Are there signs of voter fraud in US elections? Social media users, including one of US President Donald Trump's sons, are citing isolated cases of mail-in ballots being sent in error as evidence of the potential for widespread voter fraud. This is misleading; election officials say steps including signature verification prevent imposters from returning ballots in place of another voter. How were November 3, 2020 presidential elections in the state of New Jersey conducted? What you need to know about N.J.'s mostly mail-in ballot elections, with all the controversy.

This fall's elections in New Jersey — including the race for the White House — won't be normal in these not-so-normal times.

Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday signed an executive order for the Nov. 3 elections to be conducted in a hybrid but mostly mail-in fashion in the Garden State amid the coronavirus pandemic. All of the state's active registered voters will automatically receive ballots in the mail, though there will still be some in-person polling locations across the state where people can cast a paper provisional ballot.

Murphy said you can put your ballot in the mail, drop it in one of several secure boxes to be set up across the state, bring it to polling location on Election Day, or vote provisionally in person.

This comes despite extreme opposition to widespread mail-in voting from President Donald Trump, as well as from other Republicans and some county officials in New Jersey, who warn about the potential for voter fraud. Have any issues/concerns been addressed in New Jersey about mail-in voter fraud? How common is voter fraud? - Voter fraud in the U.S. is historically rare, according to multiple studies and statistics. Nearly 1 in 4 voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election via mail.

Still, New Jersey has had issues with mail-in voting this year. - Some voters received the wrong ballots in the mail and some results took weeks to become official. Also, about 1 in 10 people who mailed in ballots in May's special elections had their votes rejected.

And there were allegations of voter fraud in the Paterson City Council race in May. State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed voting fraud charges against a city councilman and a councilman-elect.

Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday that this is actually "positive" because "law enforcement is all over it." - "If you screw around, you will be caught and be held accountable," he said. Does sending mail-in ballots to someone's deceased parents lead to voter fraud? Ballots for dead relatives examples published include - Twitter user Carolyn Quinn, who posted a picture on October 6 of mail-in ballots from New Jersey that were meant for her deceased parents with the caption: "VOTER FRAUD ALERT!". - 'Quinn' told the FRANCE 24 Observers that her parents both passed away around one year ago, and provided court documents attesting to the fact.

In 2020, the coronavirus has spurred 23 states and Washington D.C. to expand voting by mail. A total of 24 states now allow mail-in voting for any reason including fear of the coronavirus, compared with 16 in 2016. The number of states mailing ballots to all registered voters has also doubled, going from five in 2016 to 10 this year. The New York Times has reported that ballot request data indicates that more Democrats than Republicans are likely to vote by mail in 2020.

"It would be very difficult to orchestrate some kind of national election fraud"
To understand whether mistaken mail-in ballots could lead to significant election fraud, the FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to professors Lonna Atkeson of the University of New Mexico and Trey Hood of the University of Georgia, both specialists in election administration. 

Dr. Hood said that erroneously sent ballots are only a threat if someone tries to use them to vote: 

"These administrative mistakes occur. If you're a state that's suddenly ramping up your mail-in balloting because of the coronavirus, there's likely to be more mistakes made. But unless someone takes the ballot of a deceased person and votes on their behalf, it's not fraud. Voter fraud from what we can tell is fairly rare and episodic." What is the status of voter fraud in the US? A comprehensive review by the Brennan Center of Justice found that voter fraud in the United States is rare and does not approach rates that would be required to "rig" an election. An in-depth 2014 study published by the Washington Post found 31 credible instances of voter impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of a total of one billion ballots cast.

There has been at least one instance of targeted mail-in ballot fraud this year, Dr. Atkeson said: -

"Mail-in voting is not filled with fraud, but the fraud that we find is targeted in places where election results are going to be close. An example of this is a municipal election earlier this year in Paterson, New Jersey that was overturned after charges of mail-in voter fraud caused nearly 20 percent of the ballots to be rejected. What voter fraud security measures are in place? "Security checks should prevent the most egregious acts of fraud"
More than half of states check the signatures on incoming mail-in ballots against signatures they have on file for registered voters, but Dr. Atkeson says that the rigour of these checks varies. 

