the Iowa congressional races), and of course the 2000 presidential election ended up turning on just several hundred votes in Florida. And, unsurprisingly, when power and money is at stake, human systems attract fraud; in some elections, that fraud could indeed make a difference.

Comments

[ThePublius]

That can't be so, Prof. Volokh; Facebook and Twitter assure us, constantly, that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent.

[jb]

There was no voter fraud in this case, just an attempt at registration fraud.

The claim that people make about voter fraud that is nuanced and therefore doesn't get boiled down to a soundbite is that voter fraud is pretty rare and almost never happens on a scale big enough to influence major elections, in large part due to the fact that it's pretty easy to detect such attempts (as is the case here).

An even more nuanced point would be that efforts to combat voter fraud should be roughly proportional in their likely impact to the effect on disenfranchising voters. There are some instances where you want to prioritizing reducing false positives even if it creates some false negatives (e.g., the criminal justice system), but since all ballots count the same voting isn't one of those.

But sure, feel free to keep arguing with a strawman if that floats your boat.

[Brett Bellmore]

The registration fraud would, obviously, have been followed up by ballot fraud, it was just preparation for it. And the registration fraud was actually successful in the first instance, the ballots actually ended up in the perpetrators' possession.

It seems likely to me he was caught out by the greater attention paid to applications for ballot access.

[Snorkle]

I think people are just generally on to fraud now. We were warned already:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-north-carolina-idUSKCN1QG2FS

[jb]

Sure, the intent was to engage in actual voting fraud, but schemes like this to create a bunch of puppet voters are generally caught at this stage because, as you can read if you get past the first sentence of my previous post, it's generally pretty noticeable when you try to engage in at-scale election fraud.

[Brett Bellmore]

The guy here actually succeeded in getting a bunch of absentee ballots, remember. I think what tripped him up were the fraudulent signatures on the paperwork to run for mayor; That is actually subject to serious scrutiny, unlike voter registration, which happens in such numbers that the examination of the paperwork is only cursory. Only a handful of ballot access forms show up, they can genuinely check those.

I suspect that, if the guy had gotten off his ass and actually gone around looking for legit signatures for his ballot access, he could have gotten away with the scheme, or at least gotten a lot further with it.

[Don Nico]

Registration fraud is voter fraud. Or if you prefer election tampering.

Skip your polemics.

[jb]

You want me to skip the polemics, and yet you decide to debate semantics instead of addressing the substance of my post. Guess it just goes to show that even here people don't want to get past the soundbite.

[Ellis Dee]

Cult experts describe it in terms of "thought stopping clichés." I prefer to view as thinking exclusively in bumper sticker slogans.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"There was no voter fraud"

LOL...

[AmosArch]

I doubt you'll find a cackling Nancy Pelosi behind a curtain shoving thousands of ballots from a bag labeled FAKE VOTES into a counting machine. Thats the strawman they constantly mock whereas the actual strategy is to simply tactically loosen restrictions in democrat leaning areas to allow small unrelated fraud to add up across large areas. A kid voting for his parents here a shady vote harvesting operation there across millions and millions of people adds up.

People get caught occasionally of course but its dismissed as small and uncoordinated because thats what it is. There is no shadowy figure masterminding it at least directly which would be a huge liability and plausible deniability, thats the genius of it. Heck they might actually partially convince themselves that they are doing it for the bs reasons they claim. But obviously the Democrats know in the back of their mind that they benefit from voter fraud thats why the fight tooth and nail against any attempt at security.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I just bought a bottle of win and had to show my ID. EVERY-SINGLE-TIME-MAKES-ME-WONDER-WHY-WE-DON'T-DO-THE-SAME-FOR-VOTING.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

In most cases (at least with modern retailers), the reason for the 'all customers must provide identification' policy is the retailer's desire to gather and sell information with respect to the transaction.

Your ignorance seems comprehensive, Jimmy.

[Rossami]

Good grief, RAK, if you're going to lie, at least do it plausibly. Retailers demand ID for wine because there is an age limit. Every sale of alcohol includes an identification requirement. And it's mandated by the same government that you're claiming is not allowed to require identification for voting.

[rsteinmetz]

It is illegal to sell alcohol to an underage person, but in the states I know of there is no requirement to demand identification. Some officials try to imply there is and conduct stings. Some companies require their employees to demand identification of every customer.

