Democracy is based on willingness to accept defeat. If political combatants refuse to concede when they lose but instead resort to violence, or claim the election was stolen when they have no proof, democracy itself is at risk. Republicans, at the behest of a little man with a fragile ego who can’t accept that he lost an election, having been baselessly screaming fraud since 2020. They are getting ready to do it again this year. It has to stop.
Republicans went to court over 60 times after the 2020 election alleging fraud. They lost every time. Numerous nonpartisan investigations have found zero evidence of fraud. But still the Big Lie continues. Even Washington state Republicans absurdly claim elections they lose by hundreds of thousands of votes are somehow rigged.
American elections are not perfect; nothing built by human hands is. Every election there are going to be a very, very small number of mistakes made. But there is zero evidence – ZERO – indicating that any election results have been changed due to voter fraud. If you actual understand how elections are conducted, you will see how implausible voter fraud is today.
I have seen elections up close and personal. I have observed ballot counting and signature verification numerous times as a campaign staffer and a party chairman. As a King County Councilmember I served more than once on the Canvassing Board, the ad hoc body that oversees the election in each county and certifies the results. And in 2004, as Chairman of the Washington state Republican Party, I was intimately involved in one of the closest elections in American history. More on that later.
Let’s walk through the process. First, to register to vote you must provide proof of age, identity and residency. In most cases that means presenting a driver’s license or Social Security number. States regularly audit and update their voter rolls.
Before every election, counties, the level of government that actually conducts American elections, performs a Logic and Accuracy test, in the presence of observers from both parties, to ensure the tabulation equipment is working properly.
Only those registered to vote are allowed to vote at the polls or receive a ballot in the mail. Mail in ballots are scanned, and the signature on the envelope verified, before the ballot is counted. Provisional ballots, challenged ballots, and damaged ballots or ballots not properly filled out are reviewed by the county canvassing board.
All of this is required by law. Both political parties are allowed to observe every step of the process. Again, the system isn’t perfect, but large-scale fraud on a scale that could change tens of thousands of votes is virtually impossible.
But what about elections that are decided by very narrow margins? I have some experience there.
In 2004, when I was state party chairman, after all the votes were counted in the race for governor, Republican State Senator Dino Ross led Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire by 261 votes out of 2.8 million votes cast, one of the closest elections in American history. The mandatory machine recount resulted in Rossi winning by 42 votes! Democrats refused to concede and raised the money to pay for a hand recount. Democrats learned that hundreds of absentee ballots had been rejected in the first two counts due to signature issues and went to court to add those ballots to the count. The State Supreme Court ruled for the Democrats, the ballots were counted, and on December 30 Gregoire was certified the winner by 129 votes.
In 2020 Donald Trump tried to gin up an election controversy. It was all a phony lie. The Rossi-Gregoire election was the real thing. The closest margin in the 2020 presidential election was in Arizona where Trump lost by just over 10,000 votes, roughly 100 times the margin in Rossi-Gregoire.
Our lawyers were certain we had a very strong case for an election challenge, so we went to court. We scrutinized that election for months and never found evidence of organized fraud. What we did find were enough errors and illegally cast ballots to prove that it was impossible to know who had actually won an election decided by .00005% of the vote. We asked the judge to order a new election. On June 6, 2005, the judge ruled that mistakes had been made and that illegal votes had been cast, but state law did not permit him to order a new election. Dino Rossi conceded that day.
We went to court with a legitimate case. We lost. And we conceded the election. That is how our system must work. Contrast that with the MAGA insurrection of 2020 and the ongoing Big Lie.
If my fellow Republicans truly believe there is enough fraud out there to defeat all the safeguards in our election system and alter large numbers of votes, I would say this: prove it. Put up or shut up. It is time to put country before party and stop undermining the foundation of our democracy.
Discover more from Post Alley
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Show us the evidence!” they demand, while withholding the full raw data which would be needed.