    "Every state has their own more or less stringent process for qualifying ballots. In states with universal vote-by-mail like Colorado and Utah, we certainly see instances where submitted ballots are signed by someone other than the voter   and those are caught. There are security checks that should prevent the most egregious acts of fraud. However, signature matching is not an exact science, both in terms of qualifying votes that should be counted and votes that shouldn't be counted. But I do believe that processes in place are strong attempts to assure the security of the system."

Dr. Hood agrees: "It really depends on the state - the United States basically has 50 different election systems with different safeguards. North Carolina has what they call witness affirmation   someone has to sign witnessing that the person sending the ballot voted the ballot. Another safeguard is if the state -- like Georgia -- requires voters to request absentee ballots. This way, the voter is initiating the process." What safeguards methods,  such as signature verification fraud security  are used in the state of New Jersey to prevent imposters from returning ballots in place of another voter? The county board of elections shall, promptly after receiving each mail-in ballot, remove the inner envelope containing the ballot from the outer envelope and shall compare the signature and the information contained on the flap of the inner envelope with the signature and information contained in the respective requests for mail-in ballots.  In addition, as to mail-in ballots issued less than seven days prior to an election, the county board of elections shall also check to establish that the mail-in voter did not vote in person.  The county board shall reject such a ballot if it is not satisfied, pursuant to a comparison with the Statewide voter registration system, that the voter is legally entitled to vote and that the ballot conforms with the requirements of this act.

     In the case of a mail-in ballot to be voted at a primary election for the general election, the ballot shall be rejected if the mail-in voter has indicated in the certificate the voter's intention to vote in a primary election of any political party in which the voter is not entitled to vote according to the Statewide voter registration system, and if it shall appear from the record that the voter is not entitled to vote in a primary election of the political party which has been so indicated.

Any mail-in ballot which is received by a county board of elections shall be rejected if both the inner and outer envelopes are unsealed or if either envelope has a seal that has been tampered with.  Mail-in ballots shall not be rejected due to missing or insufficient glue for either envelope.

Disputes about the qualifications of a mail-in voter to vote or about whether or not or how any mail-in ballot shall be counted in such election shall be referred to the Superior Court for determination... What studies have been made about the incidence of voter fraud in the US, and what were their findings? The Brennan Center reviews studies related the incidence of voter fraud. - The facts makes clear that fraud by voters at the polls is vanishingly rare, and does not happen on a scale even close to that necessary to "rig" an election.

Studies Agree: Impersonation Fraud by Voters Very Rarely Happens
The Brennan Center's seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. Incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. 

A study published by a Columbia University political scientist tracked incidence rates for voter fraud for two years, and found that the rare fraud reported could be traced to "false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error."

A 2017 analysis published in The Washington Post concluded that there is no evidence to support Trump's claim that Massachusetts residents were bused into New Hampshire to vote.

A comprehensive 2014 study published in The Washington Post found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast. What is potential voter fraud caused by in the US, and are  causes addressed by safeguard security measures? Opportunity for Fraud

The problem (and opportunity for fraud) this could cause is illustrated by something the president talked about at one of his news conferences; namely, the settlement that Judicial Watch obtained from Los Angeles and the state of California over their failure to maintain the accuracy of their voter registration rolls.  

The state and LA agreed to remove from the rolls 1.5 million individuals who remained registered even though they no longer were eligible to vote. Imagine what would have happened if 1.5 million ballots were simply mailed out to all of those individuals to addresses where they no longer live.

Ballots are a valuable commodity. How many would have been voted anyway by fraudsters or vote harvesters collecting absentee ballots in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles?  

Just look at what happened in North Carolina in 2018 in the 9th Congressional District race, in which the result was overturned by the state election board because of illegal vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots.

All-mail jurisdictions such as Oregon like to brag about the supposed "security" of their systems, which consists of almost nothing other than a rapid, superficial signature comparison. 

As Melody Rose, an assistant professor of political science at Portland State University, told the Los Angeles Times: "I don't have much faith in that process. I can forge my husband's signature perfectly."

Rose conducted a survey of one county, Washington County, outside Portland. Five percent of registered voters admitted that other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said someone else signed their ballots. What is potential voter fraud caused by in the US, and are  causes addressed by safeguard security measures? States have multiple tools to address valid security concerns and protect election integrity when it comes to mail ballots. And recent technologies and strategies have significantly enhanced the security of mail balloting.

Identity verification: The principal method used to detect and prevent fraud is the mail ballot envelope itself, where each voter must include personal identifying information (such as address, birthday, and driver's license number or last four digits of a Social Security number). In most states, that information includes a signature to match against the voter rolls. 