[Brett Bellmore]

The functional difference between, "You must provide ID to purchase alcohol" and "It's illegal to sell alcohol to minors, and the only defense if it happens is that they showed you ID" is pretty slight.

It's true I don't have to provide ID when I purchase, but that's because I'm in my 60's. The last time I was shopping with my wife, and I tried to buy a bottle of wine, they demanded that SHE provide ID; They thought it was a straw purchase...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Retailers demand ID for wine because there is an age limit."

This is false. Many retailers require identification because they collect and sell transaction information. That explains why a 76-year-old patron "must" display approved (machine-readable) identification even if she did so five minutes earlier for a different purchase. Your ignorance is profound, Rossami, and your unqualified declarations are silly.

"Every sale of alcohol includes an identification requirement."

This is false. If you identify, for example, the Pennsylvania statute or Liquor Control Board regulation that establishes an "identification requirement," Rossami, I will stop mentioning Prof. Volokh's repeated, partisan, viewpoint-driven censorship. But you cannot, because the "requirement" you describe is illusory, at least in the states with whose laws I am familiar. In some states, demonstration that a licensee inspected certain forms of identification in good faith can be part of a defense with respect to a sale to minor charge, but that point (of which you were unaware) does not support your foolish assertion.

"And it’s mandated by the same government that you’re claiming is not allowed to require identification for voting."

You are a roundly ignorant, flailing, disaffected clinger whose assertions are childish. Stomping your preferences in the culture war has been an important public service and a pleasure.

[Hank Ferrous]

'Your ignorance seems comprehensive.' As does yours in regard to the legal age for drinking and proof of age in order to purchase. Your claim that the individual retailer sets policy is risible, even from you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You don't know what you are talking about, Hank, particularly in the context of alcohol beverage regulation. Leave the complicated subjects to the adults, clinger.

[EscherEnigma]

Spare us the drama, if you had a "bottle of win" you wouldn't have spent the last two weeks self-destructing.

That said, the answer is that, at least thus far, America is not a "papers please" country, and there is no requirement in any publicly-accessible areas of the nation that you carry government ID with you at all times, or even have government ID.

Change that and we can talk.

[TwelveInchPianist]

i now. i ust boutte two boghttles ov whisky and thy made me sho id 2.

[Ellis Dee]

When I drink two bottles of whiskey I'm pretty much guaranteed to show id.

[QuantumBoxCat]

Imagine what it's like for DJ Khaled, since all he does is buy bottles of WIN WIN WIN!

[jb]

Two points:

1) Probably just a regional difference (as is the case with voter ID laws), but I buy alcohol all the time without having to show ID.

2) Is your goal to make elections as resistant to fraud as alcohol is to underage purchases?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These yahoos don't know what they're talking about. Their insights concerning alcohol beverage regulation couldn't fill a thimble.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The sad thing is, sometimes you do find a "Nancy Pelosi behind a curtain shoving thousands of ballots from a bag labeled FAKE VOTES "

This is the story of Domenick J. Demuro, 73, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an election judge who "fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear."

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-philadelphia-judge-elections-convicted-conspiring-violate-civil-rights-and-bribery

But we're told there's no election fraud. Then we're told, but we catch the election fraud, so there's no uncaught election fraud...

[TommyD2000]

Have you considered the converse? If you were to find any irregularities, what evidence would you need and is that information available? If you don't measure it then it is simply faith.

[Bored Lawyer]

Until recently, the claim has always been made that there is never enough fraud that it makes a difference to an election. (More recently, the claim is that there is no fraud at all, which is absurd.)

The question is, though, if fraud is never enough to swing an election, then why do people do it? Why risk prosecution to submit fraudulent votes, when there is little chance it will make a difference? Or do these people know something the rest of us don't.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The question is, though, if voting is never enough to swing an election, then why do people do it?

[Don Nico]

Obviously because sometimes election tampering does make a difference.
To hear the left speak, that is why DJT was elected in 2016.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think what they were claiming fell under the category of "social engineering", not "election tampering". Silly either way, considering the scale of the effort relative to our political expenditures. The Russians had a tiny fraction of the influence FB and Twitter deployed on their own behalf.

And even that was mostly devoted to raising the temperature, not trying to make sure a particular candidate won. One of the bigger anti-Trump rallies after the 2016 election turned out to have been organized by the Russians.

