1/25/2023 Repost from The Miami Independent
Eduardo Vidal January 24, 2023
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[Miami, Florida] After the hanging chads debacle in Florida during the Presidential election of 2000, former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat from Atlanta, and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican from Houston, reached across the aisle and led a bi-partisan commission to investigate election procedures. One of their main conclusions was that Vote-By-Mail is rife with fraud.
Vote-By-Mail has a long history in the United States, going back at least to the Presidential election of 1864, when some 80% of the mail-in ballots cast by the soldiers in the Union Army were for the re-election of their commander-in-chief President Lincoln. Since then absentee ballots for citizens serving in the military, or having another documented inability to appear in person at the polling station, have been common in all States. Since that Presidential election of 2000, however, Vote-By-Mail automatically and unconditionally has been adopted by many States. The Wuhan flu virus epidemic of 2020 caused as many as 37 States to loosen their election integrity precautions and further expand Vote-By-Mail. The desire to facilitate voter turnout has caused States to increase the risk of election fraud through Vote-By-Mail.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, based in Indianapolis and focused on election integrity, reported this month that a significant percentage of mail-in ballots were rejected by election officials last year in California. The main reasons for rejection were that: (1) they were not received in time, mostly due to delays by the United States Postal Service (48%); and (2) signature mismatch or lack thereof (50%). In addition, more than 10 million mail-in ballots were unaccounted for. California automatically mails ballots to all active registered voters, making chain-of-custody impossible to maintain. Foundation President Christian Adams observes: “Mail-in ballots disenfranchise….California’s Vote-By-Mail demonstration should serve as a warning to state legislators elsewhere.”
Vote-By-Mail fails most of the safeguards against election fraud: (1) There should be a valid reason for not being able to vote in person at the polling station. (2) Photo ID verification is not possible (despite the requirement to show photo ID for almost everything else). (3) Secrecy and confidentiality are compromised, allowing undue influence and coercion to be applied to voters, and facilitating vote buying. (4) Signature verification is made more complicated. (5) Chain-of-custody is difficult to maintain with Vote-By-Mail. (6) Vote-By-Mail facilitates ballot harvesting by third parties, who collect mail-in ballots from unrelated voters.
Vote-By-Mail turns the United States Postal Service into the largest precinct in the country, with no oversight by poll-watchers. In addition: (1) Requests for Vote-By-Mail should be required before each election cycle, and should not be maintained in perpetuity. (2) Mail-in ballots should contain a security question that must be answered correctly. (3) Mail-in ballots should be required to be received by the election officials not later than election day.
Vote-By-Mail is banned in most countries, because they have seen the massive problems with election fraud, but is allowed by some countries for citizens living abroad. Mexico previously did not allow it, but since 2006 has allowed citizens living abroad to request a mail-in ballot at least six months in advance of election day. Brazil, however, bans mail-in ballots and requires citizens abroad to vote in person at consulates, bringing photo ID.
Vote-By-Mail was banned in France during 1975 after massive fraud in Corsica, including stolen or bought mail-in ballots and voting by dead citizens. The newspaper Le Monde reported: “To reduce electoral fraud, mail-in voting is abandoned.” The delegate in the National Assembly who introduced the bill observed: “There is within the electoral process certain preferred areas where fraud is more prevalent, because the offered facility creates an easy temptation, an extra propensity, sometimes almost an indecent provocation. Such, ladies and gentlemen, is mail-in voting….Observers generally agree on this point - - mail-in voting is one of the preferred methods of fraud.” The French Interior Minister observed: “Our electoral legislation has evolved along two axes, which we are today starting to realize do not necessarily coincide: (1) The first axis is the concern to make suffrage ever more open and easier. (2) The second axis has been the quest for an ever more sincere vote.” In 2020 France 24 news channel reported: “Postal voting has been abolished in France since 1975 because it lent itself to manipulation.”
Advocates of Vote-By-Mail point to its convenience, which is considered a big plus in today’s culture of online shopping and courier delivery. After all, if you can stay at home, order all your groceries online, and have them delivered to your front door, then why should you not do the same thing when it comes to voting? Because voting is not entirely the same as shopping.
Vote-By-Mail greatly increases the risk of fraud, which undermines the legitimacy of our democratic elections. Convenience is a plank on the road to serfdom. Free and self-governing citizens of a constitutional republic are proud to show up and vote in person, instead of mailing it in.
Vote-By-Mail Delenda Est!
Eduardo Vidal is a lawyer and political activist. His family brought him when he was nine years old from Cuba to the USA, but now the rule of law has been eroded in the USA as well, and we are turning into Cuba and the rest of Latin America.
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