Bar codes: Most election jurisdictions now use some form of bar code on their ballot envelopes. These bar codes allow election officials to keep track of ballot processing and help voters know whether their ballot has been received. Bar codes also allow states to identify and eliminate duplicate ballots.

Ballot tracking through the U.S. Postal Service: In many jurisdictions, including California, Colorado and Florida, ballot envelopes are equipped with intelligent mail bar codes to track an envelope from drop-off to delivery and processing. 

Secure drop-off locations and drop boxes: Multiple ballot return options limit the opportunity for ballot tampering by fostering voter independence in returning a ballot.

Harsh penalties: Anyone who commits voter fraud using a mail ballot risks severe criminal and civil penalties: up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for each act of fraud under federal law, in addition to any state penalties.

Postelection audits: In 2018, a review of returned absentee ballot records helped identify anomalies in the election results of Bladen County, North Carolina, enabling election officials to uncover election interference by a political operative who stole and tampered with mail ballots.

Polling sites as a fail-safe: if there are concerns that an eligible voter's mail ballots could be lost or uncounted, in-person polling sites provided.
Potential voter fraud in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election is caused by mail-in ballots being sent to a mans  deceased parents in Mercer County in New Jersey.
Claim: Potential voter fraud in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election is caused by mail-in ballots being sent to a mans  deceased parents in Mercer County in New Jersey.

Evidence: Are there signs of voter fraud in US elections? Social media users, including one of US President Donald Trump's sons, are citing isolated cases of mail-in ballots being sent in error as evidence of the potential for widespread voter fraud. This is misleading; election officials say steps including signature verification prevent imposters from returning ballots in place of another voter. How were November 3, 2020 presidential elections in the state of New Jersey conducted? What you need to know about N.J.'s mostly mail-in ballot elections, with all the controversy.

This fall's elections in New Jersey — including the race for the White House — won't be normal in these not-so-normal times.

Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday signed an executive order for the Nov. 3 elections to be conducted in a hybrid but mostly mail-in fashion in the Garden State amid the coronavirus pandemic. All of the state's active registered voters will automatically receive ballots in the mail, though there will still be some in-person polling locations across the state where people can cast a paper provisional ballot.

Murphy said you can put your ballot in the mail, drop it in one of several secure boxes to be set up across the state, bring it to polling location on Election Day, or vote provisionally in person.

This comes despite extreme opposition to widespread mail-in voting from President Donald Trump, as well as from other Republicans and some county officials in New Jersey, who warn about the potential for voter fraud. Have any issues/concerns been addressed in New Jersey about mail-in voter fraud? How common is voter fraud? - Voter fraud in the U.S. is historically rare, according to multiple studies and statistics. Nearly 1 in 4 voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election via mail.

Still, New Jersey has had issues with mail-in voting this year. - Some voters received the wrong ballots in the mail and some results took weeks to become official. Also, about 1 in 10 people who mailed in ballots in May's special elections had their votes rejected.

And there were allegations of voter fraud in the Paterson City Council race in May. State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed voting fraud charges against a city councilman and a councilman-elect.

Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday that this is actually "positive" because "law enforcement is all over it." - "If you screw around, you will be caught and be held accountable," he said. Does sending mail-in ballots to someone's deceased parents lead to voter fraud? Ballots for dead relatives examples published include - Twitter user Carolyn Quinn, who posted a picture on October 6 of mail-in ballots from New Jersey that were meant for her deceased parents with the caption: "VOTER FRAUD ALERT!". - 'Quinn' told the FRANCE 24 Observers that her parents both passed away around one year ago, and provided court documents attesting to the fact.

In 2020, the coronavirus has spurred 23 states and Washington D.C. to expand voting by mail. A total of 24 states now allow mail-in voting for any reason including fear of the coronavirus, compared with 16 in 2016. The number of states mailing ballots to all registered voters has also doubled, going from five in 2016 to 10 this year. The New York Times has reported that ballot request data indicates that more Democrats than Republicans are likely to vote by mail in 2020.

"It would be very difficult to orchestrate some kind of national election fraud"
To understand whether mistaken mail-in ballots could lead to significant election fraud, the FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to professors Lonna Atkeson of the University of New Mexico and Trey Hood of the University of Georgia, both specialists in election administration. 

