Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises [New York Times 2012]

New York Times ^ | October 6, 2012 | Adam Liptak

[grundle]

Voting by mail is now common enough and problematic enough that election experts say there have been multiple elections in which no one can say with confidence which candidate was the deserved winner.

In the last presidential election... He calculated that 3.9 million ballots requested by voters never reached them...

The list of very close elections includes the 2008 Senate race in Minnesota, in which Mr. Franken’s victory over Mr. Coleman, the Republican incumbent, helped give Democrats the 60 votes in the Senate needed to pass President Obama’s health care bill. Mr. Franken won by 312 votes, while state officials rejected 12,000 absentee ballots.

Voters in nursing homes can be subjected to subtle pressure, outright intimidation or fraud. The secrecy of their voting is easily compromised. And their ballots can be intercepted both coming and going.

The problem is not limited to the elderly, of course. Absentee ballots also make it much easier to buy and sell votes. In recent years, courts have invalidated mayoral elections in Illinois and Indiana because of fraudulent absentee ballots.

Last November, Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, suspended a school board member in Madison County, not far from here, after she was arrested on charges including absentee ballot fraud.

The board member, Abra Hill Johnson, won the school board race “by what appeared to be a disproportionate amount of absentee votes,” the arrest affidavit said. The vote was 675 to 647, but Ms. Johnson had 217 absentee votes to her opponent’s 86. Officials said that 80 absentee ballots had been requested at just nine addresses. Law enforcement agents interviewed 64 of the voters whose ballots were sent; only two recognized the address.

[preacher]

L8r

[FreedomPoster]

There is an active http://archive.today link for that URL.

[StACase]

First, thanks for that link, I otherwise can't read stuff from The New York Times.

In the image at the top of that NYT article you can read this notice:

Place your voted
Ballot inside the
secrecy sleeve
and then seal it
in this envelope

Here in Wisconsin, there is no "Secrecy Sleeve"

Here's a what Wisconsin's absentee voter package looks like.

Whoever opens that envelope has an opportunity to see your supposedly secret ballot and note who you voted for. It can't be any other way. What you're looking at in that image is what you drop in the mailbox. A mailing envelope with your name and address on it, and your ballot inside. There is no secrecy sleeve.