[De Oppresso Liber]

So both political parties didn't get hacked in 2016, but only one party had the emails leaked? I suppose Seth Rich did it, right?

[Brett Bellmore]

Both parties were subject to hacking attempts. Apparently the Democrats just had worse cyber security.

[Dilan Esper]

The Democrats had John Podesta, one of the biggest imbeciles to hold a major party position in my lifetime. The Russians asked Podesta for his password, and Podesta, with an e-mail box full of the Democratic Party's deepest secrets, handed it over.

What amazes me is he is still treated with a ton of respect by Democrats. This is a guy whose idiocy arguably cost them a presidential election and who certainly was grossly negligent while in a position of great trust. In a perfect world, he would have been sued for all he was worth and certainly would never get his calls returned again.

But elites aren't held responsible for their screw-ups.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

It was Podesta's idiocy that cost them an election, but not so much the email. He was involved in keeping all other candidates out of the race except Hillary Clinton.

[Longtobefree]

Well, my child, it all started in 1948, with a man called LBJ.

It is always enough to swing the election; look at all the references to "President-elect Biden".

[Brett Bellmore]

In this case, what you had going on was M-13 attempting to take over the town by fraudulently electing a mayor. That is to say, it was fraud coming from outside the system. Insurgent, rather than incumbent, fraud. And on a very large scale, since their candidate was likely to get next to no votes, so it wasn't just a matter of tipping the scale.

I suspect that, like embezzlement is both more common and harder to detect than bank robbery, most ballot fraud is an inside job, on behalf of the party locally in power. Being performed by the people in charge of the system, most of the opportunities to detect it are neatly bypassed. And since it's being performed on behalf of people who are likely to get a lot of votes legitimately, it doesn't have to be on as large of scale.

That is to say, just like most gerrymandering is incumbent protection, likely so is most ballot fraud.

[Brett Bellmore]

The usual thing you see in these cases, is that with a little more care, they'd likely never have been detected. Dropping ballots off still wrapped in rubber bands, for instance.

In this case I suspect his big mistake was applying to run for the office of mayor, which resulted in considerably more attention than just filing the fake registration papers would have.

[rsteinmetz]

For a long time people have been saying there's not evidence of election fraud.

However I've observed very little effort to uncover any.

If you don't look for it you can't find it.

[bernard11]

There have been all kinds of investigations, rsteinmetz, not least by the clowns Trump appointed to his commission.

Kobach at one point made a fool of himself in a Kansas court.

But things didn’t go well for him in the Kansas City courtroom, as Robinson’s opinion made clear. Kobach’s strongest evidence of non-citizen registration was anemic at best: Over a 20-year period, fewer than 40 non-citizens had attempted to register in one Kansas county that had 130,000 voters. Most of those 40 improper registrations were the result of mistakes or confusion rather than intentional attempts to mislead, and only five of the 40 managed to cast a vote.

Here are Jon Husted's conclusions:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted told Trump's commission his office identified 153 "irregularities" in Ohio during the 2016 election, in which 5.6 million Ohioans cast presidential ballots out of 7.9 million registered voters. His office referred 52 cases for further investigation and prosecution, including 22 individuals who voted in more than one state.

Election fraud pickings were similarly slim in past elections, Husted told the commission. His office found 42 "irregularities" in the 2014 election cycle, where 3,149,876 Ohioans cast general election ballots. His office sent 14 cases to prosecutors.

This is a guy who was convinced there was widespread fraud.

There have been other investigations.

[M L]

When election fraud isn't caught, then it doesn't exist.

When election fraud is caught, then it proves that no other instances exist.

Just like how the speed limit is never broken except when speeding tickets are issued.

Of course, this raises the question of whether the election fraud that gets caught actually existed before it was caught.

[Longtobefree]

So speeding, election fraud, and that damn cat are all the same?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Prof. Volokh plainly knows how to lather a collection of half-educated, birther-class, disaffected fans.

And how to cultivate one.

[Jaypd]

That was my thought, too. Or he's trying to convince himself that there's some at least acceptable excuse for the mass stupidity of his new huge influx of readers.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Like any successful peddler of shoddy goods, Prof. Volokh understands his target audience with meticulous precision.

[Don Nico]

Another of your mindless ad hominem accusations spun out off your ass.

[loki13]

Mmm.

I really admire Prof. Volokh in a lot of ways, and in a past life had the pleasure of (briefly) working working with him on a FA issue.