Dr. Hood said that erroneously sent ballots are only a threat if someone tries to use them to vote: 

"These administrative mistakes occur. If you're a state that's suddenly ramping up your mail-in balloting because of the coronavirus, there's likely to be more mistakes made. But unless someone takes the ballot of a deceased person and votes on their behalf, it's not fraud. Voter fraud from what we can tell is fairly rare and episodic." What is the status of voter fraud in the US? A comprehensive review by the Brennan Center of Justice found that voter fraud in the United States is rare and does not approach rates that would be required to "rig" an election. An in-depth 2014 study published by the Washington Post found 31 credible instances of voter impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of a total of one billion ballots cast.

There has been at least one instance of targeted mail-in ballot fraud this year, Dr. Atkeson said: -

"Mail-in voting is not filled with fraud, but the fraud that we find is targeted in places where election results are going to be close. An example of this is a municipal election earlier this year in Paterson, New Jersey that was overturned after charges of mail-in voter fraud caused nearly 20 percent of the ballots to be rejected. What voter fraud security measures are in place? "Security checks should prevent the most egregious acts of fraud"
More than half of states check the signatures on incoming mail-in ballots against signatures they have on file for registered voters, but Dr. Atkeson says that the rigour of these checks varies. 

    "Every state has their own more or less stringent process for qualifying ballots. In states with universal vote-by-mail like Colorado and Utah, we certainly see instances where submitted ballots are signed by someone other than the voter   and those are caught. There are security checks that should prevent the most egregious acts of fraud. However, signature matching is not an exact science, both in terms of qualifying votes that should be counted and votes that shouldn't be counted. But I do believe that processes in place are strong attempts to assure the security of the system."

Dr. Hood agrees: "It really depends on the state - the United States basically has 50 different election systems with different safeguards. North Carolina has what they call witness affirmation   someone has to sign witnessing that the person sending the ballot voted the ballot. Another safeguard is if the state -- like Georgia -- requires voters to request absentee ballots. This way, the voter is initiating the process." What safeguards methods,  such as signature verification fraud security  are used in the state of New Jersey to prevent imposters from returning ballots in place of another voter? The county board of elections shall, promptly after receiving each mail-in ballot, remove the inner envelope containing the ballot from the outer envelope and shall compare the signature and the information contained on the flap of the inner envelope with the signature and information contained in the respective requests for mail-in ballots.  In addition, as to mail-in ballots issued less than seven days prior to an election, the county board of elections shall also check to establish that the mail-in voter did not vote in person.  The county board shall reject such a ballot if it is not satisfied, pursuant to a comparison with the Statewide voter registration system, that the voter is legally entitled to vote and that the ballot conforms with the requirements of this act.

     In the case of a mail-in ballot to be voted at a primary election for the general election, the ballot shall be rejected if the mail-in voter has indicated in the certificate the voter's intention to vote in a primary election of any political party in which the voter is not entitled to vote according to the Statewide voter registration system, and if it shall appear from the record that the voter is not entitled to vote in a primary election of the political party which has been so indicated.

Any mail-in ballot which is received by a county board of elections shall be rejected if both the inner and outer envelopes are unsealed or if either envelope has a seal that has been tampered with.  Mail-in ballots shall not be rejected due to missing or insufficient glue for either envelope.

Disputes about the qualifications of a mail-in voter to vote or about whether or not or how any mail-in ballot shall be counted in such election shall be referred to the Superior Court for determination... What studies have been made about the incidence of voter fraud in the US, and what were their findings? The Brennan Center reviews studies related the incidence of voter fraud. - The facts makes clear that fraud by voters at the polls is vanishingly rare, and does not happen on a scale even close to that necessary to "rig" an election.

Studies Agree: Impersonation Fraud by Voters Very Rarely Happens
The Brennan Center's seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. Incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. 

A study published by a Columbia University political scientist tracked incidence rates for voter fraud for two years, and found that the rare fraud reported could be traced to "false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error."

A 2017 analysis published in The Washington Post concluded that there is no evidence to support Trump's claim that Massachusetts residents were bused into New Hampshire to vote.

A comprehensive 2014 study published in The Washington Post found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast. What is potential voter fraud caused by in the US, and are  causes addressed by safeguard security measures? Opportunity for Fraud

The problem (and opportunity for fraud) this could cause is illustrated by something the president talked about at one of his news conferences; namely, the settlement that Judicial Watch obtained from Los Angeles and the state of California over their failure to maintain the accuracy of their voter registration rolls.  

