Election Integrity and the Wrath of Khan

Why this case is different

This is not the prosecution of a few people for voting for their dead grandma, or forging a ballot or two, but rather of a deliberate wholesale exploitation of the weaknesses in our election systems involving hundreds, if not thousands of ballots—enough to change the outcome of an election. As such, it makes highly visible just how vulnerable our election systems are, despite pontifications by officials that our elections are secure and honest— statements that must be considered official disinformation intended to create a false sense that all is well and we can trust the results of our elections.

The three keys to success

There have been many attempts in the last few years to prosecute election fraud without much success. True, there have been a few cases where individuals have been prosecuted, but the big cases with systematic manipulation of large numbers of votes have consistently failed. Why?

There are three parts to a case that need to come together before our courts will take action. First there must be a clear description of what criminal actions are alleged— essentially a crime theory. Next there must be solid evidence that the alleged actions resulted in sufficient manipulations to affect the outcome of an election. Finally, there must be identification of the perpetrators in a way that conclusively links their actions to the crime. In prior cases, one or more of these elements has been missing. Frequently, it has been the last element, but sometimes the second has also been weak or missing.

Was it just luck?

An important factor in the case was that the sheriff was already investigating Mr. Khan for another crime of illegal gambling. During that investigation, the evidence of election fraud turned up. While this might seem a rare lucky coincidence, it actually is not so rare as it might seem. People who are committing one crime are often involved in others as well.

Concerned citizens to the rescue

A small group of local citizens, concerned about election integrity, was analyzing voter rolls for certain anomalies. In examination of the rolls, this group noticed that there appeared to be large numbers of "voters" registered at a few addresses. They contacted the sheriff to alert him to potential false registration activity. The sheriff noticed that one of the suspect addresses belonged to Mr. Kahn. This tie made sense of some of the evidence that had been found in the gambling investigation.

Taking advantage of the system

Mr. Khan didn't have to do any machine hacking, any clandestine internet penetrations, or even any midnight ballot drops. All he had to do was exploit the weaknesses that already existed in our election systems and use them to his own advantage.

Using the California online registration system, he was able to create a large number of fake voter entries in the rolls. The nearly complete lack of checks of online applicants presented no barrier to insertion of multiple "ghost voters" into the rolls.

Once a voter is in the rolls, California will send them not only a ballot, but also the information they need to prove they are a legitimate voter—just copy one page and return it with the ballot. All Mr. Khan had to do was collect the blank ballots the State sent to the addresses he provided in the registrations. The US postal service delivered everything he needed right to his doorstep.

Once the ballots were filled out, the envelopes signed and returned, there were no effective barriers left to having the ballots accepted for counting. The same fake entries in the voter rolls would be used to validate the ballot as coming from a legitimate voter.

From looking at the video of the press conference, it looks like this individual wasn't especially bright, yet he was able to generate enough fake votes to get himself elected to a public office. What could someone or some group of really bright people do to mess with our elections? Worse yet, what have they already done?

Consequences have consequences

A moment's thought will reveal at least two consequences. First, it would be possible for a malign agent to introduce large numbers of false registrations into the voter rolls of the state. It would be possible, using a simple computer program and street atlas information, to register the entire population of China in the California voter registration rolls.

A second obvious thought is just how difficult it is to prosecute those who might generate such entries. Mr. Khan used his own address and email in preparing his false registrations, but a more sophisticated agent could take advantage of email spoofing and anonymization features of the internet to hide the source of the registrations, and addresses provided could simply be those to which the agent has access for collection of ballots.

Overseas opportunities

Further, the agent does not even need to be in the United States. Would some state agent of an unfriendly country such as Iran or China be concerned about a felony for creating a fictitious entry in California's voter rolls? Do they need to fear a sheriff appearing on their doorstep to arrest them? These countries, and several others, have many clever people who can recognize and exploit our weaknesses to disrupt our election systems, as well as ensure that their preferred candidates win. It all begins with the voter rolls.

Conclusions for now

There will be those who believe that Mr. Khan was just an isolated case, and now that he has been caught, all is well and integrity has been restored. This would be a grossly false conclusion. There are many Mr. Khans out there who, for whatever reason, are also manipulating our elections to their benefit and to our loss. Mr. Khan is just the one who got caught through an unusual combination of circumstances and a fair amount of foolishness on his part.

In even small elections, the stakes are high enough to tempt people to fraud if the risks are low enough. In San Joaquin alone, over seven million dollars were spent on local races. How much of that would be enough to tempt someone to manipulate the results or to hire manipulators? Note that no machines were involved, just voter rolls, and current ballot processing methods. Imagine adding in all the other methods that have been identified to switch votes, inject counterfeit ballots, and manipulate results, and then ask how much confidence we can have in the fairness and accuracy of our current election systems.

The faults run deep

Mr. Khan's case is just the tip of a very large iceberg of election fraud, not just in California or Arizona, but across the country, and even internationally, as we see from recent events in Brazil. Many others have been working diligently, even in the face of ridicule and active opposition to uncover and expose both the fraud that has already been committed, as well as the mechanisms for such fraud. It crosses party lines and all demographics—such manipulations affect us all.

Ye shall know the truth...

One of the most important results of the Khan case is official recognition that our current systems can easily be manipulated in systematic ways to subvert our election results. Current systems enable mass vote manipulations far beyond the classic forms of election fraud affecting only a minor few number of votes. Our centralized databases, poor voter roll maintenance, use of universal vote by mail, and ineffective detection methods not only enable large scale fraud, they effectively encourage it.

It is time and past time to stand up and demand that these systems be fixed where possible, and removed or replaced where they cannot be fixed. Election laws need to be changed or repealed. Working systems must be restored. Do we want fair and honest elections, or do we want a system where the best cheater wins? We are the people, and it is time to make our voices heard.