But Kirkland, however crude he might be, is not wrong here. Whatever one might say about EV, I would never be so base or obnoxious as to say that he is stupid. He knows (and always reminds us!) that he posts what he posts, because he wants to- no more, no less.

Choosing to post this is a choice. *shrug* To post this, and then to say, "Of course there will be fraud that can make a difference ... I'm not saying ... I'm just saying ..." is a choice.

[Don Nico]

loki,
I recall my political idol, Richard J. Daley, commenting on a statewide race in which the downstate votes were being tabulated slowly and late.
He was asked by the press whether that was evidence of election tampering. His answer was revealing. "oh no! the folks downstate are just as honest as we are in Cook County."
The implication was pretty clear to anyone living in Chicago (as we were.)

[Jimmy the Dane]

"These are not the droids you are looking for..."

The Democrats have told us time and time again there is no voter fraud. Ignore the statistical anomalies. Disregard the reports of double voting in CA and NV. None of that matters. Just....

"Hey look over here, these dumb asses held a press conference at Four Seasons Landscape!!!! They must have thought it was Four Seasons Hotel!!! What a bunch of tards! Sure we could ask them if it is just a mistake or if it was just being held outdoors in a convenient location because it was a pop-up press conference, but instead lets not do that and just draw our own conclusions!!"

[David Nieporent]

Um, hint: drawing one's own conclusions is kind of what intelligent people do.

And, um, hint: it was not held in a convenient location.

There are no "reports of double voting."

[Hank Ferrous]

That is a lie. There is a woman living in TX who found she also voted in CA, although she did not vote in the latter state. And, unintelligent people are well known for drawing conclusions, while believing they are intelligent.

[Doug Huffman]

Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence.

It is not possible to sustain an assertion of non-existence without examination of the entire universe of the matter. Beware the Black Swan.

[M L]

As of late 2018, 67% of Democrats believed that Russia hacked U.S. voting systems and tampered with vote tallies in order to elect Donald Trump in 2016.

Remarkable how credulous and gullible these folks are.

[Jimmy the Dane]

We are only supposed to be concerned about election fraud when a Republican wins. Same with recounts. Or tinkering with the Electoral College (remember Hamilton Electors?) Then it is alright. When a Democrat wins though it is always clean as whistle, seeking a recount makes you a sore loser, and allegations of voter fraud are crazy conspiracy theories that need to be suppressed by Big Tech.

[Sometimes Bad Is Bad]

Oh and the lefties are constantly trying to push the story that the GOP is disenfranchising black voters. After dems won. In Georgia.

[bernard11]

And today 77% of Republicans believe Trump actually won the election.

Remarkable how credulous and gullible these folks are.

[Brett Bellmore]

Count me in the 33%. I think it was the media successfully suppressing the Hunter laptop story that pulled it out for Biden. It would have been a killer October surprise if more people had heard of it.

I believe there was fraud, (To call our election administration "third world" is an insult to third world countries.) and a terrifying amount of election law violations. But the basic problem Trump faced was having practically every media outlet in the country operating as unpaid PR firms for the Democratic party. Even Fox stopped pretending this election.

I like having these challenges because there are a lot of stones that should be turned over, but I think there's essentially no chance that Trump's getting a second term, even if he can prove enough violations that he might theoretically have been the winner.

[Bob from Ohio]

Apparently the mere mention of election fraud is verboten per the leftists here, because Drumpf!

A cynic might think they have something to hide. Not me though.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Cancelling law firms. Torpedoing low end lawyers. Targeting low profile political officials in media hit pieces. Censorship by Big Tech. All of this and more leaves a completely reasonable man to suspect that something is up. Usually if there is nothing to hide, one does not, you know engage in sophisticated ways to attempt to hide it.

[Commenter_XY]

And, unsurprisingly, when power and money is at stake, human systems attract fraud; in some elections, that fraud could indeed make a difference.

So true.

[Poor Yorick]

I can't wait to go back into a courtroom and argue that, since at least one person has been convicted of murder, this defendant is guilty of murder. I'm sure that'll go over very well.

[Jimmy the Dane]

According to the left we live in a world where the KKK is just right around every corner in America (which the media never points out this is just blatantly not true) but demonstrable and documented cases of voter fraud just magically never happened. Yeah....right....