As for registration, in Washington State, registering to vote only requires -attesting- to U.S. citizenship, age (18+), and residency, under penalty of perjury. Online/in-person registration typically uses a WA driver’s license/ID number or the last 4 digits of a SSN. No documentary proof of citizenship is required at registration (mere self-attestation suffices), though ID or SSN helps verify identity. Mail registration has similar rules. And there was a huge backdoor cyber-hole in the WA “motor voter” system, as covered in the news recently.
With respect to the recent LA elections, there are documented cases of activists paying people to vote — a woman literally just pled guilty in LA for doing so.
Further, the “witness attestation” only requires a signature of a witness, and no check is done to confirm that the witness is actually a real person and that the “attested” vote actually corresponds to the vote the voter intended to cast. It would be very helpful for CA and WA and other vote-by-mail states to report the actual number of ballots cast by attestation, but guess what — no such data are reported. (The natural rate of this should be about 0.1%-0.4% of all votes. Is it substantially bigger than that? We don’t know, because officials don’t report this information.)
It’s all on the honor system, subject to prosecution for perjury. But how many such prosecutions have happened? In the past decade, zero. So, like jaywalking, evidence of lack of prosecution cannot be used as evidence that it never happens.
Personally I think Biden was truly elected President, and we have no concrete evidence that CA or WA’s vote was skewed by ballot harvesting enough to matter. But that’s because we do not have the data we need to know for sure. The only honest answer is, we do not know.
What raw data do you need that you don’t have access to?
How many votes are cast by “witness attestation” — let’s start there.
Neither WA nor CA report this information. The naturally expected organic rate for honest elections would be 0.1-0.4% of votes, since this accommodation is narrowly focused for those who know for whom they’d like to vote, but physically cannot cast it.
So, what is the total number of votes being cast this way? We literally have no idea. We don’t know, and the WA Secretary of State has explicitly denied reporting this number.
I have never heard of votes cast by “witness attestation.” What is that?
A lot of discussion focuses on the signature verification systems in vote-by-mail CA and WA (which look for 40% match in CA), but little attention is paid to an even weaker link: witness attestation.
Both states have (ostensibly) well-intentioned systems to accommodate those with physical accessibility issues. In California, a vote is considered valid if there is an “X” on the signature line and a “witness” scribble attests that the ballot contained in the envelope represents that voter’s vote. (See reference below.)
Those “witness attested” votes are considered valid and the envelope is forever separated from the ballot… and the completed ballot goes on for processing. All of this depends upon a trust that the “witness” really is representing the voter.
Now, like a lot of Progressive things, if you assume that everyone is honest and well-intentioned, it works fine. And in that world, the number of witness-attested votes should roughly correspond to the number of people with physical disability that (a) allows cognitive choice but (b) not the physical encoding of it on a ballot — e.g., blind, paralyzed, etc. The natural expected rate is about 0.1%-0.4% in the population.
But is a MAJOR area of vulnerability exploitable by bad actors, because the only thing preventing a bad actor from casting votes this way (assuming they have ballots) is to mark an X and then scribble on the witness line. One or more NGO’s, say, which act as points of ballot-delivery could theoretically use this exploit without the underlying voter’s knowledge at all. (Note: as with computer security vulnerabilities, this is meant to be a HYPOTHETICAL description for explanatory purposes. I am not making an accusation.)
The only deterrence to this — and I literally mean the only one — is the threat of felony prosecution (don’t do this, it’s a felony.) But guess what? Precisely zero such prosecutions have occurred in the last decade in either WA or CA. Like jaywalking, lack of prosecution doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur.
Worse, we do not know how much it occurs. We could be much more assured if it’s being exploited by simply getting the count of votes handed in by witness attestation. Add in the “print your ballot at home,” and it’s another surface area of concern.
Again — and this seems to be misinterpreted often — I am not alleging fraud has occurred at enough scale to matter. But the only honest answer is, we don’t know, and the Secretaries of State could do a world of good by releasing the counts of number of ballots cast by witness attestation. That at least would either comfort us that it’s not yet been exploited (if 0.1%-0.4% of ballots) or might indicate a potential problem if higher. They can do this without releasing any personally identifiable information.
