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This happened in Roanoke, which is left leaning. Republicans are going all out to cheat in this election.
Edit: Here is the law on tampering with ballots in Virginia. Class 5 felony
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title24.2/chapter10/section24.2-1009/
Honestly that is scary to see. People are going to lose the chance to influence. A true potential for a stolen election.
This brought up a concern of mine that I had last year. I tried looking but couldn't find it. Is there a way to verify that my vote was counted and specifically counted for whom I voted?
My county in Florida allows you to show your vote was counted. Damned if I don't check every single time.
I don't believe there is, and if there was, it could be used for some really nefarious purposes!
in my state (OR) you can sign up for an email that says when your ballot was counted but not who you voted for.
I don’t know if all states have it, but Virginia does have vote history on their voter registration page. It doesn’t show what your vote was, but does show that it was received and counted.
A lot of the virginia ballots were mailed out with the return envelopes already sealed up. I called the election office and they said to cut them open and just seal them back with tape 🤣
Same thing happened to me in Pennsylvania. Will be watching very carefully on the ballot status emails to make sure it's still accepted.
The question of course being: what will you do or can you do if it's not accepted? How far will someone go to make their vote count? Many people would likely not bother with it, which could make this a quite succesful way of sabotaging.
You usually have to go to a county office in PA. They may try to contact you if it’s early enough
This can happen if the envelopes get damp, but they should send you a replacement. Otherwise, someone could swap out your ballot and then just tape it closed.
Which is exactly why I called my local election office, and I even mentioned it might have been because of the rain we were having, but I was told no, it wasnt the damp that caused it because they had confirmed with the factory that sent the ballots out that some had been sent out like that. They then told me to tape it and when I was hesitant because I had the same thought as you they told me they had checked several times with the registrar that taping them up was what to do. They said it was a known issue so it would be accepted.
holy shit they are going to steal your election
This and the original Op image are why I refuse to do absentee/mail in voting.
Theres just so many ways it can be fucked with, and potentially handwaved away. Especially at an institutional level in the less reputable coughconservativecough states.
Mail in ballot used to be fine, and safe, and secure... but 8 years of fucking domestic political terrorism/usurpation/insurrection/etc have kicked that out the door, down the stairs, into the street and infront of the bus.
I don't care what I have to do, what sacrifices I have to make, and what I have to endure.
I'm voting in person this election, cause its too important not to.
and everyone else should too.
Cause in person voting is the only way to minimize the fuckery they can pull.
nah my state rules and doesn't have this shit going on. remember to check that your ballot is received and recorded after you vote either way
I mean sure, I pretty much agree with you, but…
There were so many fucking trumpers hanging out at the parking lot of my voting site last time, I don’t want to be (or for my family to) around that shit.
IT was like that in 2016 for me.
I shouldered my way through anyway. They are stupid, but they aint complete fucking morons. They know starting shit at an election venue is a good ticket to federal pound-them-in-the-ass prison.
A lot of states have places for early in-person voting. You might have to drive a bit of a distance, but it allows for in-person voting in a less chaotic environment.
You might have to drive a bit of a distance, but it allows for in-person voting in a less chaotic environment.
And thus we see how voter intimidation at polling places on election day is still effective even with early voting, since it skews towards people with cars/the means to get to the early-voting locations.
Another way is to discourage people from early voting and then lose some percentage who end up not voting on election day either.
You're not wrong. I'll be voting in person for this reason. But if you're not 100% sure you'll make it on election day, vote early. Preferably do it in person.
Some votes will likely count more than others.
Even during Covid I felt a similar way. My "compromise" has been in person early voting. It's pretty much always dead when I go in and is very quick. I don't think I have actually voted on election day in over a decade.
...what...
How can an election office accept envelopes that have been tampered with? Call them back and record the answer, then call local news, blast them on every social media you have, put a crazy persons handwritten sign in your window about it, whatever it takes. The person who said they would accept envelopes that had been cut and taped just admitted they will accept votes that may have been tampered with....
If the election results aren't to their liking, these will be easy votes to start kicking out. And then the votes that are doubled through provisional voting, i.e., voting in person as well as mail-in in order to be sure your vote was counted.
It won't matter if they're counted correctly in the end. The point will be to immediately kill off democratic votes, create as much chaos as possible, declare victory, and when the dust settles, the republican, right-wing national network of fast-response staff, politicians, lawyers, and friendly judges that they've been preparing for four years while democrats did basically nothing will have effectively taken the election by force. SCOTUS already made a decision that will allow them to effectively decide this election. So the right-wing ideologues already have local, regional, state, and national plans that extend all the way to the highest court in the land.
And the Democrats have "but that's not fair."
it would be accepted.
Bullshit.
I'd call your local TV station or newspaper. Let them investigate and publicize it, and if it's all aboveboard at least it'll be out in the open.
This is a felony, and can likely be traced back to the election helper who did it.
Report it!
My friend is reporting it.
I don't usually recommend this but also post on Reddit and X. This needs to get out there.
So this is what a modern day "hanging chad" looks like. They're really drawing on every previous election to insure there can be fraud claims.
America is going to have a rough one, no outcome will see legitimate - which is great for Putin regardless of whether he's involved or not.
The news source of this post could not be identified. Please check the source yourself. Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
Yeah, clear cut election fraud.
Anyone want to take bets on it being a Republican behind this?
So somebody reported this to the State election board and told all the news agencies, right?
Let’s hope that mostly low information repube voters fall for this ballot tampering
They aren't going to tamper with ballots in predominantly conservative areas. They'll focus their efforts on more left leaning areas.
Can someone explain this to a non US person please? You sign your votes?
You sign the envelope that contains the ballot. That way, an election worker can compare the signature on the envelope to your signature on file.
This is how they make sure that someone didn't steal the ballot from your mailbox and fill it out for you.
Once the signature is verified, the envelope is opened and the anonymous ballot inside is removed and stored with all the others. When they are counted, there will be no way to tell who filled out each ballot.
When I did absentee voting, the voter signature and voter id information were on a perforated slip attached to the outside of the envelope.
That way, the process is something like:
I've always had to sign my vote by mail ballot envelope in CA. They keep a signature on file from when you last registered to absentee (not vote at your polling place) vote and compare the two to see if someone else is trying to vote in your name.
The key point is that if it's not signed, it gives them an excuse to throw it away.
Do that to enough people and you end up with a big problem. The uncounted votes could swing the election, or you get a messy court case where some judges step in and basically decide the election on their own, or who knows what else.
At a minimum, it's sets the stage for chaos. And from the chaos can emerge a chaotic outcome.
For mail-ins, yeah, you sign it to do the final "I authorize this document to be my vote".
If you don't authorize it, it's not legally your vote.
NY requires you to also sign the registration book when you vote in person.
There's a difference, signing the book is done before you vote in person in ny, and is not associated with your ballot or who you voted for. So in person there's no way to know who you voted for.
In order for a mail in ballot to be valid, the person must sign the envelope.
Is this the year old thing where the witness signature requirements was removed, but it was still included in the instructions?
Gotta be prosecuted for it to be a crime.