Op-Ed: What Would a System for Massive Election Fraud Look Like?

In the movie 2000 Mules, Dinesh D’Souza and the organization True the Vote exposed over 2000 ballot mules that transported illegal ballots from “stash houses” to drop boxes across multiple states.   Although the movie exposed a massive system of election fraud, the movie was mostly silent about the stash houses and the infrastructure that would be required to manufacture and coordinate hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots.  This Op-Ed is a thought exercise that attempts to reverse engineer the system that supplied the 2000 mules their ballots, and more importantly determine how to defeat it.

Videos of the “ballot mules” exposed in the movie showed they were careful to stuff only 3 to 5 ballots at a time into each drop box.  Day after day the ballot mules made “milk runs” to ballot drop boxes from multiple stash houses as they deliberately sprinkled illegal ballots across cities in the battleground states.  Why were the mules so careful to stuff only a few ballots per drop box over a long period of time?   Why would the mules make a milk run to multiple drop boxes when it would be easier to simply stuff all the ballots in the first drop box they came to?  The reason is that whoever was paying the mules to distribute ballots did not want to create statistical anomalies that would draw attention to their fraud.

Stuffing ballot drop boxes while avoiding statistical anomalies is easier said than done.  Large dumps of ballots in any particular drop box would no doubt raise suspicion, but ballots must also be stuffed at uniform rates over time and also be structured to avoid large differences in voter participation by precinct.  Voter participation rates by age are also well known, so any ballot stuffing scheme would also need to account for the age of the voter whose registration was being hijacking.  These are just a few of the multitude of ways statisticians can slice and dice vote data for anomalies.  Could multiple stash houses working independently accomplish this delicate task of stuffing drop boxes with illegal ballots while avoiding statistical anomalies?  No way.  A “central planner” would be required to coordinate the ballot stuffing across the multiple stash houses supplying the illegal ballots to thousands of ballot mules.  The central planner would no doubt have created software with complex ballot stuffing algorithms that use detailed voter information as well as have access to real time vote data on the current election.

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Now that we are beginning to see the components of this hypothetical system for supplying illegal ballots to the thousands of ballot mules exposed in Dinesh D’Souza’s movie, let’s take a closer look at the operation of the stash houses, where the real ballot stuffing magic happens.  Although not addressed in the movie, the ballot stash houses must be doing the heavy lifting of turning blank ballots into votes, and in some cases re-stuffing mail-in/absentee ballots to flip the votes of valid voters.  The stash houses would need three things to operate, a dependable supply of ballots, directions from a “central planner” about which ballots to stuff and where to drop them, and the means to get them to the ballot box.

In many states, mass mail-in balloting has given the stash houses a plentiful supply of ballots.  Mass mailing of these ballots puts millions of ballots into the public space.  These ballots can be stolen from mail boxes, elderly care facilities, etc. and then supplied to the stash houses; but would this supply be dependable enough to supply the massive system exposed in 2000 Mules?  Probably not.  I believe a supply reliable enough to make the system work would need to come directly from the USPS, and more specifically their regional processing centers.  Compared to your local post office, there are relatively few of these regional mail sorting centers.  They are perfect “choke points” for mail-in ballots and it would take relatively few people working in these centers to have access to every mail-in ballot in an entire state.  How easy it would be to spirit boxes of ballots from a USPS mail processing center to stash houses to be processed and stuffed.  These centers would be the reliable and continuous supply of ballots needed for stash houses to successfully stuff ballots while avoiding statistical anomalies.

If “stash houses” are where the ballot stuffing magic happens, the “central planners” are the brains of the system.  There is no way independently operated stash houses could stuff ballots without creating major statistical anomalies.  The central planners must have access to enormous amounts of data to direct the stash houses on which voter registrations to hijack, who to vote for, and how many illegal ballots to create .  Which voter registrations to hijack would require access to voter rolls, voting history, and knowledge of phantom registrations safe to use.  It may even require profiles of voters (conservative or liberal) to determine which mail-in/absentee votes to flip, and which ones to let proceed unmolested through the system.  Who to vote for is determined by whoever the system is working on behalf of.  Determining how many votes to manufacture would require extrapolating from real time access to early voting data most likely being supplied by networked electronic voting machines.

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What would a day in the life of this hypothetical election fraud system look like?

Imagine that it is half way through the absentee/early voting period in battleground state USA.  Vinny is working the evening shift at the USPS regional processing center.  He has been directed to load up that day’s ballots which includes several boxes of “outgoing” blank mail-in ballots as well as a few boxes of “inbound” ballots that have already been filled in by valid voters.  He meets a non-descript van at the loading dock.  Before that day’s ballots can be loaded, Vinny must help the van driver Guido unload several boxes of ballots coming back from the stash houses.  There are a few boxes less than Vinny loaded up the night before, but Vinny is being paid well and doesn’t ask about the missing ballots.  He just loads the van with that day’s ballots and places the ballots that were just unloaded back into the mail system for processing.  Little does Vinny know that many of the ballots he unloaded have been re-stuffed with new ballots that flip the votes of people that mailed them.

