Dirty Voter Rolls and Vote by Mail

Voter rolls are a key piece in elections. They contain lists of people who are eligible to vote, registration and mailing address information, and history data for each voter. For those states where ballots are sent to all eligible voters, the mailing address is critical, as it is when absentee ballots are sent.

In past elections, voter rolls were often inflated prior to an election, and excess entries removed after an election. From analyses by Dr. Douglas Frank, voter rolls in every state were inflated by as much as 25%. That inflation was a rather obvious indication that elections were being manipulated since those added "voters" would provide the votes needed to determine the outcome of an election.

Removing the added voters after an election makes it harder to investigate fraudulent voting, but the large additions and removals also make it obvious that something is wrong.

Recently, in order to avoid setting off alarms by adding and removing lots of registrations, we are seeing a more subtle approach. For the past year and more that we have been analyzing voter rolls, we see something we call "churn".

With churn, large numbers of registrations are slowly added and removed over time. The total number of registrations remains about the same so the process is not obvious, but the composition of the rolls change substantially.

The process works something like this. Imagine you have a bin with 100 sweet, juicy, red Jonathan apples. One night someone removes 50 of those apples and replaces them with 51 tart, green, Granny Smith apples. You wake up and get a report of your inventory that shows you now have 101 apples. The extra apple might be a normal change in inventory, or simply an error in counting, so no problem, right?

The trouble is that you no longer have 100 Jonathan apples plus one odd one. Instead, half your inventory is different. The composition of your bin has changed in a way that wouldn't be noticeable from a simple count of apples.

This is what happens with churn in voter rolls. By adding and removing roughly equal numbers of registrations, the total remains almost constant, with any changes in totals within a normal, expected, range. In reality, though, legitimate voters are being replaced with questionable registrations that can be manipulated to serve the goals of election fraud.

But how does this affect elections? In the eight states with universal vote by mail, ballots will be sent to every active listed voter in the rolls. This includes the registrations that were added during churn. In most other states, there is widespread use of absentee ballots.

Unlike ballots sent to legitimate voters, ballots sent to improper added voters will be sent to addresses under control of the fraudsters. These ballots can be collected, filled out as desired, and returned by mail without any verification of voter identity, or even existence.

In most instances, there are few or no effective measures in place to detect a fraudulent ballot returned by mail, including ballots in drop boxes. That means that nearly every ballot returned by mail, including most absentee ballots, will be counted in the election totals. This combination of corrupted voter rolls with vote by mail and absentee balloting provides for the injection of large numbers of fraudulent ballots into the election results.

In our investigations we have seen typically about 30% of our voter roll contents altered by churn in just the last year. From our contacts in other counties as well as other states, that number seems fairly consistent across the country. If even only a small fraction of the churned registrations are voted, that is usually enough to sway an outcome. Most races are decided by fairly small percentage differences, so introduction of 5-10% fraudulent ballots is decisive.

Some consequences of churn have been turning up in primary results. If registrations are removed from legitimate voters, then they will not receive ballots during the mailings. Many will not notice that they have not gotten a ballot, and will likely attribute it to an error in the post office.

If they show up to vote in person, they will be told that they are not registered and will have to register and complete a provisional ballot. We have had numerous reports of such events in the recent primary.

Since the churn process also facilitates changing the mailing address of legitimate voters, their ballots may be redirected and completed early. In such case, voters will be told that they have already voted, and again are required to complete a provisional ballot. Most such ballots will not be counted, since the system is "first in, first counted". This also was frequently reported at polling locations during the primary election.

Often, complaints of these events will not be connected to voter roll problems, Post office errors, voters forgetting they already voted by mail, and even accusations of voters trying to submit multiple ballots are excuses invoked to explain the events, never realizing that they may be indicators of serious voter roll problems.

The biggest problem by far, though, is that we don't know who is voting in our elections. Proponents of vote by mail schemes claim that voting by mail increases voter turnout and participation. They base their claim on the false assumption that all the ballots received by mail come from legitimate voters.

From various investigations, we have strong indications that 15% or more of ballots received by mail are fraudulent. Proof is difficult for several reasons including secret ballot laws. Nonetheless, there have been a few occasions where circumstances have allowed us to actually make good estimates of minimum levels of fraud. It is quite possible, even likely, that the increased numbers of votes from vote by mail come from fraud and not from legitimate voters.

Most officials are reluctant to raise the question of significant fraud in elections because the Progressive media is quick to attack such claims as "conspiracy theories", "misinformation", "debunked right-wing propaganda" and numerous other dismissive and derogatory assertions.

Those attacks may be one of the greatest indicators that substantial fraud is happening. Those who perpetrate and support election fraud clearly have no interest in having the question raised or, even more, having actual investigations.

Meanwhile we have misguided politicians advocating increased use of vote by mail as a way to increase voter participation for their candidates. Little do they realize that such calls play into the hands of their opponents. So long as one side is honest and will play by the rules, and the other side is willing to cheat and do anything to win, the advantage will be to the cheater.

If we want honest elections, we need to remove the opportunities to cheat. The incentive to win will always be present as part of human nature. What can be done is to eliminate the opportunity. Vote by mail provides an irresistible mechanism for cheating for those who have no internalized commitment to honesty and fairness.

Churn is only one of a number of problems in the voter rolls that facilitate election fraud. In most instances, though, these improper entries would not be significant if voting were done in person. Fictional voters, ghosts, and other improper "voters" seldom show up to vote in person. It is when these dirty rolls are coupled with widespread voting by mail that the problems arise.

It is not possible to have a trustworthy election where dirty voter rolls are coupled with widespread voting by mail. Believing that we can is delusional. Anyone saying we can is either badly mistaken, ignorant, or worse, wants to have elections with controlled outcomes.