In Georgia, where early voting has begun, state election officials are investigating a fake ballot recovered from a polling place in a heavily-Republican area near Atlanta.
The elaborately-created counterfeit ballot was found “in a box where ballots drop after they are scanned into a scanner at the polling place,” a local TV station reported (here). That means someone brought a bogus ballot to the polling place and either tried to cast a fraudulent vote or wanted to see if the voting machine would count a counterfeit.
The scanner detected the fake and didn’t count it, and election workers spotted a discrepancy when the scanner’s counter showed a total of 1,521 ballots were inserted into the machine but only 1,520 were counted. Finding it was easy; the paper looked different and failed a wand test. Real ballots are printed on security paper that activates the wand. Replicating security paper is a hurdle for people who try to counterfeit money, too.
State elections director Blake Evans believes the ballot wasn’t created to help any candidates, but to “cast doubt on election integrity across the state.” I’m trying to process this. If Evans is right, the perpetrator probably was trying to discredit the voting equipment by showing it will count a fake ballot. But that wouldn’t cast doubt unless the fake is caught by the system, otherwise no one will know. What, exactly, did the trickster gain by proving the election is secure? Sounds pretty stupid to me.
Here’s another question. Who, in a heavily-Republican area, would concoct a scheme like this? Probably a group. And who would carry it out? Has to be one of the voters; you can’t just walk up to a scanner in a polling place and insert paper into it. You have to sign a voter registration book to get in. Unless an election worker did it, which is where I’d start looking, otherwise it has to be a voter.
It wouldn’t make sense for an eligible voter to use a fake ballot, unless they brought an extra “ballot” with them to vote twice. So my guess is if a voter did it, there are 1,520, not 1,521, signatures in the registration book. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the fake ballot has fingerprints and/or DNA on it; I’m thinking if investigators want to catch the perpetrator badly enough, they can and likely will. And I’ll bet the rest of the story will be fascinating.
Staging stunts in attempts to discredit groups, individuals, candidates, and elections is an increasingly common rightwing tactic. There are conservative groups that create such incidents on a regular basis. Democratic and liberal groups haven’t been known to run similar operations.
It takes sick minds to do this kind of stuff. What makes some people so twisted? After all, these actions lack character, and are palpably dishonest. My theory is that Republicans, as an unpopular minority frustrated at not getting their way and immersed in “civil war” rhetoric, are resorting to jungle behavior and waging a sort of war against civilized norms.
Our best defense against it is rule of law. The fake ballot in Georgia was a criminal act, and if the perpetrator is caught, he may go to jail, lose his job, and end up with a criminal record that will keep him from getting a security clearance, joining the military, or becoming a police officer. And he’ll deserve it; kicking our democracy in the shin shouldn’t be free.
What if the perpetrator turns out to be a Democrat who was simply trying to give his party’s candidates an illegitimate edge? (Note, one vote isn’t much of an edge, so even on this basis, it doesn’t make sense.)
I’m not ruling out that possibility, but if that’s what happened, I’m confident the Democratic Party won’t make excuses for him, Democratic officials won’t try to obstruct the investigation or prosecution, nor will their supporter base raise money for his legal defense. Democrats will demand justice, not because one of their own made them look bad, but because this behavior is illegal and wrong. That’s how both parties, and partisans on all sides, should operate all the time.
Related story: An Arizona couple were harassed by a group of drop-box vigilantes when they dropped off their ballots; authorities are investigating (read story here).