The Folly of Vote By Mail

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) recently called for a nationwide vote by mail system using paper ballots. It’s a campaign stunt designed to leave the false impression that, as Democrats, Mssrs. Wyden and Blumenauer care deeply about the electoral system. However, their “concern” is misplaced because they are simultaneously resisting the single most important element of voting integrity – strict voter identification requirements.

The vote by mail system, next to an online voting system, is the most corruptible method of voting available. And when it is administered in a state that allows illegal aliens to obtain drivers’ license (which automatically allows you to register to vote), it is even more so. Following are the points of corruption that can and do appear in a vote-by-mail system:

•  The federal government and virtually every state, county and local election limits voting to American citizens and those residing in the jurisdiction of the office for which the vote is cast. For instance you must be a resident of Oregon to vote in statewide elections, a resident of congressional district to vote for a member of Congress, a resident of Baker County to vote in the Baker County Commission election, a resident of Lincoln City to vote for Lincoln City mayor and a resident of the school district to vote on a bond measure. The same is true for ballot measures. For a period of time then-Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) allowed non-citizens to obtain Oregon drivers’ licenses thus providing the gateway for registering to vote. Any future governor can do the same by not asking or verifying citizenship – a fact that is rapidly absorbed by advocates for the illegal immigrants and transmitted to those illegals. Estimates of over 100,000 licenses were issued to illegals.
•  Prior to the election of Secretary of State Dennis Richardson (R) the voter rolls were seldom purged. The result is that ballots were mailed to dead, missing or moved individuals allowing strangers to vote those ballots. Since there is no method of verifying who voted the ballot there is no way to know whether that person was eligible to vote or had voted multiple times.
•  There are various occupations like nursing home workers, those caring for the visually impaired, those caring for the mentally impaired, and those caring for the victims of dementia who have access to ballots thus allowing strangers to vote those ballots. Since there is no method of verifying who voted the ballot there is no way to know whether the person was eligible to vote or had voted multiple times.
•  During the course of an election there are groups who volunteer to pick up ballots and deliver them to election officials. They do this in order to “get out the vote.” The public employee unions in Oregon have provided just such a service in the past. The public employee unions are basically the financial arm of the Democrat Party and have voter identification lists on a precinct by precinct basis that can be manipulated to identify each voter as a Democrat, Republican or independent. Other political organizations have similar lists. Based on those lists it is possible and more likely probable that ballots picked up by these “volunteers” can be sorted and destroyed based on party preference. Nobody ever checks whether their individual ballots were received by election officials and their votes recorded. There is only a minute chance that such activities would ever be detected.

There are probably additional means of manipulating the vote by mail system but I just haven’t thought of them – others with political motivation probably have. None of those means listed above would be possible if there were strong voter identification standards along with strict enforcement.

Voter fraud can exist because nobody asks. There is no systematic check as to whether the person to whom a ballot is mailed is still alive, still a resident of the appropriate jurisdiction or is still capable of voting the ballot free from undue influence. There is no systematic check as to whether the person returning the ballot is the person to whom is was addressed. There is no systematic check as to whether the completed ballot was actually received and counted by election officials. When was the last time that an Oregonian called to see if his/her ballot was actually received and tallied? We’ll never know if Oregon’s vote by mail system has been corrupted until someone asks, until someone checks, until someone investigates. The system is corruptible and politicians have a hard time resisting corrupting something so easy with so little oversight.

Oregon is so overwhelmingly dominated by liberal/progressives that it is doubtful that the legislature (virtually sixty- percent Democrat) will move to cure these problems. However, those areas of Oregon that are east of the Cascades and south of Eugene can take action to minimize the effects of these abuses in their jurisdictions. Oregon is a “home rule” state, which means that issues that are purely local in nature are subject to the primacy of local jurisdictions. In this instance, local elections could be subject to additional voter identification safeguards, up to and including, re-imposition precinct voting booths with appropriate voter identification requirements. It may require separate ballots segregating election of local officials and local measures from the general ballot election for state and federal officials and measures. It may be a little cumbersome but electoral integrity will increase dramatically and you may, in fact, find that local voters relish the trip to the polls just like the good old days.