California already follows a similar procedure, but uses county employees (almost always registrar staff) to do the human screening. There's an internal second review by more experienced and better trained supervisors, but no partisan citizen involvement or judicial involvement.
Where this system breaks down is in the ease of passing signatures by the first person that are at best uncertain without further review. I've watched tens of thousands of signatures get examined over weeks of processing, and most of the time most of the election workers were fair and pretty close to my judgment on almost all the signatures. But I did observe one staffer who was letting signatures go by that were clear non-matches, like printed signatures on the envelope when the original signature was in stylized cursive. I noted a bunch of his errors and emailed the Registrar about it. The staffer was reassigned to other election duties the next day. But there dozens of uncertain or nonmatch signature ballots that were sent to be opened and counted as a result of that one staffer's lack of attention or motivated decision-making, and once they're in the to-be-counted bins you can't readily go back and question them.
It doesn't fix the ward heeler standover problem, but then I'm not sure anything fixes that if you allow absentee voting in the first place. The voting booth was designed to prevent that problem by explicitly separating the voter from the heeler in front of witnesses, preventing both pressure from the heeler and the voter being able to prove that he voted "properly".
(1) It might be enough to just require a copy of an ID from the absentee voter, and not require a signature. Anybody have thoughts on that? Then we avoid the matching problem altogether. Some states do require ID's. Do they have a zero rate of rejection for signature mismatch? The data is available in the MIT-Stanford report. That has relevance for my fraud claims too.
Well I can easily make a copy of my wife's driver's licence. You cannot avoid the matching problem if you are trying to do *anything* securely, yet remotely.
Lots of countries give the voter a voter's registration card, which must be shown in order to vote. ( ID? *ID*?? Pass the smelling salts. [Points].) But India, Mexico and Isreal, for a few examples, do this. Registration is strictly separate from voting. Voting in person, and showing ID avoids the matching problem.
The only way to do any sort of secure remote transaction is to hand out a token which the remote voter must use, both to request a ballot package and to return a ballot. If the remote voter is given a password / lengthy PIN, which must be displayed together with his voter's card registration number on the outer envelope of his mail-in ballot, it becomes easy, almost trivial, to both verify the ballot's provenance, and preclude duplicate voting. (It is effectively the same as using an ATM: you must use something you have, and something you know). Agreed, someone possibly could steal a voter's card and the PIN, but that is the voter's problem not a systemic problem.
Any fix requires as the first step, that registration guarantees that the voter is who he/she says they are, that they are entitled to vote within that precinct, and that they are legally entitled to vote. Clean the rolls, and determine the number of voters who *can* vote, and you clean up a lot of problems. Dead Republicans do not present themselves at voter registration!
The real root of the problem is that the voter rolls are crap. Congress has the power to provide for rules for voting in federal elections. It is time it did so. Firstly repealing the motor-voter provisions. Secondly declaring that every existing voter roll is void. Thirdly requiring that prospective voters must apply, in person, with proof of identity, proof of residence within the polling precinct, and proof of citizenship, to be registered, no later than x days before election day. (This means, no last minute extras). All applicants will be photographed and have one fingerprint taken. Note that this means that the number of possible voters is now definitively known for each precinct. Fourthly, a registered voter will be given a password/PIN which will be required to be provided in order to request a mail-in ballot, and which will be required to be placed on the outer envelope of a returned ballot. Fifthly, the use of mail-in ballots will be restricted to limited exceptions and not a general measure. States will NOT be allowed to mail ballots to all registered voters. Sixthly, mail-in ballots must be sent and received by USPS mail (no drop boxes) by election *day*. Seventhly, voters will get a purple finger! Finally, the election officers of a precinct which purports to have received more votes than registered voters shall be (strict liability) guilty of election fraud and subject to five year sentence.
California already follows a similar procedure, but uses county employees (almost always registrar staff) to do the human screening. There's an internal second review by more experienced and better trained supervisors, but no partisan citizen involvement or judicial involvement.
