The process that may have created wins for the GOP in 2016 will not work in 2020. Polls show that the Biden lead may be too much to overcome with the normal ballot manipulation and suppression. When Trump does not win the election, the vulnerabilities will suddenly be revealed so that results in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania can be claimed to be fraudulent. The doubts about the election integrity would cause a significant amount of chaos with unknown potential results. Whichever way the final solution evolves, a large portion of the voters will always have questions. The country could remain divided for years.
The above picture shows an individual Wisconsin election official sorting arriving post office delivery of mail-in ballots by various Madison city wards. As explained, he is also alphabetizing the ballots by hand for each ward. They will be delivered to each voting district clerk in alphabetized trays. There is no signature or other verification of the envelopes allowed before the voting district clerk submits them through the ballot scanning machine 6 days later when the actual election day arrived. The chain of custody for the ballot envelopes is the sole responsibility of the appropriate clerk. They are available at the clerk’s offices or at the early voting sites where they are available for examination by various people.
In Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin absentee and early voters can change their vote. In Wisconsin they can change their vote up to 3 times. The envelopes containing the ballots are placed in trays and alphabetized so that they will be readily available should a voter arrive and request to have their vote changed. The ability to change votes is not publicized by these states. A check of each state election online information sites failed to reveal any mention of any vote changing option. An email was sent to the secretary of state or election commission contact designations. I asked if the vote change option was still in force. I also asked if there was any signature or other envelope authenticity verification implemented as found no reference in the published voting instructions and process explanation. I was thanked for my inquiry or received a standard programmed response that failed to answer my questions. These states have Democratic governors, but all have Republican controlled legislatures.
The consistent hiding of this information from early voters and absentee voters in all 4 states might make a person suspect that these unprotected ballots have been or will be easily manipulated. The process was in place for the 2016 presidential election leaving doubt that the result totals were accurate. The polling in 2016 was close enough between the candidates that a different result was considered possible. The 2020 polls show a significant margin in favor of the democrat that and the expected large increase in the expected mail-in vote ballots will make the 2016 ballot manipulation too overwhelming to be successful.
If the current white house occupant does not receive the larger number of votes, I expect that the lack of vote security hidden by the 4 states will be suddenly revealed. The election results in the swing states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania will be declared fraudulent and Donald Trump will remain in office.
2016 Election sets the stage for 2020
Wisconsin does not protect my vote! If I choose to fill out my ballot during the early period or cast an absentee (mail-in) ballot it is available to be adjusted without my knowledge. These ballots in their signed envelopes are alphabetized and placed in trays that are available at the early voting locations or controlled by local partisan clerks. No signature verification is available or utilized prior to the ballot being cast on election day. The ballots are available for easy substitution, adjusting or destruction if the single partisan custodian chooses to do so. This open tray methodology was started for the 2016 election and is currently in force for 2020 election. The excuse for the ballots being readily available for change is the law that allows Wisconsin voters to change their ballot up to 3 times I they wish. According to the Wisconsin Election Commission 830,703 completed absentee and early votes were available to be adjusted during the 2016 election. The number of these unprotected ballots is expected to greatly expand during the 2020 November election due to the increase in mail-in voting.
The ballot envelopes are available for review by both party reps to see who voted and are stored after hours by the local clerk. They are fed into the vote scanning machines on Election Day without further verification. Most of the clerks in Wisconsin are in rural counties and run unopposed in their elections. The above process was also operational in MN, MI, and PA in 2016 and is unchanged for the 2020 Election.
Wisconsin state officials continue to try to assure the public that their vote would be accurately recorded. I was disturbed to think that the voters are still being told that the Jill Stein recount proved that the voter’s intentions were accurately recorded. No group or reporter seems to be willing to look closer at the early voting and absentee voting process in place in Wisconsin since the 2016 election.
I was an Election Judge in conservative McHenry County, IL for many years. Because of my many years of experience in project planning implementation and vulnerability detection, I naturally studied the voting process. After observing multiple election cycles, I could not discover any possible way to manipulate the system.
I moved to WI and participated in early voting for the November 2016 Federal Election and was shocked. I showed my WI Driver's License at the door and again when I was handed a ballot. I was not allowed to sign the voter list. I did sign an envelope in which my completed ballot was placed. The completed ballots in the signed envelopes were alphabetized and placed in open trays along with absentee ballots. I later discovered that the ballots were sorted alphabetically so they would be readily available should a voter choose to exercise their legal right to change their ballot. I have been unable to find any published statistics as to how many voters take advantage of their ability to change their vote.
Mailed-in ballot envelopes are available for review by both party reps to see who voted and then stored after hours by the local clerk. They are fed into the vote scanning machines on Election Day without further verification. Most of the voting districts in Wisconsin are in rural counties where the clerks are selected by the Republican party and run unopposed in their elections. These areas experienced the greatest party shift during the 2016 election as reported by various Wisconsin media outlets.
When Jill Stein initiated the vote recount in the Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania it was designed to validate the election results. It confirmed for most people that the election was fair. It would not uncover any changed votes as they could have been adjusted while they sat unprotected for several weeks before being submitted on Election Day. Because of the Jill Stein audit Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell has called any question about election vulnerabilities about how the current election laws and procedures is a “crazy conspiracy.” The real conspiracy is if the election vulnerabilities are being utilized to modify or suppress votes as I believe is the current case.
Strict voter identification is used in Wisconsin to provide the illusion of ballot integrity. Real integrity would require signature verification and a secure ballot chain of custody to exist. Vote results and lists are controlled by proponents of a single political party without any protection for the opposing group.
The 2011, Update #4 to the Wisconsin Photo ID Law stated that “Voters must sign the poll list before being issued a ballot, unless they identify a disability that prevents them from doing so. If the voter refuses to sign the poll list, the voter will not be issued a ballot and therefore, will not be able to vote.”
The Wisconsin Election Commission when asked about the lack of signature requirement during early voting in the 2016 Election returned the following reply: “In Wisconsin, ‘early voting’ refers to in-person absentee voting. Voters can cast their absentee ballots prior to Election Day but the absentee ballots are not processed and counted until Election Day with all of the other ballots cast at the polling place. As part of the absentee ballot processing, the poll workers state the voter’s name and address aloud and then make an absentee notation by their name on the poll book”. I observed that the poll worker made a mark with a high liter and did not even write their initial next to the voter name. No signature was permitted to be entered on any list during the early voting for this election.
If there was a question about the signature on any of the ballots sitting for weeks in the trays at the polling place there was not a local signature with which those signatures could be compared at any point. The signatures on the ballot envelopes and the signatures on the voter lists, if available, could have been easily compared by both party representatives as the envelopes were opened and the ballots fed into the vote scanning machines on Election Day.
Election day voters are required to sign the voter list when they receive their ballot. The responsible clerk provides information for the list as to which voters submitted in-person or mailed-in absentee ballots. The voter lists created during the earlier in-person or mail-in absentee voting periods do not contain either voter signatures or election official initials. When a voter finds that the official voter list shows that they had already voted, they must be content that a mark on a list is enough to suppress their vote. The Provisional Ballots issued for these voters in 2016 have never been counted.
I hope that someone might eventually get serious about doing something about the lack of Wisconsin election security that seems to be duplicated in some form in Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. They must also be able to do something about the processes currently established that can allow election cheating and suppression. If in-person and absentee votes are somehow really protected, it would be helpful to assure observant voters like myself that voter suppression and manipulation is not occurring.