[EscherEnigma]

You do realize that there's a difference between voter fraud exposed by a month's long investigation by actual investigators, and a Trump campaign spokesperson waving some papers with names on them alleging they voted fraudulently, that when actually examined turn out to be fair and legal votes?

Because this story is the first kind. Actual investigation, actual professionals, actual fraud.

What Trump and Giuliani keep throwing around is the second kind. No real investigation, no professionals, and no fraud.

[Armchair Lawyer]

To have an investigation to find fraud, you need an allegation first. A reason for the investigation.

If there's an allegation, but you keep yelling "No fraud here, no need to investigate" and then congratulate yourself because you managed to squash any investigation before it could be started, well...

[Poor Yorick]

There were 53 convictions for voter fraud in 2016.

According to the FBI, there were 7,314 hate crimes in 2019.

Glad you have your priorities straight Jimmy.

[Don Nico]

You comment is partisan nonsense.
All crimes should be prosecuted if the case can be won in court. Moreover some crimes have worse consequences than others. Even a one-off should be prosecuted.

[Poor Yorick]

Absolutely agree Don. My point was about Jimmy having a mixed up priority where a meager 53 conviction of election fraud in one year is somehow evidence that there is a widespread conspiracy of election fraud effecting hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes nationwide, but being concerned about 7,314 hate crimes a year is paranoia.

[Armchair Lawyer]

You seem to be mixing "crimes" and "convictions" in your data sets for some reason. Also years for some reason.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Na he knew exactly what he was doing. The left ALWAYS does that. Will conflate things that are reported, but never substantiated, with "well look at all of these things so they MUST be happening!!" Also, if you take a few moments to unpack those allegations of hate crimes you will find that most of them are not evil white people putting down minorities.

But, hey, who cares because voter fraud is funny as heck!

[Hank Ferrous]

'Hate crimes.' Get a grip, and look at the standards and outcomes for the crime before making this comparison.

[M L]

From one of the affidavits in GA lawsuit:

14. Most of the ballots had already been handled; they had been written on by people, and the edges were worn. They showed obvious use. However, one batch stood out. It was pristine. There was a difference in the texture of the paper - it was if they were intended for absentee use but had not been used for that purposes. There was a difference in the feel.
15. These different ballots included a slight depressed pre-fold so they could be easily folded and unfolded for use in the scanning machines. There were no markings on the ballots to show where they had come from, or where they had been processed. These stood out.
16. In my 20 years' of experience of handling ballots, I observed that the markings for the candidates on these ballots were unusually uniform, perhaps even with a ballot-marking device. By my estimate in observing these ballots, approximately 98% constituted votes for Joseph Biden. I only observed two of these ballots as votes for President Donald J. Trump.

[M L]

6 different witnesses apparently with the same sort of observations under oath, including several Dems.

[Don Nico]

"something like in-person voting only (even if early voting is allowed), paper ballots only, a requirement for a photo ID when you go into the polling place, and no same day registration because registering would involve a time consuming cross check of citizenship status.'

Your suggestions procedures are standard in many if not most countries in the world, where the voting percentage is greater than in the US.
Yet one party likes to scream that such procedures are "disenfranchisement."
For example, one of my friends told me the in person voting was disenfranchising his wife because it was inconvenient for her. I'm afraid that word has become little more than a partisan political slogan.
Here in CA the state mailed my son (who lives with us) a ballot even though he never requested it. Of course we ripped this up, but how would the state know if someone else had used that ballot.

[Dilan Esper]

The thing is, that's basically impossible to do now. There are too many computers and audit trails.

It is possible to do small scale voter fraud, but you need a super-close election for it to matter.

[David Nieporent]

Fun fact: JFK did not need Illinois to win the 1960 election.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do the Conspirators ever consider the caliber of their fans and think, 'maybe we are doing something wrong here?'

I sense that some of them have, and consequently have largely stopped contributing.

'More room for me,' thinks Blackman.

[EscherEnigma]

Win or lose, I respect Trump for fighting for election integrity.

Moving beyond your terrible judgement here, why would you ever think he actually cares about "integrity"? All he cares about is that he lost, and trying to find a way to cheat to a win. Hence his attempts to get legal votes thrown out by the tens of thousands on the flimsiest of suspicions, have officials flat-out ignore that votes and give him the election anyway, and have courts give him victories that are unearned.

