Are Ohio elections secure? Secretary of State Frank LaRose came under fire this week from left-leaning media and advocacy groups over changes to the state’s mail-in ballot rules — and calls on lawmakers to eliminate ballot boxes altogether.
Barring an act of the legislature, ballot drop-boxes appear to be a factor in 2024. Under LaRose’s proposed changes, only an individual voter may use a ballot drop box for his or her own ballot, and any other person acting on behalf of another person in delivering a ballot must attest in writing at a county Board of Elections office that they are authorized to do so.
While LaRose’s proposed rule sounds basic to maintaining a secure chain of custody for a ballot, election integrity has become a major partisan battleground. The furor over mail-in ballots stems from allegations that have dogged the 2020 election that swaths of suspicious mail-in ballots tipped key counties in swing states for Joe Biden.
Mail-in Ballots, Dropboxes Inherently Less Secure
Whether fraud occurs or not, the question of whether it is detectable dogs new vote-by-mail and ballot dropbox trends. Professor and author Bret Weinstein raised serious doubts yesterday on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
“When everybody is voting from home or wherever, you can't detect fraud by virtue of the fact that the count that came in from that precinct didn't match what the exit pollers registered,” Weinstein said. “So, I don't think we are wrong to imagine that we have lost the ability to check whether an election is fair and that that's not an accident.”
Every election has a “margin of cheating,” Weinstein said.
Damning Evidence and Years of Litigation
Part of the difficulty of proving election fraud has been the sheer length of time required to litigate claims. Three years into Biden’s term, evidence raising suspicion over 2020 continues to emerge in question of the result. In 2020, Biden apparently earned more votes than Barack Obama, despite his questionable fitness for office, even then. This cycle saw the media sour on the president, and his ouster at the hands of his own party — only after it became apparent he could not fend off a second Trump term.
It was revealed earlier this year that 148,000 ballots in question in Georgia from 2020 were never signature-matched, heightening suspicions about Biden’s results in the state. Georgia also illegally deleted more than 1.7 million images of ballots and surveillance footage of the state’s ballot drop-boxes.
Michigan poll workers blocked election observers from viewing votes being counted. A Wisconsin poll worker claimed in a sworn affidavit that counting of another batch of ballots occurred after poll workers were instructed the count had concluded.
Fast forward to this cycle, and Pennsylvania announced this month that voters may not know the results of the election in that state on election day, shaking confidence in results over fears of delayed counts and suspicious ballots.
Court cases have moved ahead or fallen at the hands of partisan judges, but with margins of just a few thousand votes in several key counties in swing states, the question remains: if elections are secure, why should the process be so occlusive?
Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin issued an executive order this month that all Virginia ballots would be cast on paper — a move that ensures ballots can be audited without the possibility of digital manipulation. Other states, such as Texas, have purged up to a million improperly registered or ineligible voters from their rolls. LaRose trimmed 150,000 in Ohio.
Wider Assault on U.S. Elections
Meanwhile, Democrats are poised to vote in the general election for a candidate who did not appear on a single primary ballot. Harris’ palace coup against a sitting president comes in the context of a wider election-engineering push from Democrats and establishment Republicans.
Outsider Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. faced ballot-access issues and headwinds from his own party before declaring an independent bid. In a full court press to shape election results, courts in North Carolina and Michigan have now ruled Kennedy’s name must stay on the ballot, despite Kennedy suspending his campaign, endorsing Trump, and submitting documentation that his name be withdrawn in those states.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said minor party candidates would not be allowed to withdraw. Meanwhile, Benson is also appealing a court ruling that would keep left-wing third-party candidate Cornell West off the ballot. Kennedy’s name on the ballot will likely hurt Trump, and West’s remaining off will likely aid Harris.
In Ohio, a judge blocked a law that would keep foreign cash out of Ohio elections.
As for 2020, beyond the claims that unverified ballots dumped at the eleventh hour could have tipped Wayne County, Michigan or Fulton County, Georgia, among others, a war of censorship was waged on any who questioned Biden’s 81 million votes. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg spent $350 million on changing voting infrastructure to accommodate mail-in ballots.
Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram platforms vigorously censored news surrounding Hunter Biden’s recovered laptop, which linked the Biden family to criminal activity in Ukraine and a host of illegal activities on Hunter Biden’s part. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty today to tax charges.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg backpedaled from Meta companies’ stance and his personal involvement shaping the 2020 election, drawing intense criticism.
Mark Zuckerberg ripped for claiming he didn’t realize Zuck Bucks helped swing election for Biden https://t.co/oGFmt05VH8 pic.twitter.com/HLx908oDM9
— New York Post (@nypost) August 30, 2024
Zuckerberg told Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan this week he would not make similar contributions again. Zuckerberg’s 2020 election contributions favored left-wing organizations in the vote push.
Ohio Stakes
Trump is expected to carry Ohio by a significant margin. But in an election cycle that has seen major party candidates hot-swapped into the race, an assassination attempt on former President Trump, and politicized ballot-access headwinds for third-party candidates designed to engineer election outcomes, can Ohioans have confidence in down-ballot races, and the results of U.S. elections more broadly?
Whether LaRose’s call for increased scrutiny of Ohio ballot box rules is enforceable, and whatever the fate of Ohio’s ballot dropboxes, grave doubts remain.
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