The state and LA agreed to remove from the rolls 1.5 million individuals who remained registered even though they no longer were eligible to vote. Imagine what would have happened if 1.5 million ballots were simply mailed out to all of those individuals to addresses where they no longer live.

Ballots are a valuable commodity. How many would have been voted anyway by fraudsters or vote harvesters collecting absentee ballots in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles?  

Just look at what happened in North Carolina in 2018 in the 9th Congressional District race, in which the result was overturned by the state election board because of illegal vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots.

All-mail jurisdictions such as Oregon like to brag about the supposed "security" of their systems, which consists of almost nothing other than a rapid, superficial signature comparison. 

As Melody Rose, an assistant professor of political science at Portland State University, told the Los Angeles Times: "I don't have much faith in that process. I can forge my husband's signature perfectly."

Rose conducted a survey of one county, Washington County, outside Portland. Five percent of registered voters admitted that other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said someone else signed their ballots. What is potential voter fraud caused by in the US, and are  causes addressed by safeguard security measures? States have multiple tools to address valid security concerns and protect election integrity when it comes to mail ballots. And recent technologies and strategies have significantly enhanced the security of mail balloting.

Identity verification: The principal method used to detect and prevent fraud is the mail ballot envelope itself, where each voter must include personal identifying information (such as address, birthday, and driver's license number or last four digits of a Social Security number). In most states, that information includes a signature to match against the voter rolls. 

Bar codes: Most election jurisdictions now use some form of bar code on their ballot envelopes. These bar codes allow election officials to keep track of ballot processing and help voters know whether their ballot has been received. Bar codes also allow states to identify and eliminate duplicate ballots.

Ballot tracking through the U.S. Postal Service: In many jurisdictions, including California, Colorado and Florida, ballot envelopes are equipped with intelligent mail bar codes to track an envelope from drop-off to delivery and processing. 

Secure drop-off locations and drop boxes: Multiple ballot return options limit the opportunity for ballot tampering by fostering voter independence in returning a ballot.

Harsh penalties: Anyone who commits voter fraud using a mail ballot risks severe criminal and civil penalties: up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for each act of fraud under federal law, in addition to any state penalties.

Postelection audits: In 2018, a review of returned absentee ballot records helped identify anomalies in the election results of Bladen County, North Carolina, enabling election officials to uncover election interference by a political operative who stole and tampered with mail ballots.

Polling sites as a fail-safe: if there are concerns that an eligible voter's mail ballots could be lost or uncounted, in-person polling sites provided.

Which of the following options is true?

Options: 

 - supported

 - refuted

 - not enough evidence

 - conflicting Evidence/Cherrypicking
refuted
Claim: Potential voter fraud in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election is caused by mail-in ballots being sent to a mans  deceased parents in Mercer County in New Jersey.

Evidence: Are there signs of voter fraud in US elections? Social media users, including one of US President Donald Trump's sons, are citing isolated cases of mail-in ballots being sent in error as evidence of the potential for widespread voter fraud. This is misleading; election officials say steps including signature verification prevent imposters from returning ballots in place of another voter. How were November 3, 2020 presidential elections in the state of New Jersey conducted? What you need to know about N.J.'s mostly mail-in ballot elections, with all the controversy.

This fall's elections in New Jersey — including the race for the White House — won't be normal in these not-so-normal times.

Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday signed an executive order for the Nov. 3 elections to be conducted in a hybrid but mostly mail-in fashion in the Garden State amid the coronavirus pandemic. All of the state's active registered voters will automatically receive ballots in the mail, though there will still be some in-person polling locations across the state where people can cast a paper provisional ballot.

Murphy said you can put your ballot in the mail, drop it in one of several secure boxes to be set up across the state, bring it to polling location on Election Day, or vote provisionally in person.

This comes despite extreme opposition to widespread mail-in voting from President Donald Trump, as well as from other Republicans and some county officials in New Jersey, who warn about the potential for voter fraud. Have any issues/concerns been addressed in New Jersey about mail-in voter fraud? How common is voter fraud? - Voter fraud in the U.S. is historically rare, according to multiple studies and statistics. Nearly 1 in 4 voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election via mail.