That's not "integrity" he's fighting for. That's just himself.

[David Nieporent]

Are you on drugs? Trump is fighting against election integrity. Republicans don't do anything about it other than, you know, actually passing laws. The reason that Trump does what other Republicans won't do is because he is a sociopath with no conscience of any sort. This is considered a bad thing by people with souls.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"The thing is, that’s basically impossible to do now. There are too many computers and audit trails."

Then how did they suddenly "find" 2700 ballots in Georgia, despite all these computers, weeks later.

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/another-georgia-county-has-uncovered-2700-missing-votes-secretary-states-office-says/5W734FA755CK3NCR4P7A27DXVM/

[bernard11]

Are you claiming that these ballots were fraudulent, or that there was some effort to keep them from being counted initially?

I'm not aware of claims that this wasn't honest error.

[jb]

Presumably this would have turned up in the canvas regardless of the manual recount. The whole point of the canvas is to look for discrepancies like this.

[EscherEnigma]

Your suggestions procedures are standard in many if not most countries in the world, where the voting percentage is greater than in the US.

Those would be countries where you actually have a single unified government ID from a young age.

We don't have one of those.

[jb]

"Your suggestions procedures are standard in many if not most countries in the world, where the voting percentage is greater than in the US."

There's also countries that do vote-by-mail. There's even some that (ill-advisedly, in my opinion) allow for online voting. The fact that different countries do different things doesn't tell us much about whether those practices are better or worse than those in the US.

[Don Nico]

As I said most countries in the world. But every state issues IDs without which you can do very little in the US, except vote and buy a burner phone.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'm just replying to Dilan's claim that it's "basically impossible to do now". It would appear, it's not impossible. Especially if it seems to happen "by accident"...

[Brett Bellmore]

If it was a mistake, the fact that the mistake was possible indicates that a deliberate was possible, too.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

It's funny how not a single blogger here is writing articles claiming fraud in this election. Only commenters. I wonder why that is.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I'm not following. Are you suggesting that Biden masterminded an operation to steal the election, but then forgot that he wasn't supposed to tell people about it?

[Bored Lawyer]

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.

― Adam Smith

Donald Trump is a narcisstic, self-centered horse's exit portal. But his actions potentially have the salutary (albeit unintended) effect of making elections more honest and more transparent. Ideally, that will happen and he will still lose. I would consider that a win-win.

[Ellis Dee]

I'm fairly certain he meant "fighting election integrity." Or should have meant that, anyway.

[bernard11]

That's insane.

[santamonica811]

Exactly, Mad,
We're lucky that Dems are such idiots. They come up with a great way to get invalid votes counted. Then, having come up with this great scheme, they totally forget to use it on any of the Senate races or or House races!!! Even though winning more Senate races is ESSENTIAL for passing any of their progressive ideas. What a bunch of maroons. (To quote Bugs Bunny.)

Or, for the non-paranoid and non-delusional, the failures in the Senate and House races make it *obvious* that there was no widespread fraud from the Dems.

If you believe in polls (I tend not to), then the actual results make it look like Republicans engaged in widespread fraud, since their candidates overperformed in many many locations, in many states. I suspect that if the Dems had been that party that had overperformed, you'd be screaming that this shows that chicanery was involved.

[bernard11]

Most of the mistakes were in heavily Republican counties. I don't know who the election officials are, but it seems possible they're Republicans.

Do you think it's more likely they were committing fraud to help Biden, or that they just made mistakes?

[David Nieporent]

Um, "It's impossible to do this because there are too many audit trails" is not refuted by "An audit caught an error." Rather, it supports Dilan's claim.

[sparkstable]

But higher participation in places that also have policies we are told suppress the vote indicates that the suppression is an unfounded claim. Ergo we should have no real objection to policies that secure or increase the integrity of the election. Even if the policies have no measurable impact on reducing fraud, if they increase the perceived legitimacy of the election then they are arguably worth it.

[santamonica811]

Well, if "Trying to extort/blackmail a foreign nation in order to throw an election my way." equals 'fighting FOR election integrity,' then I guess I'd agree with the premise.

My view: If someone looks at what Trump did/said re Ukraine and his conclusion is that Trump did absolutely nothing wrong; then there's not much point in trying to have an intelligent conversation with that particular guy.

