TheOfficialACM OP t1_itrgtvz wrote on October 25, 2022 at 7:32 PM

Reply to comment by psibomber in I am the co-author behind ACM’s TechBrief on Election Security: Risk-limiting Audits. Ask me anything about election security! by TheOfficialACM

It's difficult to find evidence of this sort of thing. The most persistent rumors generally involve some form of bundling of vote-by-mail ballots. In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, for example, they're called "politiqueros" or "politiqueras". It's unclear whether the impact of these sorts of activities are sufficient to change election outcomes, but Texas and other states have chosen to make it harder to vote by mail, claiming it would reduce fraud. Of course, whenever you change a policy like this, you'll have unintended effects, like making it harder for legitimate voters who might prefer to vote without needlessly exposing themselves to the risks of COVID.

psibomber t1_itrlz87 wrote on October 25, 2022 at 8:04 PM

Are there no attempts made to investigate the impact of vote trafficking?

PaulSnow t1_itrlnck wrote on October 25, 2022 at 8:02 PM

Europe did several studies on postal ballots, and largely rejected them as insecure. I don't think the possibility with mail in ballots is in question.

You can require registration with an ID, but in the US maintaining voter rolls is hard.

All security limits how easy it is to do whatever it is you are securing. So you have a trade off of zero security and super simple voting, or massive security and very difficult voting. And everything in between. You have to choose.

In my opinion, postal ballots should be restricted to the smallest group possible. I don't mind an exception for the paranoid, but we don't need to break the system to accommodate the fringe cases.