Sad, first after the Democrats tried to undermine our democracy in 2016 by undermining an elected President and trying to stage a coup... they now are resisting the idea that our democratic process unlike many countries insures its integrity by allowing the legal system to examine potential election abuses.
There is plenty of smoke so far regarding potential systemic election fraud, but the problem with this kind of fraud is that it takes a great deal more detailed research to determine if it occurred and how significant it was.
The first step is to determine if "fraud" was possible. What is coming to light is that yes significant fraud is possible in two areas.
The first is concerns how votes are "cured". This is the process were incorrectly filled out ballots are "fixed". The rules vary by state. But there have been numerous cases so far that show if not intentional, that the unintentional curing of ballots did take place.
The article talks about the potential problem. But one of the concerning issues for election integrity is that given the history of mail in voting we know that even in states that have allowed mail in voting for years, that approximately 1-2% of ballots are rejected. Yet in many predominantly Democratic precincts this percentage was below that... could people have miraculously ceased to make any mistakes... possible but unlikely.
The second is through hacking the election system (something numerous Democratic leaders have been quick to note since 2016 and yet are strangely silent on at the moment). A recent affidavit testifying to how the electronic systems could be manipulated to achieve this has just been released.
Both of these methods especially the latter will require a very sophisticated analysis by people with "forensic" audit experience to ascertain. This is a problem given the short time frame that states have to affirm the vote. But it is essential for the integrity of our election system that this kind of analysis be done.
What is concerning to me is, as someone who began his career working for Price Waterhouse as an auditor, that we impose such tough auditing requirements on our publicly traded companies and such poor and limited auditing on our voting process. How can a democratic country that relies on the integrity of its voting systems be so cavalier about the systems and their vulnerabilities.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, we need to have forensic auditors focus on a combination of randomly and judgmentally selected voting districts overseen by representatives of the major US political parties and the states. Then like public companies, the auditors should issue an audit report of their findings which should include proposals to increase the safety and security of our election system.
Such an audit would address by its very nature some of the concerns people raise... like "the dead" voting and people no longer residents in a given district voting, and similar irregularities, but those things tend to have limited impact on national elections unless the vote count is extremely close, hence historically they have impacted local elections more than national ones. But vote curing and system failures represent areas where undetectable massive voter fraud could occur and therefore needs to be constantly reviewed.
Democrats should demand the same rigor they demand in 2016. The actual outcome of the 2020 election is less important than the reliability of the process. Bad outcomes can be fixed in time with good processes... bad processes will lead to continued and repeated bad outcomes...