[santamonica811]

In 2000, the reason why Bush won was because thousands and thousands of Jewish voters in the Miami area voted Democratic up and down the ballot . . . except for President, where they voted for far-right antisemitic candidate Pat Buchanan. Why? Because the official in charge of the ballot used a "butterfly" ballot, which was not permitted at that time. This led to tons of confusion--especially among the many many elderly voters in that geographic area. Fortunately (in terms of political comity), this woman was herself a Democrat, so it was clear to both sides that this was a good-faith error--it would have been a bloodbath if a Republican had thrown the election to Bush in this way.

Sometimes people just make mistakes and sometimes there are horrible consequences. I've seen so many examples of this, over the years, that I am reluctant to assume bad faith. Stupidity or incompetence seems to be the cause most of the time.

[Brett Bellmore]

That was indeed the story Democrats spread, and Buchanan himself played along with it just to cause trouble.

But it runs into a couple of problems.

First, Buchanan had run for President in 1996, too. And did particularly well in Palm Beach that year, too, without any butterfly ballot.

Second, the Reform party was running a candidate for Representative in 2000, and HE did really well in Palm Beach, too. In fact, he did BETTER than Buchanan in Palm Beach!

So, maybe the butterfly ballot cost Buchanan, not Gore, votes?

The butterfly ballot was just an excuse, nothing more.

[David Nieporent]

First, Buchanan had run for President in 1996, too. And did particularly well in Palm Beach that year, too, without any butterfly ballot.

This is Dr. Ed level making shit up. Buchanan did run in 1996. In the Republican primary. He did not run in the general election.

Second, the Reform party was running a candidate for Representative in 2000, and HE did really well in Palm Beach, too. In fact, he did BETTER than Buchanan in Palm Beach!

I don't know whether this is true — I find it too hard to find this data online, given that congressional districts and counties are not coterminous — but if so, so what? In other words, it really doesn't prove whatever you think it proves. It doesn't prove that the residents of Palm Beach county deliberately voted for Pat Buchanan.

[santamonica811]

Mad,
Your example shows clearly that the guy WAS acting in good faith. He thought he was permitted to vote in federal races, he accidentally voted in a different race...and rather than merely submit his vote (which you acknowledge would have been successful), he cheerfully acknowledged the reason why he wanted a new ballot.

Describing this as "accidentally confessed" is just weird. And bears zero relationship to your own version of events.

[Brett Bellmore]

Pennsylvania eliminated straight ticket voting options last year. If you're manufacturing fraudulent ballots, you have to do more work to vote more offices. Probably why Democrats called doing it "vote suppression".

Besides, the GOP establishment isn't going to be too pissed off about Trump being robbed of a victory, but they'd get seriously ticked off if it extended to office holders they actually liked.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You have a bigger imagination, and that's about it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

May the better ideas win.

Which is more bad news for clingers.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be fair, he did forget several times that he was running for President, not Senator.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've observed this before: We're bifurcating as a nation. You've got the country where Hunter was an innocent business genius and Trump solicited foreign election interference. And you've got the country where Hunter was a crackhead trading on his father's influence, and Trump was just trying to get restarted a corruption investigation Biden had used foreign aid as leverage to stop.

And each nation thinks the other insane.

[Hank Ferrous]

Bingo.

[Brett Bellmore]

An audit caught the error because Trump contested the loss. If he'd conceded as demanded, would there have been an audit?

[David Nieporent]

You're mistaken. This was independent of Trump's fake legal challenges.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sigh....

If after the official count, you do a rather unusual hand count audit (which most states didn't do), then you catch the error and you have a 100% success rate.

And if you don't do the hand count audit, you never find the error, so you never know about it, and you have a 100% success rate.

It's a wonderful catch-22 you have there. You can never be wrong!

(Or you can be rational, and understand that all of the normal procedures and audits put in place failed to catch the thousands of missing ballots, and it was only the after-the-fact audit that caught it.

[David Nieporent]

There were no "missing ballots." Someone didn't upload the data. Normal procedures — not Trump lawsuits — caught it.

[jb]

Of course, this same exact line of reasoning works in the other direction: if other countries that do vote-by-mail don't have tons of fraud, why are we worried about it here?

[Brett Bellmore]

Because the people running the system have to WANT it to be fraud resistant; Vote by mail isn't naturally so, it takes a lot of work. Ruthless cleaning of voting rolls, for instance.

[David Nieporent]

I do not know what you mean by "later."