Ballots Archives - The Florida Capital Star

Election Results Likely to Be Delayed Nationwide by State Rules, Litigation, and Investigations

October 3, 2024 Just the News

Counting or certification of the November election results are likely to be delayed nationwide, as states are promulgating different rules on receiving mail ballots, ongoing and likely election litigation, and possible investigations over irregularities, warns an election integrity proponent.

As the 2020 election results were delayed until Joe Biden was announced the winner of the presidential race the Saturday after Election Day, there will likely also be a delay in announcing this year’s presidential contest. The delays this year could be the result of a variety of factors, especially with such a close election, according to Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead.

Commentary: Get Ready for Another Mail-In Ballot Fiasco

September 25, 2024 Daily Caller News Foundation

Many states are now sending out mail-in ballots for the November election.

Yet at the same time that so many more voters are depending on the mail to cast their ballots, the two leading national organizations of election officials wrote the U.S. Postal Service demanding immediate action to avoid confusion and chaos with mail-in ballots.

Commentary: Yet Another Democrat Vote Fraud Scheme Exposed

September 13, 2024 Admin

This week, former president Donald Trump noted the need for stronger border protections to stop illegal voting.

Commentary: Gen Z Should Not Be Fooled by Kamala’s Sudden Seriousness

September 13, 2024September 12, 2024 RealClearWire

After yanking Joe Biden off the ticket with a giant vaudeville cane, Kamala Harris has breathed new life into the Democratic party. Kamala opened her campaign with the “politics of joy,” replete with twerking rappers, sassy X clapbacks, and quirky Doritos videos.

Mail-In Voting Begins as First State Sends Out Ballots Weeks from Election Day

September 12, 2024 Daily Caller News Foundation

Alabama began sending out the first mail-in ballots to voters on Wednesday, over 50 days out from the November election, according to CNN.

Alabama residents who requested mail-in ballots will be the first to lock in their vote for the upcoming local, state and presidential races, with Wisconsin rolling out their mail-in ballots the following week on September 19, CNN reported. North Carolina was supposed to have kickstarted mail-in voting, but the state was held up by a court order to reprint their ballots after former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew from the race and appealed to have his name be taken off.

Election Red Flag: Postal Service Watchdog Warns Some Mailed Ballots May Be Delayed, Not Counted

August 4, 2024August 3, 2024 Just the News

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) failed to deliver political and election mail on time between 2% and 3% of the time during the 2024 primaries and the mail service’s chief watchdog warns in a new audit that some mailed ballots might be delayed or not counted in the November election because workers aren’t following required procedures.

“We found that Postal Service personnel did not always comply with policy and procedures regarding all clear certifications, Election and Political Mail logs, and audit checklists,” the Postal Service Inspector General warned in a report made public this week. “In addition, we identified processes and policies that could pose a risk of delays in the processing and delivery of Election and Political Mail.

Commentary: Alarming Number of Americans Open to Electoral Cheating

July 16, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

Based on all the accusations being hurled back and forth over the past eight years, if there’s one thing everyday Americans agree on, it’s the importance of maintaining faith in our elections.

Electoral integrity is a foundational block in our republic’s Jenga tower that, if pulled away, will topple it. Unfortunately, that may be just what a small but dangerous number of Americans are hoping for.

Ranked-Choice Voting Proves to Be Lightning Rod Issue in Several States

February 25, 2024 The Center Square

Bills to ban ranked-choice voting are causing passionate debate over a method to cast ballots that some say is fairer and some say is confusing and could lower voter turnout.

Ranked-choice voting allows people to rank the candidates, with “one” being their favorite. The votes are tallied in rounds. After the first round, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated. The voter’s second preference is then added to the tally. The process continues until a winner is determined.

Commentary: Post-Election Audits Should Be the Norm for Every State

January 7, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

I may be dating myself, but the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

We can get much more than an ounce’s worth of prevention by engaging in post-election process audits. It is much easier to fix process problems early before they blow up and become problems that require litigation and other nasty fixes. Ahead of the 2024 election, state legislatures should require full process audits to ensure transparency and build trust in our elections.

