Stormy Daniels
Gold Member
- Mar 19, 2018
- 7,106
- 2,393
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The claim is being made that the Florida elections for Governor and US Senator are being fixed by alleged thousands of ballots appearing out of nowhere in favor of the Democratic candidates. This is a pretty far fetched claim that just doesn't connect to reality. To demonstrate its folly, the question must be answered: what do these alleged bogus ballots look like?
The problem is that it's not like people vote by writing down a name on a single slip of paper, then drop it into a box. Florida uses a ballot system that includes many contests on single sheets of paper. If someone were trying to sneak pre-filled ballots to swing the Governor and Senator races, there are only two possible conditions for these fraudulent ballots to appear. The first is for the fraudulent ballots to only indicate votes for the two offices trying to be swayed, while remaining blank for the rest. The second is to also indicate votes for other races.
In the first case, these ballots would stick out like a sore thumb. If a stack of thousands of ballots showed up, conveniently only voting for the two races in dispute, and all incidentally listed for the Democratic candidates, it would be the most conspicuous thing in the world. Everyone would notice. All of the regular county election officials would have to be in on the con. The state observers would have to be in on the con. All of the hundreds of temporary employees who are involved in the hand counting after the election would be in on the con. Even if they managed to get the ballots mixed in with the others, they volume of them would still stick out before long. It would have to be a massive conspiracy, the likes of which have never been seen. Let's face it, this is a government operation we're talking about. The government is scarcely competent enough to balance its checkbook. Pulling off something like this is like looking to toddlers to figure out cold fusion.
The second case would make it easier to obscure the fraudulent ballots from the legitimate ones. However there would still be a huge problem problem. Bogus votes showing up on all the other races that were voted on those bogus ballots would mean that all of the races are compromised. But Republicans aren't suggesting that. Only that these two particular races are experiencing fraud. Add to this the fact that ballots can vary by location within the county, or within a city, depending on county and city elections that may be happening as well. Any attempt to employ this second approach would require even more planning because having more ballots for County Division 4 than total voters in that area would once again stick out like a sore thumb. And we cannot forget that these fraudulent ballots would all have to be filled out by hand. The system used in Florida requires filling in oval shaped bubbles completely, but not even slightly outside of the lines. Kind of like your old SAT scantron, but much more sensitive. It takes a bit of care. Let's hypothesize it would take 5 minutes to fill out a single ballot completely (or mostly, at least, even if one or two contests are left blank, still preserving the essence of the illusion). To fill out 10,000 fraudulent ballots would require about 833 manhours--about 105 man-days worth of labor (assuming an 8 hour workday). Is this one person filled these out? A team of 10 people who did it across 10 days? They put in all that effort just in case? Did nobody notice that these people got absolutely nothing accomplished for 10 whole days?
The problem is that it's not like people vote by writing down a name on a single slip of paper, then drop it into a box. Florida uses a ballot system that includes many contests on single sheets of paper. If someone were trying to sneak pre-filled ballots to swing the Governor and Senator races, there are only two possible conditions for these fraudulent ballots to appear. The first is for the fraudulent ballots to only indicate votes for the two offices trying to be swayed, while remaining blank for the rest. The second is to also indicate votes for other races.
In the first case, these ballots would stick out like a sore thumb. If a stack of thousands of ballots showed up, conveniently only voting for the two races in dispute, and all incidentally listed for the Democratic candidates, it would be the most conspicuous thing in the world. Everyone would notice. All of the regular county election officials would have to be in on the con. The state observers would have to be in on the con. All of the hundreds of temporary employees who are involved in the hand counting after the election would be in on the con. Even if they managed to get the ballots mixed in with the others, they volume of them would still stick out before long. It would have to be a massive conspiracy, the likes of which have never been seen. Let's face it, this is a government operation we're talking about. The government is scarcely competent enough to balance its checkbook. Pulling off something like this is like looking to toddlers to figure out cold fusion.
The second case would make it easier to obscure the fraudulent ballots from the legitimate ones. However there would still be a huge problem problem. Bogus votes showing up on all the other races that were voted on those bogus ballots would mean that all of the races are compromised. But Republicans aren't suggesting that. Only that these two particular races are experiencing fraud. Add to this the fact that ballots can vary by location within the county, or within a city, depending on county and city elections that may be happening as well. Any attempt to employ this second approach would require even more planning because having more ballots for County Division 4 than total voters in that area would once again stick out like a sore thumb. And we cannot forget that these fraudulent ballots would all have to be filled out by hand. The system used in Florida requires filling in oval shaped bubbles completely, but not even slightly outside of the lines. Kind of like your old SAT scantron, but much more sensitive. It takes a bit of care. Let's hypothesize it would take 5 minutes to fill out a single ballot completely (or mostly, at least, even if one or two contests are left blank, still preserving the essence of the illusion). To fill out 10,000 fraudulent ballots would require about 833 manhours--about 105 man-days worth of labor (assuming an 8 hour workday). Is this one person filled these out? A team of 10 people who did it across 10 days? They put in all that effort just in case? Did nobody notice that these people got absolutely nothing accomplished for 10 whole days?