Where this system breaks down is in the ease of passing signatures by the first person that are at best uncertain without further review. I've watched tens of thousands of signatures get examined over weeks of processing, and most of the time most of the election workers were fair and pretty close to my judgment on almost all the signatures. But I did observe one staffer who was letting signatures go by that were clear non-matches, like printed signatures on the envelope when the original signature was in stylized cursive. I noted a bunch of his errors and emailed the Registrar about it. The staffer was reassigned to other election duties the next day. But there dozens of uncertain or nonmatch signature ballots that were sent to be opened and counted as a result of that one staffer's lack of attention or motivated decision-making, and once they're in the to-be-counted bins you can't readily go back and question them.
Yes it's better than existing procedures.
It doesn't fix the ward heeler standover problem, but then I'm not sure anything fixes that if you allow absentee voting in the first place. The voting booth was designed to prevent that problem by explicitly separating the voter from the heeler in front of witnesses, preventing both pressure from the heeler and the voter being able to prove that he voted "properly".
One thing that went away with extended voting is the exit poll. Not perfect, but still a check on the outcome.
Excellent point, one I'd never heard before. Not a big thing, but a small cost of early voting nonetheless.
Possible revisions to make:
(1) It might be enough to just require a copy of an ID from the absentee voter, and not require a signature. Anybody have thoughts on that? Then we avoid the matching problem altogether. Some states do require ID's. Do they have a zero rate of rejection for signature mismatch? The data is available in the MIT-Stanford report. That has relevance for my fraud claims too.
(2) On Kamala's campaign's willingness to break the law: https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/30/block-community-notes-we-dont-like-harris-campaign-caught-red-handed-manipulating-x-to-censor-criticism/
Well I can easily make a copy of my wife's driver's licence. You cannot avoid the matching problem if you are trying to do *anything* securely, yet remotely.
Lots of countries give the voter a voter's registration card, which must be shown in order to vote. ( ID? *ID*?? Pass the smelling salts. [Points].) But India, Mexico and Isreal, for a few examples, do this. Registration is strictly separate from voting. Voting in person, and showing ID avoids the matching problem.
The only way to do any sort of secure remote transaction is to hand out a token which the remote voter must use, both to request a ballot package and to return a ballot. If the remote voter is given a password / lengthy PIN, which must be displayed together with his voter's card registration number on the outer envelope of his mail-in ballot, it becomes easy, almost trivial, to both verify the ballot's provenance, and preclude duplicate voting. (It is effectively the same as using an ATM: you must use something you have, and something you know). Agreed, someone possibly could steal a voter's card and the PIN, but that is the voter's problem not a systemic problem.
Any fix requires as the first step, that registration guarantees that the voter is who he/she says they are, that they are entitled to vote within that precinct, and that they are legally entitled to vote. Clean the rolls, and determine the number of voters who *can* vote, and you clean up a lot of problems. Dead Republicans do not present themselves at voter registration!
The real root of the problem is that the voter rolls are crap. Congress has the power to provide for rules for voting in federal elections. It is time it did so. Firstly repealing the motor-voter provisions. Secondly declaring that every existing voter roll is void. Thirdly requiring that prospective voters must apply, in person, with proof of identity, proof of residence within the polling precinct, and proof of citizenship, to be registered, no later than x days before election day. (This means, no last minute extras). All applicants will be photographed and have one fingerprint taken. Note that this means that the number of possible voters is now definitively known for each precinct. Fourthly, a registered voter will be given a password/PIN which will be required to be provided in order to request a mail-in ballot, and which will be required to be placed on the outer envelope of a returned ballot. Fifthly, the use of mail-in ballots will be restricted to limited exceptions and not a general measure. States will NOT be allowed to mail ballots to all registered voters. Sixthly, mail-in ballots must be sent and received by USPS mail (no drop boxes) by election *day*. Seventhly, voters will get a purple finger! Finally, the election officers of a precinct which purports to have received more votes than registered voters shall be (strict liability) guilty of election fraud and subject to five year sentence.