At the first stash house Guido unloads several boxes of ballots.  Olivia is in charge of processing outgoing ballots and takes the boxes of blank ballots for processing.  Irene takes charge of the incoming ballots that have already been filled in by valid voters.  The girls load the ballots into hoppers connected to scanners that automatically scan the names and addresses on each envelope.  The lists of names and addresses are sent electronically to the “central planner”.   These names are placed into the planner’s complex software program where algorithms check them against the voter roll data, precinct location, party affiliation, Facebook’s political rating, voter history, etc.  The software algorithms also have real time early voting data from networked electronic voting machines and uses this information to extrapolate how many votes are needed on this day from this stash house. The extrapolated number of votes is also adjusted for the number of days left to stuff ballots prior to the election. Names are selected from the outgoing list (blank ballots) that are phantom registrations, dead voters, voters who have moved, etc.  Names are selected from the incoming list (ballots already filled in by valid voters) based on the voter’s predicted voting behavior.  The ballots selected are from people whose expected votes need to be flipped.

In the end the central planner sends the stash house a list of names for the outgoing and incoming ballots with instructions by each name.  For outgoing ballots the instruction is how to vote that ballot and where to drop it.   These outgoing ballots are processed and then given to ballot mules to either be taken to selected drop boxes or to be mailed in.  For incoming ballots, the instruction is to heat the envelop open and replace the ballot with a new ballot that flips the votes for the targeted candidates.  Note that ballot re-stuffing is the perfect crime since these incoming ballots have a valid voters behind them with a valid signatures on the back of the envelopes.  Irene begins restuffing the incoming ballots per the central planner’s instructions and is amazed at how accurate the list she got back is.  Every vote is a flip!  Irene thinks to herself that Facebook’s political rating must be 100% accurate.

By morning the lists of outgoing ballots are stuffed and the list of incoming ballots are re-stuffed.  The stuffed outgoing ballots are given to ballot mules with precise instructions on which ballots to place in selected drop boxes, and which ballots to mail in.  The outgoing ballots not on the central planners list as well as the re-stuffed incoming ballots are set aside for Guido to deliver back the USPS regional processing center.  Every day until election day the process is repeated.  As time goes on the central planner refines the number of votes needed with new data from networked early voting machines.  Some of the processed ballots are held back at the stash house as insurance against election day voting producing an undesired outcome.  These ballots can be put in the drop boxes at the last minute just in case they are needed.

About now you are probably thinking to yourself “This Joseph Gish guy is simply a conspiracy nut!  If something this massive were going on, wouldn’t it be exposed by now?”  Perhaps, but the ballot mules in Dinesh D’Souza’s movie are real and they must be getting the massive amounts of ballots they are stuffing from someplace.  Ideally the FBI or states Attorneys General would be unmasking the mule’s geo-tracking IDs and interrogating them, investigating the stash houses, subpoenaing the phone records and internet data to uncover the system outlined above and then making arrests.  So far this has not happened, but that does not change the fact that we are in an information war and any war must have its war room to game scenarios.  Above is just one scenario that likely has some details wrong, but the major components of the infrastructure must exist or there would be no supply of ballots for the thousands of mules stuffing drop boxes.  Even if the details are wrong, what is described is technically and logistically feasible and understanding the components of this election fraud system will allow controls to be put in place to stop it if it does exist, or prevent it if it doesn’t.

Let’s pretend the system above exists exactly as described… what simple controls could be put in place to stop the systemic fraud?  The system above is complex and therefore fragile.  Disrupt any piece and the whole system is degraded or outright collapses.  Below is a list of simple changes to our current voting system that would defeat the massive election fraud system described above.

• Make the voter rolls as accurate as possible. Starve the system of voter registrations to hijack.
• Minimize mail in and early voting. Less voting prior to election day means less opportunity to manufacture or flip votes.  It also helps starve the central planner of the information needed to determine the number of ballots to stuff.
• Outlaw electronic voting machines capable of connecting to electronic networks. This will starve the central planner of real time vote information needed to determine the number of ballots to stuff.  Require the vote information on these machines to be “sneaker netted” via USB drive no earlier than the polls closing on election day.
• Serialize outgoing ballot envelops and require the post office to track each ballot envelop all the way to delivery to the voter. Remove the voter registrations associated with any undeliverable ballots.
• Require mail-in/absentee ballots to be returned in serialized tamperproof envelops. This would eliminate vote flipping of “inbound” ballots.
• Outlaw drop boxes, or at a minimum disqualify any ballot dropped in a drop box after midnight the day before election day. This would eliminate the last minute dumping of ballots when election day voting upsets the desired outcome.

Whether or not some or all of these changes are made in Idaho depends on we the citizens.  Unfortunately the luxury of trusting our society’s guardrails to ferret out corruption and hold election fraudsters accountable while we simply live our lives working and raising our families is gone.  As concerned citizens we must demand our politicians take election integrity seriously and legislate updates to Idaho State Statute that require implementation of the changes above.  This simply means citizens must communicate with their state senators and representatives and demand they take action.  Citizens in mass must follow election integrity bills as they go through the state House and Senate committees demanding these bills be brought to the floor for a vote.  Now is the time to get involved because our republic cannot survive if the citizens do not have confidence is our election system.

This Op-Ed was submitted by Joseph Gish. Note: Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.