Discussion: Dowless Instructed Workers To Fill Out Absentee Ballots With GOP Candidates

[pabodie]

GOP cultists will call this fake news.

[lastroth]

@socalista

What’s the penalty for witness tampering?

Let’s go ask the expert, Manafort.

[yskov]

@zenicetus

This particular form of fraud is not a major risk for vote-by-mail, because it can only be done with checkboxes not filled in already. Those will usually be down-ballot choices if someone is bothering to mail in a ballot at all. Getting caught is a big risk for relatively low reward.

Sorry, but that is exactly what happened here. “Helping” a voter get an absentee ballot to the mailbox and “helping” a voter get a VBM ballot there have the same risks. Once the ballot is intercepted, throwing out ones marked “incorrectly” - or sealed ones filled out by the “wrong” kind of voter - is a piece of cake.

Of course in theory the voter fills out and verifies the ballot himself, takes it to the mailbox himself, and checks the on-line receipt to verify it was received. Let me assure you, that is not an easy task for many eligible voters. In practice the same people vulnerable to the North Carolina scam would be vulnerable to VBM interception.

In short, vote by mail doesn’t address the kind of scam pulled off in North Carolina.

[socalista]

@yskov

the kind of scam pulled off in South Carolina.

North Carolina?

It’s illegal to intercept (including take) another person’s ballot regardless what one intends to do with it. It’s perhaps a scam in that they lied, but even more so, it’s a crime regardless what they did with those ballots.

[funkenstein]

This is the same state where the GOP rigged the game so they could get 48% of the vote to Democrats’ 50+% and still win 70% of the US House seats… and they STILL feel the need to cheat (even more)

Assholes.

[yskov]

It was a stupid, lazy fraud, perpetuated by complacent folks who didn’t think anyone would look that closely.

Keep in mind that the candidate who hired Dowless did so precisely because he was an earlier victim of the scam. He knew it worked, and if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em. You can call it extortion, you can call it getting in on the game. Whatever his motivation, he was far from alone in keeping certain palms greased.

[wanderer]

@lestatdelc

When a GOP or conservative screams about some illegal or bad shit that they believe Democrats are doing, it is 100% projection about what they themselves are doing.

Every.Fucking.Time.

Soooo… on the subject of Trump screaming about the press and media being the “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”… he’s outing himself as the enemy of the people.

[funkenstein]

That’s the best example to date for him… he moans about fake news and collusion, while being involved in a criminal conspiracy with the :°^• National Enquirer.

It’s almost too ridiculous to be true, but not in the age of Trump.

[zenicetus]

@yskov

In practice the same people vulnerable to the South Carolina scam would be vulnerable to VBM interception.

In short, vote by mail doesn’t address the kind of scam pulled off in South Carolina.

I think it’s an acceptable risk compared to the alternatives. Small-scale tampering is certainly possible, but small scale is the point. It can’t be done at the vast scale that would match the risk from hacked electronic voting, or mass disenfranchisement with restrictive voter ID laws. Mail theft is also a federal crime, with fines and prison sentence up to 5 years.

[zillacop]

@tiowally

If Dowless’ rap sheet

Well, looks like he majored in fraud. I’m sure he’ll be revisiting prison.
ONLY THE BEST!

[yskov]

Well, it happened to Harris in a previous primary, which is why he knew what to do this time.

[yskov]

Oops, sorry. I’ll fix it.

[evave2]

I think his name should’ve been Macrae LAWLESS. THAT would’ve been ‘perfect-a-mundo’ for a political operative.

AND I bet she turned over the piece of paper and NOW he has witness tampering added to his list.

[blandsten]

Completely off topic, but if you haven’t, you really need to check out MacDonald’s non-series work. Books like Dead Low Tide and The End of the Night are some of the best crime novels of his generation.

[alansnipes734]

Republicans engaged in election fraud? I am shocked, shocked.

[edys]

It’s done. The report is in. “The state board of elections director said Monday there was a “coordinated, unlawful” plot to falsify and steal absentee ballots.” Lead by Dowless. They had tons of evidence, not to mention the letter by Dowless instructing his employees to lie on the stand then plead the 5th.
This guy’s goose is finally cooked. Now they need to throw Harris in that oven.

[tigerp]

Florida certainly comes to mind ~

[evave2]

Nah she was just doing it for the money (I don’t think ‘she’ is the one interviewed on her front porch, who said she took the job for ‘Christmas money’) and thinks by saying ‘it wasn’t that many’ she thinks she is mitigating what she did.

NOPE.

BUT I would surely hope the other persons called to testify would know better than to read the Dowless statement.

[evave2]

Yeah, this is also an issue of ‘really’ ignorant voters. The ballot says “turn this in yourself” and it sounded to me like people (from the description of the Dowless campaign workers AND the voters themselves) were ‘fine, ok, just so I don’t have to mail it myself.’

BOTH reflect badly on the whole county.

[avattoir]

And this will change nothing, including this election.

‘Now tell me, witness - most likely the kinda folks worst affected by this shenanigans weren’t just Democrat party types, but your brown types as well, amiright?
So, I think we can all forgive this little technicality and all of pray our hearts out to Baby Jesus that it doesn’t have to happen again.’