Widespread Voter Fraud?

Noted political scientist and former Yolo County supervisor Matt Rexroad ruffled some feathers with an opinion piece he wrote for a local Sacramento newspaper expressing his opinion, after having been involved in elections for more than 30 years, that there is no widespread voter fraud happening, like stuffing ballot boxes. I’ve been asked if I believe President Trump when he says elections are rigged. I would say both are correct. Matt is right - there is no widespread voter fraud. But the election process has been constantly changing for the last 20 years:

• California expanded same-day registration so eligible voters could register and vote closer to Election Day.

• It adopted top two primaries, which let all voters participate in the same primary ballot for most state and federal offices.

• It created an independent citizens commission to draw political districts instead of leaving that job to politicians.

• It moved toward universal vote-by-mail, sending ballots to all registered voters.

• It added vote centers, ballot drop boxes, and earlier in-person voting options so people could vote in more ways and over a longer period.

• It also pushed some local elections onto statewide election dates to improve turnout.

• After we voted for an independent commission to draw districts, we had a statewide election to just draw some districts right before this election.

• Previously, it was a crime if you went door-to-door and gathered people’s ballots and put them in the mail for them. That is now legal. It’s called ballot harvesting.

Wait, there is more. The Supreme Court is deciding whether county clerks must count ballots that arrive late. If that’s not enough, someone just sued the Secretary of State to have more inactive voters purged from the voter rolls. I have worked with Dr. Shirley Weber, the California Secretary of State, and she is a woman of impeccable, unassailable 100% absolute integrity, and she’s also a competent administrator. She runs the office properly and legally, and she has been challenged more than once. That said, the number of changes to the methods we use to exercise democracy could make somebody feel like they’re in a game where the rules constantly change, not like “moving the goal post” but putting the goal post in the parking lot on a truck that drives around the stadium. There will be a lot of discussion of this topic in the next few months because it takes so long to count all the ballots. There used to be an election day, and results came in that night. Election day as a concept no longer exists, and election results will no longer come in on the date we start counting ballots. Changing the rules all the time may not be widespread voter fraud. Nonetheless, I don’t hold it against anyone who feels like elections are being manipulated. They have been changing the rules non-stop for two decades.