by Guy Page
In a fast-paced 10 minute video released recently, Rob Roper of the Ethan Allen Institute outlines what you need to know about S15, the universal mailed ballot bill approved by the Senate and now in the House.
In 2005, a commission led by former Pres. Jimmy Carter determined that mailed ballots increase concerns about voter privacy and fraud. This is especially true with the Vermont bill, which has no safeguards in place and no way of tracking voter fraud. As seen on the video, the Vermont Director of Elections admitted to a state senator that if someone signs and sends someone else’s ballot fraudulently, “it’s likely that that ballot will be processed.”
If someone gets hold of a ballot and votes for someone who moves away or doesn’t care, it’s impossible for election officials to detect. Fraud can happen on an organized level, where groups collect the over 100,000 mailed ballots that weren’t mailed in.
“Under this law we will never, can never, know” how many fraudulent ballots have been cast, Roper said.
Other states with mailed ballots have stringent security measures the Vermont bill lacks, including:
- – Signature verification. Town clerks have no signature on file to check against the signature on the ballot.
- – Prohibition of ballot harvesting. This practice allows candidates and organizations to collect ballots.
- – Purging voter lists of dead, non-resident or otherwise ineligible voters.
Yet framers of Vermont’s “see no evil, hear no evil” mailed ballot bill refuse to add any of these measures.
Tampering with lawn signs is also illegal – but it happens. And lawn signs at least are out in the open, Roper said.