> Krupa needed 473 valid signatures of ward residents to get on the ballot. He filed 1,729 signatures with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. He earlier said he filed 1,703 but missed a page of signatures.
> A crew of mysterious political workers — perhaps they were Buddhist monks, or the gentle sun people known as the Eloi, or maybe Madigan precinct captains — filed 2,796 petitions of revocation of signature. That means 2,796 ward residents filed legal affidavits that they wanted their signatures taken off Krupa’s petitions.
> The Madigan men filed 187 affidavits of revocation matching Krupa signatures. But Dorf, a progressive who’d done election work for the late Mayor Harold Washington and former President Barack Obama, put in a Freedom of Information Act request asking the board to give him all the revocations affidavits that were filed.
> All 2,796 of them.
> “And that’s where the fraud comes in, that’s where the felonies come in,” Dorf said. “Almost 2,800 affidavits were filed. But only 1,726 people signed petitions for Krupa. And of the 2,800 affidavits, the 13th Ward could only find 187 signatures that matched.
> Subtract 187 from 2,796 and you get 2,609 — that’s a lot of possible felonies, either perjury or voter intimidation.
Ref: https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-met-chic...
BUT, rest assured this is extremely rare and these same people wouldn’t dare tamper with any other kind of election. Nor would this happen anywhere else in the United States. Anyone who asserts an election was subject to fraud is attacking democracy itself. /s
I trust you are referring to problems with the 2020 election? I would appreciate learning what analogies you see between mob-like coercion and the election
As for the mob-like coercion, I don’t think there was this same kind of intimidation going on in 2020. I was using this concrete example of election fraud to refute the oft-touted assertion that voter fraud is vanishingly rare in the United States, and, it is never serious enough to affect an election.
In a naïve way I hope it opens the door to people being willing to accept the idea that if fraud can happen in big corrupt cities, it can happen elsewhere and we should tighten up our oversight laws.
I think increased interest in election integrity after a contested election are great to the extent that high integrity processes are the truth to which society should work towards. Disputes about specific irregularities post-election are less valuable and a generic response could be "well, you should have cheated better."
Ah who am I kidding.
It is ironic that turnout for national elections, where their vote is moot is much higher. But for school boards, county positions, and city positions that actually have an effect on day to day life and expenses, people do not care as much.
But now in WA, my wife and I typically make our morning coffee, sit out on the patio, read through the voter guide to understand what the arguments for and against a particular ballot initiative are and the statements given by individuals. We vote together, sign our ballot, seal it up, then we drive three blocks to a local drop site (only because I prefer doing that versus putting it in my mailbox).
It's super easy to participate in the system here, and in my jaded perspective, that's exactly why certain people and organizations hate it so much.
https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/wa_vbm.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/barr-secret-vote-fac...
There's no way that any form of remote ballot is going to be as secure as doing it in person. It's just not possible because you will never know the provenance. Like most things that involve the legal system, it's not the law abiding that we're worried about.
Picture this:
Have a canvasser or harvester pick up mail in ballots. They take it to a safe house and open the envelopes. If it’s a vote for the candidate they don’t like, put marks on it so it doesn’t get counted. Place it in a new return envelope.
You’ve just cancelled that person’s vote. If someone checked that their vote was counted they wouldn’t be able to see that it was spoilt.
You could potentially just throw away the ballot too, I doubt most people check that they were actually received. But it does seem slightly more likely to raise eyebrows. I’m sure you could chalk it up to just getting lost at the post office.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by adding marks invalidating the ballot. If you fill out a ballot incorrectly, the poll workers will notify you that there are issues with your ballot.
At least it is not a problem I know about where I live.
The vote doesn't have to be convenient, but it absolutely has to be safe. Voter intimidation is impossible with in-person voting.
Are the votes not secret or are the votes not verified as authentic?
I don't think Mr. Durr's achievement is replicable. In my opinion, significant election reform is necessary.
> You do the math.
I did and, well...
squints at those numbers
You do the math. These people aren't loved. They just know how to work the system to keep the outsiders out. The article says in a district of 150k, the NJ Senate President never received more than 30k votes. 20% of the population was dictating policy. Its no surprise that, when given the choice, people will vote their preference.