Local elections have always been the rational target of fraud. It doesn't require coordinating an interstate cabal. Let's assume that these same people were also manipulating the national election. They would have accomplished nothing with their hundreds of ballots.
Since we can see these guys were caught, and that one-off fraudulent votes have been caught, is it logical to believe that widespread fraud has flipped national elections. I'll grant you, Florida 2000 would be such an exceptional possible case, but I don't see how a plot could know in advance they could change things just a little bit.
As to why these guys were willing to risk up to 10 years of prison, that argues to the idea that they thought fraud would be easy.
Let's look how they were caught. Massive amounts of signature rejection that raised flags. Bundled ballots mailed together.
The second one probably could have been avoided by a more clever cabal. One could imagine them being invested enough to wander from one mailbox to another in every neighborhood. It's not impractical.
The first one is highly problematic. Where would one get thousands of representative signatures with which to commit fraud?
The one-off frauds of Republicans easily could be replicated by Democrats. Sending in a vote on behalf of your dead spouse is a lot easier to forge. It also doesn't matter. That's not the kind of fraud we need to be terrified by. Maybe the Democrats just haven't been found yet.
heritage databaseYou'll find plenty of one off examples here, some of which are Democrats.
In Philadelphia in 2020, there were 3 republicans and 1 democrat.
Why is it important to understand that Republicans and Democrats do it? Because if there are roughly equal amounts of fraud, there is no change to election results.
Here's another anecdote:
Domenick Demuro, a Judge of Elections in Philadelphia and a Democratic ward leader, accepted bribes to add fraudulent ballots to voting machines and falsely certify election results for certain Democrat candidates in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections. According to the DOJ press release, Demuro “admitted that a local political consultant gave him directions and paid him money to add votes for candidates supported by the consultant, including candidates for judicial office whose campaigns actually hired the consultant, and other candidates for various federal, state and local elective offices preferred by that consultant for a variety of reasons.” Demuro pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to deprive Philadelphia voters of their civil rights and one violation of the Hatch act. He will be sentenced on July 20, 2021.
I'm sure there are more schemes to cheat local elections by finding one or two key individuals to corrupt. Isn't it telling that there aren't such examples of individuals scheming to sway statewide elections?
What was his mechanism?
“Demuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear.
Now I wonder which of the repressive republican voting bills will address such a case?