Federal Judge Rejects Bid to Remove Trump from West Virginia Ballot

December 23, 2023 Florida Capital Star Staff

A federal judge rejected a bid Thursday to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in West Virginia.

Obama-appointed District Judge Irene Berger ruled that John Anthony Castro, the little-known presidential candidate who brought the lawsuit to remove Trump, lacked standing to sue. The decision comes days after Colorado’s Supreme Court found Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, likely setting up Supreme Court review of the issue.

18 States, DC Accept Ballots after Election Day, with North Dakota’s Deadline Facing Lawsuit

July 14, 2023 Just the News

North Dakota is facing a lawsuit over its acceptance of mail-in ballots 13 days after Election Day and is among 18 states and Washington, D.C., that accept and tabulate ballots post-election.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday against North Dakota State Election Director Erika White, alleges that the state’s law to accept ballots up to 13 days after Election Day violates federal law.

Prominent Pollster Says Time for America to Mandate All Ballots Be Counted on Election Day

November 13, 2022November 12, 2022 Just the News

With states like Arizona, Nevada and Alaska taking days to determine midterm election results, influential pollster Scott Rasmussen says there is overwhelming support for America to mandate ballots be in and counted by Election Day.

“One of the 80% issues, and there aren’t a whole lot of 80% issues in America-one of them is that all ballots should be in by Election Day,” Scott Rasmussen said Wednesday night on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “We should know the results on Election Day.”

‘Free, Fair and Honest’: Former Trump Spokesperson Praises States’ New Election Laws

July 25, 2022July 24, 2022 Admin

Former Trump spokesperson Hogan Gidley praised seven states for protecting election integrity in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Seven states are being praised by the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Center For Election Integrity (CEI) in a new report for recent legislative efforts to prevent voter fraud. Hogan Gidley, director of the CEI, explained the importance of the report during an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Voters Increasingly Returning to In-Person Ballots over Mail

May 17, 2022May 16, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

In many states across the country, voters appear to be returning to in-person voting for their top preference, after vote-by-mail was greatly increased and heavily promoted during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Associated Press, many states, including key swing states, have seen massive drops in the number of requests for mail-in ballots. In Georgia, where nearly one million ballots were cast by mail in the primary elections in 2020, only about 85,000 voters have requested mail-in ballots for this year’s primary. Other states that saw similar declines include Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana.

Commentary: No More Ballots in the Wild

May 11, 2022May 10, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

When the French people voted for a new president in April, they did so on a single day using paper ballots filled out in the privacy of official polling stations. France, being a normal First World democracy, takes election security seriously. Electronic voting machines are virtually never used. Mail-in voting has been banned nationwide since 1975 out of security fears. Voter rolls are regularly purged of the dead and those who have moved. It is a given that every French voter must show identification before being allowed to fill out a ballot.

The United States, by contrast, is an oligarchy (a regime where the elite rules) that is only pretending to be a democracy. This is why we use a Third World banana republic election system.

Georgia Ballot Harvesting Probe Advances as State Elections Board Approves Subpoena

March 22, 2022 Admin

"VOTE ONE MORE TIME" sign on an electric pole in Atlanta, Georgia

The Georgia Elections Board has approved a subpoena to secure evidence and testimony in an ongoing investigation into whether third-party liberal activists illegally gathered thousands of absentee ballots in the 2020 general election and a subsequent runoff that determined Democrat control of the U.S. Senate.

The vote was a major win for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who announced the investigation into alleged ballot harvesting in January and was seeking the subpoena authority to assist the probe.

The subpoena power will allow Raffensperger’s team to secure evidence about a whistleblower who alleged to an election integrity group that he participated in a large operation to gather ballots in which activists were paid $10 for each ballot they delivered.

