“Absentee ballots stay the biggest supply of potential voter fraud.” It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Fee on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III. In 2012, the New York Instances warned: “Absentee ballots additionally make it a lot simpler to purchase and promote votes. In recent times, courts have invalidated mayoral elections in Illinois and Indiana due to fraudulent absentee ballots.” The article quotes Federal Circuit Court docket Choose Richard Posner as writing: “Absentee voting is to voting in individual as a take-home examination is to a proctored one” [Emphasis added].
Traditionally, earlier than the US had secret ballots, round 10 % of votes could have been purchased.
The massive drawback with this kind of fraud is that each events — those shopping for the votes and those whose votes are being purchased — have an incentive to cover the transaction.
Now comes phrase that
Six people in rural Frio County, Texas — together with two Pearsall Metropolis Council members and a college board trustee — had been indicted on felony costs stemming from a rising election fraud investigation led by Republican Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton. . . .
Introduced on Might 1, the indictments embrace Frio County Choose Rochelle Camacho, Pearsall Metropolis Council members Ramiro Trevino and Racheal Garza, Pearsall ISD Trustee Adriann Ramirez, former Frio County Elections Administrator Carlos Segura, and resident Rosa Rodriguez.
A lot of the accused face felony costs for “vote harvesting,” a Texas offense that entails gathering and submitting different folks’s absentee ballots, typically for fee. A number of defendants allegedly used Money App for these transactions. Segura faces a separate cost of tampering with proof.
The indictments adopted accusations by Mary Moore, Camacho’s opponent within the March 2022 Democratic major. In line with affidavits, Moore claimed Camacho employed a lady who had been gathering ballots in Frio County for almost 30 years, charging candidates between $1,500 and $2,500 for companies together with gathering ballots and transporting voters.
Court docket paperwork point out Camacho and Ramirez — recognized as sisters — focused aged residents in a Pearsall subdivision in October 2022. The girl allegedly smuggled ballots underneath her shirt and switched autos to keep away from detection. Investigators allege Segura shared data on poll mailing and supply schedules along with her. . . .
The New York Instances and the Washington Put up now declare that these instances quantity to voter suppression and never one thing that basically happens typically.
“I believe that is all a part of voter suppression,” mentioned Lidia Martinez, who was 87 final 12 months when 9 officers, some with weapons, raided her residence in San Antonio. She was not among the many indicted.
College of Notre Dame regulation professor Derek Muller mentioned a small variety of unlawful voting exercise instances are prosecuted across the nation yearly, they usually “are usually remoted incidents and never at massive scale.” They’re hardly ever at a degree that might have an effect on the end result of a race, he mentioned. . . .
