Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
AG Barr: “I think there's a range of concerns about mail-in ballots. ...But but one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting.”
NPR: “Did you have evidence to raise that specific concern?”
Barr: “No, it's obvious. It's obvious that it can be done”
Since 5 states have been doing it for a number of years it should be pretty easy to find evidence of fraud in any substantial quantity and Kobach's commission didn't find any either.
But in the end demonizing voting by mail will likely hurt the Reds more than the Blues, solely because of demographics.
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Barr said counterfeiting mail in ballots was one of a range of concerns. The ability to counterfeit a ballot is not so far out of possibility as in how ballots have been counterfeited in other ways where the vote was not in person at the polling station.
As you said in post #37 "For decades Republicans have developed sophisticated programs to promote and harvest votes by mail." And there is this comment on harvesting votes by mail in The Federalist: "With ballot-harvesting, paper votes are collected by intermediaries who deliver them to polling officials, presumably increasing voter turnout but also
creating opportunities for mischief." Also, in that article there was this "evidence":
In Florida, a Palm Beach Post investigation into numerous 2016 primary races uncovered significant evidence of voter fraud by Democratic candidates, who pushed back on any criticism by claiming racial discrimination.
Three Democratic candidates, County Commissioner Mack Bernard, state Rep. Al Jacquet, and a candidate for state Senate, Bobby Powell,
all ordered mail ballots on behalf of constituents, in many cases without those constituents’ knowledge. Then, they either filled out the ballots for them or had them fill out the ballots while the candidates were present in their homes. All three candidates won on the strength of massive margins in absentee votes.
One Boynton Beach couple told the Post that Bernard just showed up at their door one day in August. Joseph Cerfius, a blind Haitian man, said he didn’t even know who Bernard was, or that he was a candidate for office. But Bernard produced a ballot, filled it out on Cerfius’s behalf, then actually signed Cerfius’s name.
“I couldn’t sign because I can’t see,” Cerfius said. “I gave him my voting card number. That’s all I did. He wrote my name.”
It is not unreasonable to see how mail in ballots could be counterfeited in a similar way by those who receive the mailed ballots either by personal pickup as above, or by those who receive them at the polling stations.