Still, New Jersey has had issues with mail-in voting this year. - Some voters received the wrong ballots in the mail and some results took weeks to become official. Also, about 1 in 10 people who mailed in ballots in May's special elections had their votes rejected.

And there were allegations of voter fraud in the Paterson City Council race in May. State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed voting fraud charges against a city councilman and a councilman-elect.

Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday that this is actually "positive" because "law enforcement is all over it." - "If you screw around, you will be caught and be held accountable," he said. Does sending mail-in ballots to someone's deceased parents lead to voter fraud? Ballots for dead relatives examples published include - Twitter user Carolyn Quinn, who posted a picture on October 6 of mail-in ballots from New Jersey that were meant for her deceased parents with the caption: "VOTER FRAUD ALERT!". - 'Quinn' told the FRANCE 24 Observers that her parents both passed away around one year ago, and provided court documents attesting to the fact.

In 2020, the coronavirus has spurred 23 states and Washington D.C. to expand voting by mail. A total of 24 states now allow mail-in voting for any reason including fear of the coronavirus, compared with 16 in 2016. The number of states mailing ballots to all registered voters has also doubled, going from five in 2016 to 10 this year. The New York Times has reported that ballot request data indicates that more Democrats than Republicans are likely to vote by mail in 2020.

"It would be very difficult to orchestrate some kind of national election fraud"
To understand whether mistaken mail-in ballots could lead to significant election fraud, the FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to professors Lonna Atkeson of the University of New Mexico and Trey Hood of the University of Georgia, both specialists in election administration. 

Dr. Hood said that erroneously sent ballots are only a threat if someone tries to use them to vote: 

"These administrative mistakes occur. If you're a state that's suddenly ramping up your mail-in balloting because of the coronavirus, there's likely to be more mistakes made. But unless someone takes the ballot of a deceased person and votes on their behalf, it's not fraud. Voter fraud from what we can tell is fairly rare and episodic." What is the status of voter fraud in the US? A comprehensive review by the Brennan Center of Justice found that voter fraud in the United States is rare and does not approach rates that would be required to "rig" an election. An in-depth 2014 study published by the Washington Post found 31 credible instances of voter impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of a total of one billion ballots cast.

There has been at least one instance of targeted mail-in ballot fraud this year, Dr. Atkeson said: -

"Mail-in voting is not filled with fraud, but the fraud that we find is targeted in places where election results are going to be close. An example of this is a municipal election earlier this year in Paterson, New Jersey that was overturned after charges of mail-in voter fraud caused nearly 20 percent of the ballots to be rejected. What voter fraud security measures are in place? "Security checks should prevent the most egregious acts of fraud"
More than half of states check the signatures on incoming mail-in ballots against signatures they have on file for registered voters, but Dr. Atkeson says that the rigour of these checks varies. 

    "Every state has their own more or less stringent process for qualifying ballots. In states with universal vote-by-mail like Colorado and Utah, we certainly see instances where submitted ballots are signed by someone other than the voter   and those are caught. There are security checks that should prevent the most egregious acts of fraud. However, signature matching is not an exact science, both in terms of qualifying votes that should be counted and votes that shouldn't be counted. But I do believe that processes in place are strong attempts to assure the security of the system."

Dr. Hood agrees: "It really depends on the state - the United States basically has 50 different election systems with different safeguards. North Carolina has what they call witness affirmation   someone has to sign witnessing that the person sending the ballot voted the ballot. Another safeguard is if the state -- like Georgia -- requires voters to request absentee ballots. This way, the voter is initiating the process." What safeguards methods,  such as signature verification fraud security  are used in the state of New Jersey to prevent imposters from returning ballots in place of another voter? The county board of elections shall, promptly after receiving each mail-in ballot, remove the inner envelope containing the ballot from the outer envelope and shall compare the signature and the information contained on the flap of the inner envelope with the signature and information contained in the respective requests for mail-in ballots.  In addition, as to mail-in ballots issued less than seven days prior to an election, the county board of elections shall also check to establish that the mail-in voter did not vote in person.  The county board shall reject such a ballot if it is not satisfied, pursuant to a comparison with the Statewide voter registration system, that the voter is legally entitled to vote and that the ballot conforms with the requirements of this act.

