Vet ab Cave. (Voter beware) Part 1

         One of the advantages of graduating from St. Charles Borromeo College Preparatory School back in 1979 was the four years of exposure to Latin. The adage, buyer beware, is recognized by most folks as "caveat emptor".  This series of posts will explain a tale that offers a warning for all would be voters.

          Our (Fictional?) story begins a few days after election day, where a primary nomination was decided by a handful of votes cast out of several thousand. One disappointed voter made a phone call, asking how they could be sure their vote had been counted, because the candidate they had voted for had lost. This particular voter revealed they had given their Mail in Ballot to the candidate the weekend before the election to deliver for them. The Candidate had assured the voter that the ballot had been delivered to the County office on Monday before the election. There was no mention of if it were mailed or put in the drop box at the government building, just that it had been delivered.

           Thanks to the wonderful world of technology, the voter found out that their ballot was time stamped at say, 2:44 pm on the day before the election.  Also thanks to technology, there were digital surveillance files of all the folks who put ballots in the box. So lets stop there for a minute, and go back to the mail in ballots, and where they came from.

           IN Pennsylvania, any citizen can go on the state website and request a mail in ballot, as long as they have a state ID and can enter the number on it to prove who they are. There is no face to face real time verification, you just need that state ID and you are set.

           So what happened when looking up that voter's ballot to see if it came in on time, it was noticed that a whole bunch of ballots from that same general area (within a 2 block perimeter.) all came in at that time as well. To make an analogy to what a certain candidate said recently about certain precincts, more ballots were placed in the drop box than people came thru the door. Hmmmmm?

           So then someone decided to ask the state internet wizards to look at the origin of these ballots, and printed out a list that showed, who applied, what day, what time, and from what IP.

             Wouldn't you know that some of those dropped ballots were all applied for on the same days 5/18 and 5/19, from the same IP, and in increments ranging from 7 to 20 minutes apart. Also in alphabetical order.

         Just like someone might be going down a list and filling them out. So now some people in Government who are really concerned about voter fraud and ballot security are trying to determine if all these votes came from the same device. 

    The powers that be might have considered that perhaps a would be good Samaritan was walking the neighborhood that day using their phone to help folks who wouldn't have normally voted get a ballot and participate in the election, which is a guaranteed right of all citizens. (At least for a little longer)

     But it didn't happen in just that little area. It happened in another place, a building with subsidized rents for low income senior citizens, in another precinct in that same race. In that building, 12 people all applied for ballots on the same days (As the ones in the other area, 5/18 and 5/19)  All these applications were done within 2 weeks of election day. Getting them filled out and back in time to be counted would be cutting it close if you mailed them. Which may be why so many ended up in the drop box at the government center. There is another suspicious building presently being researched, and the list of suspect ballots being compiled.

      So here is what worries me about Mail in ballots, in particular, senior citizens in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Many need help getting and filling out ballots. What is to stop an unscrupulous staffer from collecting the ballots from all the residents and altering them to assist their favored candidate before mailing them? Or even, as they fill it out for the senior, telling them one thing while marking the ballot in another? You have dozens to hundreds of residents in some of these places who could have their ballots compromised , destroyed, or never sent before a deadline, and no one would really know.

      Anyone casting a vote by mail needs to personally fill it out, sign it, seal it, and if they have to can give it to someone they trust to mail for them. Your vote is yours, don't let anyone get between you and the certified poll workers and elections officials. When someone else handles your vote, you are ceding control over it. Unfortunately, some who would insert themselves in that custody chain do not have your best interests at heart, but theirs

       Vet ab Cave, Voter beware.

P.S. There is so much more to this story, so stay tuned.