re: Maricopa county ballot harvesting on camera

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There is nothing “automated” about checking signatures, comparing addresses, finding the correct precincts, etc. All of that must be done by hand, by a human being.

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That's a pointless endeavor once the ballots have been separated from the envelopes. Do we know if they have?

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Two distinct issues.

I was just talking about the process of verifying and counting the ballots.

If there is a suspicion of shenanigans at a given drop box, you would obviously need to conduct your investigation before those ballots and security/privacy envelopes are separated (in the few states that still use them).

The problem is that I continue to assert that they people engaged in affirmative fraud are NOT stupid. They are NOT going to use the same people to drop ballots who are identified on those envelopes as the person designated to drop them. One person's name will appear on the envelope. A different person will ACTUALLY drop the ballot(s) at the box.

So, you see someone acting suspiciously (too many ballots, photo at box, etc.). You stop the count on that box on that day, so that you can identify that alleged "mule" (license plate, facial recognition, whatever). You find him, and you compare his name to all of the 200 ballots from that box for that day.

Surprise, surprise! Someone behaving nefariously does not put his name on even ONE of those ballots. You end up simply identifying all the relatives and nursing home workers who are actually complying with the law.

But set those Samaritans aside. Despite catching the occasional criminal worker bee, you are unable to invalidate even one of the 25 estimated ballots that he dropped without ALSO invalidating 175 ballots that were cast in a perfectly-legal manner. The American public is NOT going to approve disenfranchisement of 175 people who followed the law, just to catch one bad guy.

So, you send a worker-bee to jail (best case), but the ballot count remains unchanged. You PROBABLY don't even manage to send him to jail, because you have trouble convincing a jury "beyond reasonable doubt" that he violated the law, if you cannot directly tie him to specific ballots.

Like it or not, the American people WANT to provide a way to vote "offsite" for the homebound, nursing home residents, etc.

The ONLY reasonably-secure way to do that is to eliminate "drop boxes" and to require the "courier" (for lack of a better term) to walk the ballots to a clerk at a desk, to confirm his identity and to make a record of each ballot that he delivered.

Most states are simply NOT going to do that.