Ref: https://www.disabilityrightsca.org/publications/you-can-vote-even-if-you-cant-sign-your-name
Interesting. But it appears we don’t use that system in WA. https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/voter-eligibility-resources/voters-disabilities
It’s important to note that the ballot still only goes to someone registered to vote.
The only way this could be exploited to create large number of illegal votes would be to fraudulently register lots of people. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people. That would be easy to detect and prevent.
What solutions are you proposing that don’t require us to stand in line to vote? Which state’s system is best? Voting should be convenient and easy, but also secure. Most people I know are 100% behind effective election administration and open to change.
And yah, time to put up: “just asking questions” have been used to cast doubt and undermine trust. A few incidents here and there is not a basis to upend the whole system.
“Just asking questions” led to uncovering massive fraud in Minnesota which we were frequently assured was no big deal. “Just asking questions” helped us better understand that COVID probably did not, in fact, originate spontaneously at a wet market in Wuhan, but rather from lab origin. “Just asking questions” is at the heart of investigative journalism, the legal system, and any process that involves securing things.
The first thing we can do is use words carefully. There is an HYPOTHESIS that ballot harvesting, combined with very loose (essentially nonexistent) checks on witness signatures — could enable bad actors to submit fraudulent ballots. Is this a significant issue, or is it not? The honest answer is, we do not know. But what we CAN know is the number of ballots returned with witness attestation — i.e., simply count up the number of ballot envelopes containing a witness signature. In an honest election, this should only be used when someone is physically unable to complete the ballot, and the natural, organic rate one would expect is about 0.1%-0.4% of all ballots returned. So, what’s the number? Shouldn’t we know? What possible downside is there to revealing it?
Yet neither WA nor CA report this number. Why not?
Here’s another one. California also allows “print-at-home” ballots:
https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/remote-accessible-vote-mail
Most modern printers have secret watermark signatures (Machine Identification Codes, or MICs.)
So as another metric, it would also be useful to know, of the print-at-home-ballots, how many unique printers were used? In the age of AI optical recognition, this should be very, very inexpensive to find out.
I am not alleging fraud in any way. I am a computer science person, and simply looking at this as a cybersecurity person might: What are the vulnerabilities, what evidence is there that it’s being used (or not), and how can we use relatively inexpensive checks to assure the public, or investigate further.
There are other metrics that might be useful as well, but these are a couple of practical examples.
As to “paying people to vote” in LA, here’s how Gemini corrects the statement:
https://g.co/gemini/share/5b8a70ab7ecf
Yes, my shorthand was imprecise. A California woman was recently charged with paying hundreds of people to REGISTER to vote, and pled guilty to doing so. No need to rely upon Gemini, here’s the story:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/california-woman-federally-charged-paying-individuals-including-homeless-people-las-skid-row
She pled guilty:
https://kesq.com/news/california/2026/06/08/laco-woman-pleads-guilty-to-paying-people-in-skid-row-to-vote/
This is precisely why getting to know the total count of ballots signed by witness attestation would be great to know. Because that loophole is gigantic, and it would allow a bad actor to effectively fill out ballots on “behalf” of essentially anyone. While it is a felony to do so, literally no prosecutions have been made.
Thanks Chris for providing the details on how well the election and voting system works. It’s good to learn of your real on the ground experience with the system. Great description of the close Gubernatorial election in ‘04.
It is sad to see the Wa GOP as currently configured using false declarations of voter fraud. Many county auditors and election managers have walked them through the process and shown the raw data of voter registration. Yet they continue to misinform and misrepresent. It undermines their own causes and of course questions the veracity of their electoral victories.
Chris, really appreciate you modeling good faith civic participation for all of us (especially Steve Murch lol). I’m an exhausted Dem looking for a showing of basic reasonableness and willingness to abide by the rules of the game. How sad that your statement is somewhat radical today! Keep it up.
I don’t quite understand. Do you think the best approach to security — be it bank security, national security, computer security, or airport security… is to just say “hey the authorities say it’s totally secure, so no matter what I’m spotting here with this vulnerability… it’s got to be secure?”