     In the case of a mail-in ballot to be voted at a primary election for the general election, the ballot shall be rejected if the mail-in voter has indicated in the certificate the voter's intention to vote in a primary election of any political party in which the voter is not entitled to vote according to the Statewide voter registration system, and if it shall appear from the record that the voter is not entitled to vote in a primary election of the political party which has been so indicated.

Any mail-in ballot which is received by a county board of elections shall be rejected if both the inner and outer envelopes are unsealed or if either envelope has a seal that has been tampered with.  Mail-in ballots shall not be rejected due to missing or insufficient glue for either envelope.

Disputes about the qualifications of a mail-in voter to vote or about whether or not or how any mail-in ballot shall be counted in such election shall be referred to the Superior Court for determination... What studies have been made about the incidence of voter fraud in the US, and what were their findings? The Brennan Center reviews studies related the incidence of voter fraud. - The facts makes clear that fraud by voters at the polls is vanishingly rare, and does not happen on a scale even close to that necessary to "rig" an election.

Studies Agree: Impersonation Fraud by Voters Very Rarely Happens
The Brennan Center's seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. Incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. 

A study published by a Columbia University political scientist tracked incidence rates for voter fraud for two years, and found that the rare fraud reported could be traced to "false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error."

A 2017 analysis published in The Washington Post concluded that there is no evidence to support Trump's claim that Massachusetts residents were bused into New Hampshire to vote.

A comprehensive 2014 study published in The Washington Post found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast. What is potential voter fraud caused by in the US, and are  causes addressed by safeguard security measures? Opportunity for Fraud

The problem (and opportunity for fraud) this could cause is illustrated by something the president talked about at one of his news conferences; namely, the settlement that Judicial Watch obtained from Los Angeles and the state of California over their failure to maintain the accuracy of their voter registration rolls.  

The state and LA agreed to remove from the rolls 1.5 million individuals who remained registered even though they no longer were eligible to vote. Imagine what would have happened if 1.5 million ballots were simply mailed out to all of those individuals to addresses where they no longer live.

Ballots are a valuable commodity. How many would have been voted anyway by fraudsters or vote harvesters collecting absentee ballots in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles?  

Just look at what happened in North Carolina in 2018 in the 9th Congressional District race, in which the result was overturned by the state election board because of illegal vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots.

All-mail jurisdictions such as Oregon like to brag about the supposed "security" of their systems, which consists of almost nothing other than a rapid, superficial signature comparison. 

As Melody Rose, an assistant professor of political science at Portland State University, told the Los Angeles Times: "I don't have much faith in that process. I can forge my husband's signature perfectly."

Rose conducted a survey of one county, Washington County, outside Portland. Five percent of registered voters admitted that other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said someone else signed their ballots. What is potential voter fraud caused by in the US, and are  causes addressed by safeguard security measures? States have multiple tools to address valid security concerns and protect election integrity when it comes to mail ballots. And recent technologies and strategies have significantly enhanced the security of mail balloting.

Identity verification: The principal method used to detect and prevent fraud is the mail ballot envelope itself, where each voter must include personal identifying information (such as address, birthday, and driver's license number or last four digits of a Social Security number). In most states, that information includes a signature to match against the voter rolls. 

Bar codes: Most election jurisdictions now use some form of bar code on their ballot envelopes. These bar codes allow election officials to keep track of ballot processing and help voters know whether their ballot has been received. Bar codes also allow states to identify and eliminate duplicate ballots.

Ballot tracking through the U.S. Postal Service: In many jurisdictions, including California, Colorado and Florida, ballot envelopes are equipped with intelligent mail bar codes to track an envelope from drop-off to delivery and processing. 

Secure drop-off locations and drop boxes: Multiple ballot return options limit the opportunity for ballot tampering by fostering voter independence in returning a ballot.

Harsh penalties: Anyone who commits voter fraud using a mail ballot risks severe criminal and civil penalties: up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for each act of fraud under federal law, in addition to any state penalties.

Postelection audits: In 2018, a review of returned absentee ballot records helped identify anomalies in the election results of Bladen County, North Carolina, enabling election officials to uncover election interference by a political operative who stole and tampered with mail ballots.

Polling sites as a fail-safe: if there are concerns that an eligible voter's mail ballots could be lost or uncounted, in-person polling sites provided.

Which of the following options is true?

Options: 

 - supported

 - refuted

 - not enough evidence

 - conflicting Evidence/Cherrypicking
user
refuted
assistant