By Robert Kroll and Rose M. Ray, PhD and poll worker
Anyone out there thinking of voting more than once at the upcoming General Election? Think again. The chances of getting away with it in the city of New York or any of its five boroughs are slim to none.
Firstly, no mailed or handed in ballots will be counted at the polling places. They go into a box inside an envelope with the voter’s signature on the outside of the envelope.
Vote-by-mail ballots are verified before they are counted, and one check is whether the voter already voted, according to the Associated Press.
The Associated Press also states: “all states have checks in place to avoid voters casting two votes. In some states, a poll worker may be able to void the mailed ballot if the voter prefers to vote in person. In other states, the voter may be given a provisional ballot and election officials will determine if the provisional ballot should be counted.” It’s not clear which of these procedures are followed in New York City.
Further, the AP provides this assurance from NYU: “States have different processes, they have their own ways of making sure that two ballots don’t get counted,” said Myrna Pérez, the director of voting rights and elections at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Voters who cast their ballots inside the booths of the polling place will have been checked against a list of people who have already voted early or at a polling place.
Absentee voters can track their ballot online using either the confirmation number on the ballot envelope or with personal information.
In other words, if you have a longing to be criminally prosecuted for voter fraud, which could be a felony that would void your future voting rights, go ahead and attempt to vote more than once. It could be your last opportunity to vote.
If there are any shenanigans committed in the upcoming election, it won’t be by individual fraudsters trying to up the vote count for their favored candidate. There are so many ways to “rig” an election and one of the political parties has exploited them assiduously in the past four national elections.