Texas Election Commissioner Resigns After 10,000 Uncounted Ballots Found in Last Week’s Primary

March 11, 2022March 10, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

The elections commissioner in Texas’ largest county has resigned after revelations that 10,000 ballots were not counted in the Houston area in last week’s primary election.

Arizona Senate Study Estimates 200K Ballots Counted in 2020 with Mismatched Signatures

March 1, 2022 Admin

Astudy of Maricopa County’s mail ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimates that more than 200,000 ballots with mismatched signatures were counted without being reviewed, or “cured” — more than eight times the 25,000 signature mismatches requiring curing acknowledged by the county.

Commissioned by the Arizona State Senate, the signature verification pilot study was conducted by Shiva Ayyadurai’s Election Systems Integrity Institute, which released its final report to the public on Tuesday. Ayyadurai is an engineer and entrpreneur with four degrees from MIT who bills himself as the inventor of email, a claim which critics have alleged is exaggerated.

Of the 1,911,918 early voting mail ballots that Maricopa County received and counted in the 2020 presidential election, the county reported that 25,000, or 1.3%, had signature mismatches that required curing, but only 587 (2.3%) of those were confirmed mismatched signatures.

Election Watchdog: ‘Not Ready for 2024’ Elections, ‘Still Have Many of the Same Problems’ from 2020

February 24, 2022 Admin

Election integrity issues from the 2020 presidential election have yet to be resolved, “so we are not ready for 2024,” Phill Kline, Director of the Amistad Project, warned on Monday.

Kline was asked by “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show cohosts John Solomon and Amanda Head if election integrity issues had been solved after the 2020 election. “No, we still have many of the same problems,” he replied, explaining that this is “because the legislatures have not taken the time to understand the problem.”

Republicans Move to Ban Federal Funds to States, Cities That Allow Non-Citizens to Vote

December 28, 2021December 27, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is leading a coalition of Republicans in Congress to sponsor legislation that would ban federal funding to states or localities that allow foreigners to vote in U.S. elections.

The new legislation, dubbed the Protecting Our Democracy by Preventing Foreign Citizens from Voting Act, was introduced after many liberal municipalities from San Francisco to New York have moved in 2021 to allow non-citizens to cast ballots in local elections

“It’s ridiculous that states are allowing foreign citizens to vote,” Rubio said. “However, if states and localities do let those who are not U.S. citizens to vote in elections, they shouldn’t get U.S. citizen taxpayer money.”

Federal Indictment Alleging Iranian Hack Further Erodes Narrative of Perfect 2020 Election

November 21, 2021 Admin

During the dizzying days after the November 2020 election, the Homeland Security cyber-security chief was fired by a frustrated President Donald Trump, then went on national TV to insist the election was fully secure.

“There was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before or after November 3,” ex-Cyber-Security and Infrastructure Agency Chief Chris Krebs declared on “60 Minutes.”

On Thursday, nearly a year later, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a dramatic indictment that conflicts with that clean bill of health.

Commentary: The Wall Street Journal’s Shabby Rebuttal of Trump Settles Nothing

November 3, 2021November 2, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

President Trump’s October 28 letter to the Wall Street Journal detailing some of his complaints about the 2020 election and the Journal’s editorial comment on it the following day clearly reveal the shortcomings of both sides of this argument. But the important thing to note is that there are two sides to the argument over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election result.

The prolonged and intensive effort in which the Wall Street Journal has eagerly participated, to suppress and throttle the merest suggestion of illegitimacy surrounding the 2020 election result, has failed. It has always been understandable why there would be a great body of opinion that would wish to suppress any consideration of the question. It is a sobering and demoralizing thing to imagine that the vastly important process of choosing the president of the United States could possibly be an erroneous or even a fraudulent process.

Push to Reverse Arizona Election Reform Laws Fails to Make Ballot

October 2, 2021October 1, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

An effort to reverse three recently enacted election integrity laws has failed.

