Legalizing Ballot Fraud in Pennsylvania

On November 22, 2023 it was reported that a federal court in Pennsylvania changed the legal requirements for counting mail-in ballots by county boards of elections. When no-excuse mail-in balloting was permitted in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, we were told that such voting was secure and that safeguards would prohibit fraud. Doubters and skeptics are forcefully reminded that the 2020 election was the “most secure in history.” Last week’s court decision is one more example of the alleged safeguards being eroded.

One year earlier the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that all mail-in ballots must be dated and must be rejected by county boards of election if the date is invalid. This week’s ruling would change that requirement so that undated and misdated mail-in ballots must be counted. Groups pushing for that change claim that the date on the ballot envelope is trivial. Those claims are amplified by a compliant media that obscures the issue.

Few issues are more important than election integrity. That this proposition needs to be repeated is in itself revealing. We all have witnessed crucial contests somehow change winners in the early morning hours following election day. It has become a cliché and a joke. The election law changes that have allowed this to happen have sown widespread suspicion and disillusionment throughout the country.

Fraudulent mail-in ballots are difficult to detect. They are not obvious. Only through safeguards like the date on the envelope can we hope to catch and prevent a small portion of the fraud. Throughout Pennsylvania and beyond, voter registration offices send mail-in ballots to voters who request them beginning more than one month in advance of election day. The voters return those ballots inside one envelope that is contained in an outer envelope. The outer envelope contains a space for a signature

This week's ruling would change that requirement so that undated and misdated mail-in ballots must be counted. Groups pushing for that change claim that the date on the ballot envelope is trivial. Those claims are amplified by a compliant media that obscures the issue.

Articles like this obscure the issue, too. This Federal court ruling is much ado about nothing.

Any problems in Pennsylvania related to potential ballot fraud have nothing to do with the silly standards about dated or un-dated or mis-dated ballots. There are enough problems regardless of what these dating requirements may be.

These courts have ruled that the placement of a written date on a ballot envelope is of no consequence if the ballot is received on time. If it’s a mail-in ballot, the postmark is a more accurate and useful piece of information anyway. Pennsylvania’s election law is so poorly written that it requires a written date to be marked on the ballot envelope, but it doesn’t even require the date to be ACCURATE. So a ballot mailed in October 2024 for the 2024 election would be considered valid even of the date on it is July 4, 1776 or February 31, 2024.

I predicted this turn of events in the Federal courts more than a year ago when the initial lawsuit over the envelope dates was in the Pennsylvania courts. The legal argument from one GOP-controlled county election board about the necessity of having the dates on the envelopes was completely undermined when the judge in the original case pointed out that the election board had followed the letter of the law by rejecting ballots with no dates on the envelopes, while accepting ballots with clearly wrong dates on them (7/4/1776, 12/7/1941, etc.). In other words, the hand-written date on the ballot envelope is of no consequence in determining the validity of the ballot.

Fraudulent mail-in ballots are difficult to detect. They are not obvious. Only through safeguards like the date on the envelope can we hope to catch and prevent a small portion of the fraud.

P.S. -- The author of this article is a moron. Writing a date on the envelope does nothing to verify the validity of the ballot inside the envelope. Does this guy really believe that someone who submits a fraudulent mail-in ballot can't write a date on the envelope?

If I'm not mistaken, the USPS does NOT POSTMARK ballot envelopes.

If that is the case, then I would make two points:

1. This is what makes the ballot deadline more important than a stupid date on the exterior envelope. If the deadline for mail-in ballots is Election Day and a ballot is received by Election Day, then the date of a postmark or a ballot envelope means nothing.

2. What prevents anyone -- especially someone who is already committed to breaking the law by mailing in a fraudulent ballot -- from writing a fake date on the envelope anyway?

WHERE IS CONGRESS ON THESE ISSUES? CRICKETS.

Please stop the hysterical theatrics. You don't want Congress involved in elections that are supposed to be administered under state laws. If Congress gets involved, then Federal courts will have jurisdiction over any legal challenges to the law ... which means the Federal courts will require all states to administer their elections according to the most permissive, least secure methods of voting.

It would help cut down on the fraud if all ballot counting (both in person and mail in) were to end at midnight election night in the local time zone.

I agree with this in principle, but the flip side of it is that this would probably require the counting of mail-in ballots to begin before Election Day. This has its own set of problems.

For all its flaws, Pennsylvania has historically been very late in reporting final election results because they aren't even allowed to begin counting ballots until after the polls close on Election Day. This minimizes the chances for election workers to find flaws in ballots and send them back to their origins for "corrections."

A large number of ‘mail-in’ ballots don’t even get processed through the USPS due to rerouting around the USPS and deposited directly into the ballot counting stations (Runbeck in AZ, for example). Those should easily be flagged for not having a required postmark. But of course postmarks DON’T happen so as to ALLOW THE LEFTIST BALLOT FRAUDSTERS to contaminate the ACTION vote totals.

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