Update: Nothing illegal here. Virginia reused envelopes from last year.
Update: Nothing illegal here. Virginia reused envelopes from last year.
EDIT: See @AnimePhantasm comment below! My friend called the election board and they confirmed what @AnimePhantasm and @fmstrat commented! This was Virginia reusing last year’s envelopes.
OP I am an absentee voter in Blacksburg just next door. Shine a light on the blacked out part. I am 99% sure this is legit, they just crossed out the witness requirement. I can see the word witness under the sharpie in your picture. Virgina doesnt have to do that witness thing anymore. We did at the last general election, so I am guessing they just reused the same envelopes. You should call and ask your elections office before alerting the news. They are hardworking folks whose jobs are already 100 times harder then they used to be. Stirring up reports of election fraud where it isn't happening makes us just as bad as them.
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 🤣
Edit: to all the folks concerned about my vote, thank you for your concern. I'm not too worried about it for several reasons. You can check online to see when your ballot is received and accepted, so I'll be doing that. If it isn't accepted in the next week or so I'll definitely be making some calls. Worse comes to worse, I can always go to my polling place on the day and get a provisional ballot in case something happens to my mail-in. I live in a pretty blue area so I have some trust in the local offices here; they've given no reason for me to be suspicious. Nonetheless I'll still be double checking.
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.
Same thing happened to me in Pennsylvania. Will be watching very carefully on the ballot status emails to make sure it's still accepted.
May want to read my other comment, what was crossed out could be normal do to process changes and not reprinting envelopes.
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.
And the Republicans will scream about how democrats are using provisional ballots to vote twice. They'll try to cast doubt on any non-favorable election result, and they'll have the provisional votes as proof. The fact that it doesn't mean the vote was counted twice will get lost in the noise, and it'll be one more BS piece of "evidence" to cast the election as illegitimate.
I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong, I think you're doing the right thing. But we're just in a very fucked up place politically right now.
If worse comes to worst*
cut it open and tape it back up
Don't just call the election office, call the local news, get it trending.
It's almost as if Republicans can't win the popular vote and have to cheat or something (:
Just to be real, they really don't care about the popular vote. They care about the electoral vote. And even that isn't totally true. They care about the electoral victory. They long ago abandoned democracy; they don't care about having democratically granted power. They just want the power.
A little felony by blacking out a mail-in ballot is literally the least they're ready, willing, and able to do to win.
I continue to be incredibly frustrated by how little democrats have done to counter the fraud, voter suppression, constitutionally dubious laws, takeover of state election boards and volunteers, and armed, volunteer "ballot watchers" the Republicans have deployed.
The republican "ground game" that extends beyond simply GOTV efforts and campaigning and into the wide-ranging and widespread strategies and tactics to literally dismantle and inhibit the democratic process has been met with very little resistance by the democrats. Somehow they're going to be blindsided by this, cry foul retroactively, and then be hamstrung trying to play defense from behind. Wilfully ignorant, short-sighted, and incredibly dangerous idiocy for something so fundamentally important.
The democrats don't have to be unethical because the Republicans are, but they should have been being proactive and serious about countering these attacks on the democratic process. Instead the approach seems to be sticking their fingers firmly in their ears and going "lalalalala."
There's a neat post I came across some time ago showing how few votes can still win the electoral college.
Turns out, though unlikely, it is possible to win the election with less than 25% of votes through the magic of the electoral college and disproportionate representation.
Yeah, clear cut election fraud.
Anyone want to take bets on it being a Republican behind this?
They're the ones always claiming there's fraud. They must know something we don't.
Do you know who the fraudster is
OP I am an absentee voter in Blacksburg just next door. Shine a light on the blacked out part. I am 99% sure this is legit, they just crossed out the witness requirement. I can see the word witness under the sharpie in your picture. Virgina doesnt have to do that witness thing anymore. We did at the last general election, so I am guessing they just reused the same envelopes. You should call and ask your elections office before alerting the news. They are hardworking folks whose jobs are already 100 times harder then they used to be. Stirring up reports of election fraud where it isn't happening makes us just as bad as them.
Excellent point. I alerted my friend to your post. I don’t have the envelope, they just sent me the picture. They go to bed early but I’ll update you in the morning.
Thank you for the info! My friend called and you are correct. I edited the post to reflect this information!
Agreed. Just commented with a reference to the recommendations for blacking it out.
Honestly that is scary to see. People are going to lose the chance to influence. A true potential for a stolen election.
Can someone explain this to a non US person please? You sign your votes?
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.
For mail in balloting at least in my state you sign the return envelope NOT the ballot itself.
In Illinois they give you two, well 3 technically. The one everything comes in, the one you put the ballot in, and the one you put the ballot envelope in. So the signature is not on the outside or on the ballot itself.
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.
something you have to remember about the US is that while it's a democracy, all the democratic practices were started in the 1800s, often with explicit intention to negate the votes of some discriminated group
And one party is doing their best to keep that heritage of disenfranchisement alive.
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:
- Look at the slip. Verify voter signature, eligibility to vote, and mark as having voted in the voter rolls.
- Detach perforated slip from sealed envelope. Sealed envelope now contains no identifying information. (This envelope was mailed inside an outer mailing envelope.)
- Entire sealed envelope and contents thereof goes into big bin of accepted ballots.
