Voter Fraud: It Happens

I realize we’ve moved on from the GOP-is-opposed-to-mail-in-voting-because-they-don’t-want-you-to-vote to Trump-is-responsible-for-looting-and-anarchy, but allow me to dabble in last week’s manufactured outrage, please.

While those on the left insist voter fraud is a myth and that everything will go swimmingly when every voter is mailed a ballot to his or her last known address, there was a chilling cautionary tale in Saturday’s New York Post.

“Confessions Of A Voter Fraud: I Was A Master At Fixing Mail-In Ballots,” was written by Jon Levine after an interview with an anonymous Democratic operative who’d flaunted New Jersey’s election laws for years and masterminded widespread voter fraud. The editors at The Post allowed him to remain unidentified to protect him from prosecution.

Newspapers have traditionally been reluctant to allow a source to remain anonymous. With good reason. But there are exceptions.

Here’s what the AP says about anonymous sources: 

In a perfect world, all information in the AP report would be attributed to named, on-the-record sources who could be held accountable for the accuracy of their information.

At times, however, there may be a need to use anonymously attributed information in order to tell an important story. This is allowed by AP in carefully defined circumstances: if the information is from a credible source with direct knowledge; if it brings to light important facts that otherwise would remain in the shadows; and if the information can be obtained no other way.

The Post explained its decision this way: “The whistleblower - whose identity, rap sheet and long history working as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post - says he not only changed ballots himself over the years, but led teams of fraudsters and mentored at least 20 operatives in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania - a critical swing state.

Frankly, I found it distasteful to read the words of someone who deliberately set out to manipulate election results and who apparently escaped without punishment. Voter fraud is a loathsome, profoundly un-American crime. Yet this creep outlines in detail how some of his nefarious schemes worked. It’s worth your time.

Just because there are relatively few prosecutions for voter fraud doesn’t mean it never happens. 

“This is a real thing,” the source said. “And there is going to be a f-king war coming November 3rd over this stuff...If they knew how the sausage was made, they could fix it.”

This admitted felon gave a few examples of schemes he’d used in the past to influence the outcomes of elections.

Phony ballots were manufactured to look just like the real thing. The criminals couldn’t fake the envelopes, so operatives would harvest ballots, steam them open and replace the enclosed ballot with ones they had filled out. The ballots were then sprinkled around town in different post boxes.

Postal employees can be compromised, he said. If they work in a predominately Republican area and the employee is a rabid Democrat, the letter carrier can simply destroy a large number of ballots, assuming most are voting GOP.

Homeless shelters were a gold mine of ballots, where operatives simply paid folks to vote. So were nursing homes where supervisors were bought off to “assist” the infirm in filling out their ballots.

As long as there are elections, people will find ways to cheat. Both sides do it. Remember, it was a Republican operative who got in hot water and has been charged in state court over what election officials called “an illegal and well-funded ballot-harvesting operation” in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional district in 2018. Voters in that district got a do-over in September of 2019.

Coordinated ballot-tampering operations, run mafia-style where the candidate is kept in the dark while underbosses send out operatives to compromise the vote, are horrifying.

And states rushing to all mail-in elections are inviting this sort of chicanery. The temptation to meddle in this high-stakes election could be irresistible to some bad actors, considering the level of acrimony in the nation at the moment.

The best way to ensure a fair election is with in-person voting, with voter ID. If all polling places are as diligent about sanitation as mine was during the June primary, there should be no concerns for most folks about safety. If you can shop at a supermarket you can vote in person.

Absentee ballots, requested by the voter, are also a generally safe way to vote. If I were voting absentee, however, I’d deliver my ballot personally to the registrar’s office.

Mail-in voting? Nope. Not this year.