My question is how do they get damaged at all? The voter scanning machines are designed to run the ballots through the scan with the least impact on the ballot as possible. If they get damaged, the machines would also jam. Did we hear of any jammed machines in King County? No we did not. So, when I see on the news dogged eared and mangled ballots, I question, HOW IN THE HELL DOES IT HAPPEN? My only answer is they are damaged intentionally so that they are subject to a hand count which then gets marked as a vote for Gregoire. That my friend is the bottom line, and I will not accept any other explaination. Period. The Demonicrats are using this trick to steal the vote.
The ballots are damaged before they ever get to the machines. I guess you've never worked at a Board of Elections. At least here, provisional and absentee ballots are delivered in envelopes so that the voter can be checked for valid registration before the vote is counted.
When we open those envelopes, we find ballots that have been folded in strange ways, ones that have had coffee or some other substance spilled on them, etc. We don't even try to put them through the machines. The voters mangle the ballots.
In most cases, it's easy for a person looking at the ballot to see who the voter wanted to choose. The question is whether a state wants to count ballots of people who didn't follow directions.
The polling places make it almost impossible to ruin a ballot, so even stupid people can cast a countable vote there. But there are many ways for people who vote absentee or provisionally to mangle their ballots.