Conversation with a Fraudulent Voter

Conversation with a Fraudulent Voter

©2020  Ross Williams

I have an acquaintance who styles himself a “progressive” [ironic term] liberal.  He was whining the other day about Donnie Combover “and his horde of bigots” being against mail-in voting.  He [my acquaintance] wanted to vote by mail.  This, as closely as I recall the flow of discussion, is how the conversation went.

I asked him, you DO realize that you can request an absentee ballot, right?

Oh, but that’s not the same thing.

Really?  What’s the difference?

It’s not vote by mail. [He shot me a look of puzzlement over my missing his QED]

You request an absentee ballot, you fill it out, you get it notarized and you mail it back.  It’s exactly vote by mail.

But I’m not allowed to.

So … you don’t qualify for absentee voting.

What do you mean?

In order to vote absentee, most states require you to fall into one of several categories.  Like military service.  If your home of record, the place where you enlisted, is in one state but you are stationed in another or overseas, you can absentee vote in the ‘home of record’ state.  Most states I know of also extend that to anyone with a “permanent residence” in-state but who is working out of state − long-haul truckers, for example.  People on vacation… people in the hospital… invalids at home… [I ran out of the qualifications I could recall from my own absentee voting days when I was in the Air Force stationed in Alabama but voting in New York].

Yeah.  See?  That’s unfair to people.

What?!  How?

Some people just want to vote by mail.

…and others just want money to magically appear in their pockets without having to work for it, too.  [He shot me another “look”.  We’d had this conversation before]

You’re missing the point.

…the point being that you “don’t wanna”.  No, I get that.  Isn’t there “early voting” in this state? [We live in Illinois, and I could swear we’re an “early voting” state]  I think there is.  Check into it.

That’s also not the same thing.

[I laughed at him].  Except for being wrong, you’re exactly right.  What part of “early voting”, which is done by mail, doesn’t qualify as “vote by mail”?

[He glared at me]

You tell your local election people, “Hey, I wanna vote early!” and they send you a ballot, you fill it out, have it notarized, and you mail it back in.  You just voted by mail.  No real reason is needed.

Not everyone can do that, though. It’s not fair.

You mean the people who don’t live in “early voting” states?

Even if you do, it’s not fair.

How can it not be ‘fair’?  It’s exactly what you say you want.

No it isn’t.  You still have to prove who you are.

This isn’t fair?

No, it’s not.

To whom?

To people who don’t have ID, for one…

Who doesn’t have ID?

LOTSA people!  Not everyone drives, you know.  Some people are too poor to have cars.

Oh, right, poor people.  Are these poor people on ‘welfare’? Medicaid?

Yeah…

Both ‘welfare’ and Medicaid provide ID cards.  I believe the ID card for Medicaid is a photo ID, as well.

You’re missing the point.

You mentioned that before, and no I’m not.  You are objecting to having the ballot notarized.

Of course.

Not having a ballot notarized would allow someone − like me, perhaps − to request a dozen ballots to the same address, under different names.  The election people don’t know who lives with me.  Hey!  We’re a commune!  Almost everywhere in the US has mail-in voter registration.  I can just make up a dozen different names of my fellow commune-ists, register them all to vote, and then request early voting ballots for each of them.  Because I don’t have to prove who I am before mailing them in, I get to vote a dozen times.

[He glared at me again]

Do you want this libertarian to be voting twelve times against your candidate?  Would that be fair?

[Silence]

Oh, and, hey!  The folks in Hong Kong are actually quite libertarian as well what with their anti-Chinese Communism protests and whatnot.  I could just sneak a dozen of them into the country to come live with me.  They could register to vote by mail, and since they don’t have to prove they’re allowed to vote they could vote libertarian by mail as well.  Would THIS be fair?

[He rolled his eyes at me]

Or do you only want people who’d vote like you to be able to do this?

[He walked away]

[I think I understood his point]