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That Rasmussen survey is crap. Basically all of the described conduct can be legal depending on jurisdiction. Maybe you think it's all colloquially fraud, but that does not make it illegal. Just using my own state as an example:
That's totally legal in my state. If you are a US citizen living abroad and maintain a residence in Washington state you're allowed to continue voting at that residence. Or even if you live more permanently in another state but have not registered to vote in that state, you can continue voting at your Washington residence.
This is legal in many jurisdictions, including mine, when the voter in question has a disability. From the AARP guide for Washington state:
This also goes to the next Rasmussen question about signing a ballot for a friend or family member. Rasmussen makes it sound nefarious by combining "with or without" their permission but that distinction is pretty important! With permission it can be totally legal.
Again the equivocation between "pay" and a "reward." If someone offers you a sticker for voting, is that a "reward?" Would it be "fraud?" Note also that it is being offered for voting, not for any particular candidate.
I think there’s an issue with having assistance in any form that isn’t witnessed by a judge, or in signing with an X in front of two witnesses when we’re talking about mail in ballots. The issue being that no one outside of the assistant is able to observe the process and make sure that the disabled person is competent enough to understand the things they’re voting on, isn’t being coerced or tricked into voting the way they’re voting, or even that they were involved in the process at all.
All of those things would be obvious if the person has to show up and sign in and follow the simple directions of the verification process. You can also potentially overhear things that would make you question whether the person is 3x oriented (knows where they are, knows the time and the date). If granny rocks up and you hear her say this is a nice bingo hall, you can question it. If she thinks it’s 1955, again, you can question it. If the “helpers” are very obviously saying things like “you want to vote for Biden,” or similarly suggesting voting for or against issues, again, the judges would absolutely be able to notice and question it.
Mail in voting makes all of those things much more difficult to detect. I could absolutely vote in some dementia patient’s name and mark an X then have myself and my partner sign it as witnesses. I could go to the home and find the patient who thinks it’s 1955 and the nursing home is a cruise ship and have them vote.
I can go and tell my gran to vote in the way I want her to either for a reward or to avoid a punishment or even just suggesting something bad happening if she doesn’t. I saw something similar when I used to work at a nursing home ten years ago. The social worker who was evaluating whether patients were fit to return home had a way of sneaking in her politics into her evaluations. She’d add “whether you like him or not” to the question of who’s the president when republicans were in charge and not democrats. It left a very obvious impression that being fit to return home might well depend on supporting the democrats. If these patients were filling out ballots while waiting to see if they were going home would be pressured to vote for democrats. Especially if she’s helping them fill out the ballot. Family members could imply that they won’t see their grandchildren if Trump wins. Or promise them ice cream if they vote Biden.
Mail in ballots make all of that impossible to detect because the only thing you have is a document signed after the fact. If it’s signed with an X and witnesses, there’s no way to know whether or not the person is even aware that they voted or anything else.
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I’ll agree I have a concern with the survey. But since you used crap. I’d say the same about your explanations.
You very well know 17% of voters do not have Washington St residence and live in Europe. Even during COVID that isn’t true. My critique would be the number is obviously too high to be believable and indicates trolling. Even peak work from anywhere COVID wasn’t going to close to that.
Yes. Disabilities exists. But 15-20% of voters do not have those disabilities.
I’m not entirely sure what to think of this polls issues. Some of the data seems implausible. But the explanations you are using is what I would call misinformation by giving a true exception. But those reasons don’t seem to be numerically close to same values.
I do think there was a lot of fraud with regards to people sharing answers and helping with a ballot. It’s illegal to campaign at the poll booth in person so I assume that is also illegal when voting at home. And if it’s not illegal I would still call that fraud.
I intended my explanations to be illustrative, not comprehensive. I agree the numbers seem intuitively implausible but my uncertainty is high given the lack of information about the people surveyed.
What do you mean by "sharing answers" here? Is it voter fraud for person A to tell person B how they voted?
It's illegal for a campaign representative to stand around a poling place and try and influence voters to vote for their candidate. It is obviously not illegal (and not fraud) for person A to try to convince person B to vote for some candidate in the privacy of their home.
It would seem to be fraudulent and perhaps illegal to tell them who to vote for/pressure them who to vote for while they are preparing/in the act of voting. That is an identical act as campaigning at the election site but sort of worse because many times it also removed their ability to vote independently with a secret ballot. With the sex skews in voting now that can add up.
The strongest claim of election fraud is the violation of the secret ballot and people interfering with peoples ability to vote their conscience. This survey supports it was widespread.
Pressure, sure. But none of the Rasmussen questions asked anyone if they had pressured or been pressured by anyone. My wife and I often fill out our ballots together. Sometimes debating about ballot propositions or candidates and things. Sometimes I've read the guide and she hasn't and doesn't want to so she just asks me for my opinion, which I give. Do I do something fraudulent and perhaps illegal in such a circumstance?
If you were essentially at the ballot box then the same principles would apply and that would be fraud.
If you read the ballot together and discussed the issues and then half an hour later filled out the ballots in private then I would say it’s fine.
My guess is most people who helped didn’t clearly establish discussing and the process of voting.
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I don't think it's something to be worried about if someone lets a family member fill out their ballot for them. Maybe it's illegal, but when you're saying that an election is fraudulent, and what you mean is "some people illegally let their spouses fill out their ballot for them," that's not what it sounds like you were saying, and it's not what people care about.
I definitely care about that. Perhaps because I think it’s sways elections.
Let’s say you work at Disney. You bs a lot of corporate BS. Everyone is voting at work and showing each other their ballots. Everyone expect you to do the same. Do you think a guy who votes Trump is getting promoted? That is more extreme but this did happen within families. We already knew that Trump outperforms his polling so there were a lot of quiet Trump voters.
For a lot of voting rules a good question is whether each side fights over them so much if they didn’t think they mattered. If their isn’t fraud why wont Dems get rid of extensive mail-in voting unless they think it’s a huge benefit to them.
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