Or is the better thing to objectively measure whether the vulnerability is actually being exploited and take corrective action?
I’m not alleging fraud. I am, however, pointing out very clearly that there are vulnerabilities AND that we don’t have enough data to know whether these vulnerabilities are being exploited, or to what extent. I’m sorry if that sounds crazy, but I’m not hearing any cogent retort to the witness-attestation concern, for instance. Witness signatures are not matched in any way, and there have been no prosecutions for the related felony in more than a decade in either CA or WA. So, just… trust it?
Trump and his supporters are not asking questions. They are flat out claiming that Republicans lose elections because of fraud. There is no proof of that.
In regards to your questions I don’t understand what you are asking. What is witness attestation voting?
Chris, you write elsewhere above (in a comment leaf that WordPress won’t let me reply to for some technical reason) that WA doesn’t use the same ballot witness procedure as CA.
Yes, we do. The only difference is that it requires two “witnesses,” not one. And the Secretary of State’s own manual says that witness signatures are NOT verified.
Imagine how secure your iPhone would be if it let anyone in by scribbling and X and two random scribbles for “witnesses” that are not checked. It sounds crazy, but that’s actually how it works for witness attested ballots.
So at a minimum, we should know how many such ballot envelopes anrrive that way. Because it totally circumvents the traditional voter signature matching.
I know this may be surprising to many, but it’s true. The only (and I mean the only) deterrent is that it’s a felony. But no such prosecutions have taken place in either CA or WA in the last decade. And we don’t know how many such ballot envelopes are returned this way. And people have issued PDCs/FOIAs to find out, and the SoS has said they do not track this info and will not respond to that request.
Shocked? I was too.
See this excerpt screenshot from the WA SoS guidelines manual:
https://x.com/mistralcomet/status/1631066889081200640?s=46
Again, this is interesting, but it is not significant evidence of fraud or even possible or potential fraud.
Ballots only go to those registered to vote. That’s the key here.
And A few people may cast ballots improperly for a disabled person, just like a few ballots are always cast for those who have recently died. But not nearly enough to change any results.
I want Republicans to stop saying Democrats win due to fraud. That’s my point here.
If you don’t see the data you need, request it from the agencies themselves, both states have robust public disclosure laws. Otherwise, you are free to witness vote counts, participate in vote oversight groups— I found the information quite easily at King County’s website.
There won’t always be the report you want or need at your fingertips, but that doesn’t mean anything nefarious is going on. Public trust is in short supply and we must handle it carefully. I encourage you to get more involved with your elections agency with your passion for security. Everyone is a keyboard warrior, nobody wants to show up in real life and do the work.
The Secretaries of State in both CA and WA have explicitly said they do not collect this information. They have also been asked by PDC/FOIA to provide it as recently as 2023, and have refused.
https://x.com/kristenmag/status/2065504121470521610?s=46
Steve Murch…
You keep “just asking questions” like Trump did about Obama’s place of birth.
But ok, you certainly raise a fair point:
“…the Secretaries of State could do a world of good by releasing the counts of number of ballots cast by witness attestation.”
Have you asked either Secretary? Presumably in the form of a freedom of information request?… Sure I’d be curious to find out the answer of “how many” and whatever other data is available such as ZIP Code.
Yes, a public data records request was asked several years ago. The Secretary of State said such data is not collected and not available. (See screenshot linked below)
Now what? Just trust that everything’s fine? Scold and mock people who bring it up until they don’t anymore?
See screenshot below from the State:
https://x.com/kristenmag/status/2064489663554068674?s=46
I’m 100% open to improving our ballot system. I’m not sure the report you want will give you the answers you are seeking, or even convince you there is nothing wrong, but hey, file an initiative or find a sponsor in the legislature to back you and I’d consider supporting it. Again, if you see a “best practices” state or country we should emulate, do share. We must find a system that balances access with security.
Meanwhile, it seems the USPS is developing a rule related to delivery of ballots to or from voters in so-called sanctuary states, which would disenfranchise all of WA, OR and other places that mail in ballots. Perhaps, as promised last election season, the voting has “been fixed” and we won’t need to worry about the voting at all anymore.
