"Judge of Elections" in PA is an elected position for running the polling place for a precinct on election day. It's an extremely low-level position that only involves work on 2 days of the year.

It's not a "judge" in the sense someone who oversees a criminal or civil trial.

I'm surprised it is even elected. I was an election judge when I was 18 in Illinois as part of high school project. You just sign up and attend a 2 hour class.

It was fun. The other judge at my poll location was a guy who served in the Wehrmacht during WWII (was conscripted at age 14).

But I easily could have stuffed the box. Most people don't vote. At 7:45pm, you could just vote for people who didn't show up. Nobody but the other judge would have the chance of stopping you.

The voter list should contain canaries and honeypots. Known dead people or fake people, and if they vote then fraud has been detected.

Clever idea. The problem, of course, is that this was never an issue that could be solved with more facts. Conspiracy theories are immune to that.

> But I easily could have stuffed the box.

...

> Nobody but the other judge would have the chance of stopping you.

Those ought to contradict each other. We have multiple judges for exactly this reason. It is a sincerely tall order to get even one other judge, especially when it's required to be from the opposing party, to agree to your ballot stuffing. You're likely to end up prosecuted the moment you pose the question, before you get anywhere near stuffing a box.

There should be something stopping you; the voter rolls, and list of names that voted and not, are public. The press could absolutely contact a sample of the voter rolls and verify - "I voted", "I didn't". Any discrepancy (well, any time there's more than one or two, because people do lie or simply forget) should be a scandal.

There are people who did this for the 2020 elections. They found voters registered to empty lots all over Arizona. Steven Crowder, I think the guys name was.

Not sure on that specific claim, but every one of those type of "fraud claims" I've looked into turn out to be false and full of errors in how they used the information they had to try to prove their claims. An example from Arizona - not sure if the same one as Crowder, not going to watch YT videos on this topic - if it's important enough, write it up and publish it with references and proper proof that can be replicated.

https://www.azmirror.com/2021/09/10/voter-canvass-features-b...

And get rejected from publications that didn't bother to do the research themselves but "know" that Voter Fraud is a myth? No thanks.

Then you correctly get identified as a conspiracy theorist, the system is working.

The risk clearly doesn't fit the crime. A risk of being hung for treason is harder to recruit for.

"Treason" is one of the few crimes which is defined in the US constitution. It has a fairly narrow definition which does not include election fraud:

>Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The person you are responding to is clearly suggesting their personal belief that election crimes are so antithetical to American values that it constitutes a crime on par with treason.

Fine, but the system that they're claiming to speak in service of directly contradicts that belief in its foundational charter.

The people commiting this type of fraud make similar mental leaps about the definitions of words like "treason" and "patriotism" to justify their actions. It's not a good road to follow.

So if the US Republic is thrown over like the Weimar Republic the only question for you is:

Did they not break any laws as defined by the forefathers who wrote the constitution?

I don't really understand this bizarre worshipping of the creation of the US as if it must have been done too well to question. Eternal vigilance is identifying the bugs, talking about them in public and proposing appropriate size patches. Failure to do so is being overthrown by a risk not accounted for by the forefathers, or that they assumed we weren't too stupid to handle.

My suggestion that election fraud by a sworn judge should be dealt with as seriously as treason is in no way the same as someone's secret dialog with co-conspirators to justify undermining all trust in the republic being democratic for their own goals.

Yes, though more generally I am interested in the criteria and thought process that takes place in discussions leading to constitutional conventions to build a republic that is self maintaining despite various threats. The US is not Cannon to me, it is one template and we are poking at a flaw in it.

The list of people actually convicted of treason in the US is very short, and a subsequent execution hasn't happened since the mid 1800s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_convicted_of_tr...

The Rosenbergs espionage didn’t count as treason?

No, they were tried for conspiracy to commit espionage (50 U.S.C. § 32). Although espionage is a morally treasonous act, treason was not the legal crime for which they were prosecuted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg#Ros...

This is the best argument that there is not widespread fraud. The odds of getting caught are pretty high, the penalties stiff, and the value of a single vote practically zero. Sure, some races are that close, but most are not, so any kind of systemic effort has vastly more risk than it's worth just to get one lowly elected position flipped from an opposing party.