According to the letter sent by [Bikers for Trump leader] Cox’s lawyer Derek A. Schwartz, while outside the Broward Supervisor of Elections main office, Cox and other members of Bikers for Trump learned of twelve colored plastic zip tie tags that were each stamped with a seven digit serial code.What's of interest to me is the specificity of the claim. Assuming GP is accurately reporting a real letter, then the claims being made are quite actionable. There should be a list of serial numbered tags assigned to various sites, so it should be possible to determine relatively quickly whether tags with those numbers were in fact assigned to this county.
“The tags were discovered by other citizens on the ground near the loading dock area outside the BSOE building,” the letter explains. He then went on to provide the serial numbers and the color of the tags.
“It is my client’s understanding and belief that these tags may have been used by the BSOE to secure and seal ballot boxes and/or bags on the night of the election prior to transporting the ballots to the BSOE office. Based on where these tags were found, my client believes these tags were likely illegally removed from the ballot boxes and bags prior to being delivered to the BSOE’s office,” the letter continues.
Schwartz goes on to state that “if these tags were used to seal ballot boxes and bags and improperly removed, then the chain of custody of the ballots in the boxes and bags was broken and the ballots were subject to tampering and manipulation.”
It goes on to request that Bondi’s office immediately determine if any of the tags were used to secure ballot containers, that they find out who removed them, as well as who authorized the removal. The letter additionally requests information about how many ballots were related to the tags, what the serial numbers correspond with and which polling locations they came from.
“My client believes that each ballot box or bag can hold up to 2,500 ballots. Based on having 15 tags, that could mean that approximately 37,500 ballots have been tampered with,” the letter states.
If it's a completely false report, that should also be immediately obvious to prosecutors.
There's middle ground, I guess, where you could have taken note of the tags used on election day, and then made up a report about having found those tags in the loading dock area. Then the prosecutors would quickly discover that the tag numbers were legitimate, but might find that tags corresponding to those numbers were accounted for at the end facility. Then you'd have a big problem, as you'd have to try to investigate a false theory that fake tags had replaced the real tags, and that would be impossible to disprove. It's the kind of thing that could ground a conspiracy theory that the election was stolen.
Of course, it could be true that there's a ploy to counterfeit these tags. The fact that you couldn't prove it wasn't true wouldn't prove that it was, but you might possibly prove that it really was true. Then people should be going to prison.
Well, keep an ear out, and remember the source.
UPDATE: Some of you have been suggesting that Florida needs a Battle of Athens moment. It occurs to me that there are some similarities in having Bikers for Trump staking out this voting area.
By the way, the Washington Times has confirmed the story, and has a photo of the tags.
I worked the election (Both EV and Day) in Texas. You say "There should be a list of serial numbered tags assigned to various sites, so it should be possible to determine relatively quickly whether tags with those numbers were in fact assigned to this county. "
ReplyDeleteI confirm this is true in TX. (Obviously I can't say for Florida) It is also true that ballots have serial numbers, are counted, and accounted for. They are "shuffled" when issued to voters to keep from tracking what voter voted what candidates. But it's clear that the election authorities should know how many possible ballots are out there.
Early voting presents a huge risk on this score. Say a particular ballot style supports overlapping intersectional jurisdictions -- a small part of a city served by another city's school board, for instance. Perhaps only 100 voters reside in that section of town. 100 ballots are printed in that style -- for each of the Early Voting sites. Typically 5 to 10 percent of the eligible voters turn out, and even the recent massing turn out was only about 30 percent -- so 30 of the 100 possible. Say half voted early. These 15 votes, distributed across 5 to 10 polling places, so actual "votes" were cast but 500 to 1000 ballots for that style went un-used. In my county in this recent EV election, we were keeping track of nearly 70 ballot styles. It nevertheless is possible (and accomplished) to see which serial numbers of what style are issued to each polling site. IF a bunch of EV ballots were stolen from site A, held until after the first count, marked to throw a down ballot race (the other way) by a few votes, and introduced at HQ or some other site B during the "recount" -- it could be detected. If anyone bothered to look.
There is a procedure to essentially "Endorse" ballots -- polling place judge initials a "blank" ballot before issue to a voter -- to distinguish un-used and un-issued ballots from valid voted ballots. In practice and as part of the shuffling and anonymizing process, more ballots are endorsed than are issued.
It would be possible to lay hands on a bunch of blank ballots, forge a judge's initials, and create fraudulent voted ballots. But it would not be trivial to do so, and it would almost certainly be noticed. It would NOT be feasible to distinguish fraudulent votes from legitimate ones. Fraud can be proven but not that the results are affected, except by inference from the change in outcomes.