“Regarding your first request item for ‘total number of ballot envelopes that used the two-witness option’, we do not track this data point. There are no reports or statistics available for the information you are requesting and we do not have any responsive records for this request item”
– The Elections Project Manager, Department of Elections
for the Secretary of State of Washington
in response to legal PDC/FOIA request, 2023
https://x.com/stevemur/status/2065691512109998551?s=20
And Chris, you write “The only way this could be exploited to create large number of illegal votes would be to fraudulently register lots of people. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people.”
What, precisely, do you think NGOs which help the homeless and immigrants do? I’m not trying to be provocative… but I’ve volunteered in the past with organizations that do each of these things, and I can tell you — voter registration is part of it. I am not alleging fraud — but I am saying, there is clear vulnerability here, if you do this for years and years and years.
So you think charitable organizations are creating lots and lots of fake voters. How exactly would they do that?
I am saying we do not have enough information to know.
The reality is, aggressive ballot harvesting, witness attested ballots, print at home ballots, motor voter automatic registration (and back door cybersecurity holes) and same day registration all open vulnerabilities to misuse. It is noteworthy the degree of swing between in person and late vote, and the fact that the swing is always toward those candidates who most favor amping-up NGO handouts.
I wish the Secretary of States took these issues more seriously and published enough data to disprove these hypotheses once and for all.
Democrats cheat ‘fair and square’ but, if they ever want us to respect election outcomes, they will need to be onboard with free, fair, and honest election processes.
“Democrats cheat…”
Prove it. Prove it or stop saying it.
It is remarkable how this article’s string went from Chris Vance’s suggestion to move on from voter fraud to Steve’s acquiescence to that of “clear vulnerability.”
The focus became the defensive picking of unsubstantiated voter fraud crumbs.
Realistically, the election was probably accurate, not perfect, and yes, there may have been a modicum of voter fraud. To think otherwise is naive. American society has bad actors and fraudulent citizens who ignore rules and disrespect statutory law and process. Statistically nothing is 100 percent true, except for birth and death. So, it is unrealistic to think the voting system is a perfect electoral method.
The metamessage here is Democrats and Republicans need to work together to improve the democratic process of voting. It is essential all participants make voting respected, ethical, morally sound, efficient, and fiscally responsible. It’s the only system that exists currently, and unquestionably it can be improved.
Voting is a right for all concerned legal citizens. It is a constitutionally created warrant that deems all Americans have a say in the political arena as to how America moves forward into its future. Sadly, the discourse above has concentrated on disparate tribal stone throwing and Presidential accusation, not on listening to rational voices who wish to move on and make voting smarter, equitable, nonpartisan, unbiased, fair, and trustworthy.
Chris, Steve, it appears to me each of you want the same thing…
“For the people, by the people” ~Abraham Lincoln
Translation… So that American citizens do not forget that a democratic government is created for, and operated by, the people, legal citizens, to serve their interests and participate in their country’s governance.
From a Canadian observer who also lives under the umbrella of a democratic government. I wish both party’s a sane November mid-term election, where common sense prevails, and the voices of the people are heard above the disingenuous rhetoric of self-serving others.
Yes, I very much want increased trust in elections.
And just as I’m tired of those saying that elections were stolen or that presidents weren’t/aren’t legitimate (Trump has done this, Hillary Clinton has done this and others…) — I am also tired of those who either ignore, or are ignorant of, major vulnerabilities in the CA and WA vote-by-mail processes. A secure and trustworthy system stands up to questions and tracks and releases data so that people can be more assured. It doesn’t just yell at people asking legitimate questions and pointing out serious flaws.
I’d like the voting system and data-sharing improved, and I’d like the Secretary of State to start tracking and releasing information which would disprove hypotheses. That they are NOT doing so (even when doing so would not in any way compromise personal information), adds to the concern.
(And I too am a Canadian citizen; a dual-citizen actually writing this from Vancouver BC at the moment.)