- Later, election workers open the sealed envelopes from the bin and run the actual ballot papers through the scantron machine.
In order for a mail in ballot to be valid, the person must sign the envelope.
Yep, we have the same system in the UK. In fact, the envelope looks almost exactly the same so they might even be printed by the same company.
You get two envelopes (one big, one small), a postal voting statement, and a ballot paper.
The actual ballot paper just has a list of options for you to put your X against; there's no personally identifiable information on it. Once you've filled it out you seal it in the small envelope.
You then fill in the voting statement (it has your name and address on it so they can cross your name off as voted, and you sign it so they can check your signature matches the one on file) and both that and the sealed ballot go in the big envelope. That way your vote is still private because they check the vote is valid in one step and then add your ballot to a pile to be counted with the others in a second step, at which point it's anonymous.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/ways-vote/how-vote-post
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.
just imagine gremlins running around in your election system at every level. thats pretty much whats happening
I could be mistaken, but most places check your signature against the voter roll. If your signature doesn't match, then they'll ask for an ID. At least that's how it was where I volunteered in 2020. This is done before you get your ballot. You don't actually sign the ballot itself.
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?
Edit: To clarify, my state does have voter history but only what elections I vote in, not how I voted.
Worst case scenario, someone intercepts my ballot and/or changes my vote. Website says "yep, you voted." Great, but I want to know it was counted correctly.
Ultimately our whole voting system needs an overhaul, but I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
I don't believe there is, and if there was, it could be used for some really nefarious purposes!
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.
Maryland sent me an email last time that my vote had been counted, but not for who.
If you mailed in a ballot then there should be a way to confirm it was received, but there should NOT be a way to see who you voted for. Just like they can confirm that you voted in person, but again can not tell who you voted for when you showed up to vote.
Typically when you vote by mail you receive a ballot plus two envelopes. You fill out the ballot and put it in the inner envelope that should contain no markings as to whose ballot it belongs to. This is put inside the second envelope that should have your contact information (my state uses a barcode for this) and that you have to sign.
When the city/town clerk receives the ballot they look up your voter registration & confirm the signature on file matches the signature on the envelope. They then check off in their records that you voted by mail on that day. They take the inner envelope out of the outer envelope and add it to the other pile of envelopes they’ve received. At some later point they open those envelopes and count the ballots, but have no way of associating a given ballot back with the person who mailed it in.
If you then try to go vote in person on Election Day (or somebody tries to impersonate you) then their records will show you already voted and you won’t be allowed to vote again.
My county in Washington state has a website where you can check the status. I even get text or email notifications for the status. “We received your ballot”, “the signature was verified”, “your vote has been counted”.
There was even a problem with my signature once and all I had to do was log in and verify it and it was counted.
My California county sends me a text and email.
So somebody reported this to the State election board and told all the news agencies, right?
My friend reported it to the election board, but doesn’t want to report it to the news. I can’t make him and I don’t live in Virginia. If anyone wants to share this, my friend nor I will be opposed.
News tip submission forms for Roanoke, Virginia:
@UnpopularCrow, since you have more information about this than the rest of us, would you mind submitting the details to these news organizations?
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.
Could be old instructions for witness signatures vs anything malicious. Be sure this is a real issue first. Last time they sent out conflicting instructions which was worse. But yes, report it to be safe.
Joan Porte, vice president of the Virginia League of Women Voters and an Arlington resident, said she was furious when she saw the error on the envelope, which could have been solved, she said, by crossing it out with a marker.
Thanks for this information. I alerted my friend. I’ll update the post if you are correct.
Thank you for the info! My friend called and you are correct. I edited the post to reflect this information!
Gotta be prosecuted for it to be a crime.
You might see if you can get this to the Meidas Touch guys too. They could help research and amplify this to the national media
Ughhhhhhhhh. Sorry, but I need to rant.
Those fuckers are so fucking sensationalist. They use the same simple-mined tactics as right-wing propaganda mills. A 20 minute video of theirs could be condensed into 5 without those tactics and actually do far more to push forward their "law based coverage".
I quickly put them in the "not worth the sensationalist propaganda" bucket after watching a handful of their videos
Isn't the whole point int this case to make a sensation?
They all are like that. They all use heavy clickbait titles to get attention to their videos, and those titles have a tenuous at best relationship with the actual topic, which they all blow way out of proportion and act as if this will finally be the thing that brings down Trump. These are the ones who the right refer to as having "Trum Derangement Syndrome", as they post daily videos that are almost exclusively about Trump, while peddling products that you can tell they've never used or even heard of in their lives by the way they read the script.
Don't get me wrong. The information they give is at least truthful (exaggerated, but truthful) and the products they're shilling are actual products and not crypto scams or something, which puts them far ahead of Trump's supporters. But they're still basically grifting and trying to ride the Trump train as long and as hard as they can, as I don't know what half of them are going to do once Trump is actually out of the public eye.
Bless Lemmy for being able to edit a post.
Is this the year old thing where the witness signature requirements was removed, but it was still included in the instructions?
Curious about what was crossed out. We could probably tell with a better photo.
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.
I am going to be voting in person. Hopefully Harris will win and when the Trumpers try to riot again the national guard is harsh.
Always vote in person if you can
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Get this paid spam out of here.
Rooki won't allow it, too busy cashing the checks.