Yet another case of vote-by mail fraud hits Texas. Click2Houston.com is reporting that an investigation has been opened into allegations of absentee voting fraud, and door-to-door granny farming, the practice of targeting older voters with absentee ballot fraud.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/15492166/detail.html
Precinct Judge Edna Russell told Local 2 Investigates that some senior citizen voters had to be turned away because absentee ballots had already been mailed in using their names.
“Somebody had already voted for me,” said Georgia Ireland.
She and the other victims reported that people were going door-to-door, offering help to seniors with filing voter registration forms.
Some victims signed the paperwork, while others did not, but the scammers then used the information to mail absentee ballots in their names, meaning their votes were stolen from them.
“I thought that was horrible,” Ireland said. “I really wanted to know how they could do that (because) I never signed nothing. Not a thing.”
Witnesses inside the voting location at Mount Olive Baptist Church said some of the victims cried and others yelled, “This is how they’re going to steal the election from (Presidential candidate Barrack) Obama.”
The precinct judge said some of the victims have had their votes stolen in the past, which indicates that once the scammers have someone’s personal information, they could become victims again and again in the future.
Many Vote-By Mail proponents continually say that absentee ballot fraud is an imaginary problem, made up by those of us who oppose the push towards vote-by mail. The reality is really the reverse, I oppose voting by mail because of the many problems I’ve documented since I started tracking the issue almost two years ago now.
Filed under: Voting and Mail Fraud News, Voting News | Tagged: absentee ballot fraud, Granny Farming, Grannyfarming, Texas |
The No Vote By Mail Project 
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The Democratic National Committee is working with groups that are buying votes from people in key states. My cousin has been approached numerous times in Florida from people offering to help register him and even offering him money to help him vote for Barak Obama.
Well both parties are highly invovled in approving these systems. But if you can document any of this, please send it my way.
Thanks.
How then, sir, do you propose the tens of thousands of deployed servicemembers exercise their right to franchise? The 2000 popular election in Florida was in question in large part due to the nearly 3000 absentee ballots of active duty military stationed in Germany that were not counted, who in post election surveys overwhelmingly (to the tune of 80+%) voted Republican in that election. Until reliable, secure -and *trusted* internet voting can be implemented (and I doubt it will in my lifetime), mail is the only option for these citizens who have more right to a say in the leadership of their country than the non-tax paying masses who get their news from People magazine and live off the sweat and blood of others.
To be my own “devil’s advocate” however, I admit that the VBM system is antiquated and contributes a number of problems to the democratic system, as your website dutifully points out.
Service members have in the past set up field level precincts. Voting in the field, as it were.
I’ve thought about this issue often, and cannot think of a perfect solution to the problem. However, limited absentee systems are ok, in that they don’t force everyone into the system. This then allows for a check and balance, whereby poll voting patterns can be compared to absentee voting patterns. In this way one would expect to confirm results, or potentially if unexpected variations arise, call those results into question.
Internet Voting cannot currently be implemented securely either. Precinct voting is possibly the only “voter owned and controlled election system” that we have developed so far, and therefore it makes me very uncomfortable to move down that road too far, too fast.
Re-reading this I believe that precinct voting could work in the field. Afterall, aren’t battalions and the like broken down into platoons and divisions and such… So voting at a poll site within your own platoon or division, why couldn’t this be achieved? For if the military can’t conduct a public election in a Democracy, well then that says something about that Democracy.
Gentry-
I like your thought process – it is refreshing even when I don’t agree on all points. I agree that a sort of precinct voting could be made to work. We already have officers and NCO’s tasked with ensuring service members are registered, know how to apply for absentee ballots, etc. I’m not sure the average size (population-wise) of a stateside voting precinct, or the man-power required to staff it, but I also do not believe it would be out of the scope of of the capability of any but the most remotely deployed combat units.
This would work, I think for Federal elections, but it begs two questions:
1. How does one determine which state a service member’s vote is counted? and in the end, does it really matter, since we have the electoral college and the popular vote does not necessarily decide the result…?
How can service members participate in their local democracy, primary elections and community referendums?
Hi Ed, Thanks for stopping back by. Local elections are an interesting problem of course. Because there are so many, and when you aren’t in the locality, or are in school or in the military… how do you keep up with the issues, and how does the government provide for you to vote.
The underlying cause is probably the secret ballot. Because if we do away with that, online voting, everything becomes simple. Personally I was never in the military, but I was in College… and I just voted at my college. I ignored the local elections in my home town, and participated in the elections where I was….
Now the military is often not in our country. So they are affectively only interested in voting in their home town elections.
Part of me feels like local and statewide/national elections, should be differentiated. Maybe when you are out of the country we improve the statewide and national absentee process, or create a local precinct for the election, and eliminate the local and county elections.
This isn’t perfect. Obviously.
On another thought, early voting, something I am not a fan of, necessarily, but which is better than vote-by mail, could allow for better oversees participation. In that if a soldier or student has a month to vote, it is more time to actually get it done.
The current timeframe on ballot printing has been extended due to the increase use of absentee ballots. This earlier ballot printing should be alleviating some of the time crunch for those oversees.