Petitioners couldn’t collect the required signatures to put three questions on the 2022 general election ballot regarding whether to reverse three laws passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Ducey over the summer.

“We did not collect enough signatures to submit to the Secretary of State to stop SB1485, HB 2569 and SB 1819 by the deadline today, so the fight to protect voting rights will go on,” Arizona Deserves Better, who spearheaded the drive, said Tuesday.

Commentary: Fundamentally Transforming America

September 6, 2021September 5, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

That was the “composite character” David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, on the campaign back in 2008. By “we,” the composite character meant himself and running mate, Senator Joe Biden. In 2021, with the Delaware Democrat in the White House, an update on the transformation process is in order.

In 2008 the United States was already a democratic republic, in which the people had selected presidents as different as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. After FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society, the United States was already a top-heavy welfare state. Any fundamental transformation, therefore, would have to come through different channels.

Report: Wisconsin Lost Track of 82,000 Ballots in State Biden Won by 20,000

August 29, 2021August 28, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Wisconsin lost track of more than 82,000 mail-in ballots cast in the state in the November 2020 elections—more than four times the margin of difference separating the two presidential candidates in the state, according to a report by the nonprofit Public Interest Legal Foundation.

The legal foundation, an election integrity watchdog group, released a research brief Friday looking at one of the most closely contested states in the 2020 presidential election.

However, the Wisconsin Elections Commission disputes those findings, as the commission spokesman said the report “mischaracterizes election systems and cherry-picks data,” adding, it is “unreliable and frankly, it’s sloppy work.”

Commentary: Reject Federal Takeover of Elections – Again

August 24, 2021August 23, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

That is exactly how Americans must feel as they learn that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is trying to ram through another bill orchestrating a federal takeover of elections, despite the previous failed attempt in the Senate.

The bill, H.R. 4, is expected to come up in the House of Representatives this week, and it is stunning in its breadth. In short, Pelosi would give broad, sweeping powers to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to rewrite every state and local election law in the country.

Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano Initiates Forensic Investigation of 2020 Election

July 10, 2021July 9, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

The Pennsylvania state senator who led a hearing on election fraud in Gettysburg, PA, last November, has initiated a “full forensic investigation” into 2020 election results in several counties.

Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano said in a statement that as chair of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, that he has issued letters to several counties representing “different geographical regions of Pennsylvania and differing political makeups,” requesting “information and materials needed to conduct a forensic investigation of the 2020 General Election and the 2021 Primary.”

Commentary: What Americans Lost When We Abandoned the Secret Ballot

July 9, 2021July 8, 2021 RealClearWire

Person putting mail-in ballot in ballot return box

My father likes to say that the secret ballot means that he doesn’t have to listen when I tell him how I voted. This joke conceals a serious point: Ballot secrecy is not just a right of the individual but also a guarantee to all that my vote was not wrung from me by bribery or intimidation.

Out of a desire to make voting “easier” and perhaps exaggerated fears of public gatherings during the pandemic, most U.S. jurisdictions permitted unrestricted mail-in balloting in 2020. What did Americans lose when ballot secrecy was attenuated or vanished altogether?

Make no mistake, ballot secrecy is incompatible with secure mail-in balloting. At the polls, we each go into a little booth and make our choices in private. By contrast, no one knows where a mail-in ballot was filled out, or if a party or union activist hovered over the voter or even filled in the circles. Nobody knows what inducements, whether cash or threats, were offered to ensure that the person voted “correctly.” And if the ballot was “harvested” – turned in to the vote-counters by activists instead of by voters themselves – our suspicions deepen.

Commentary: Georgia Conducting Secret 2020 Ballot Review –– Keeping Plaintiffs in the Dark

June 23, 2021June 22, 2021 RealClearWire

After several Fulton County, Ga., poll monitors testified last year that boxes of mail-in ballots for Joe Biden looked liked they’d been run through a photocopy machine, state investigators quietly broke the seal on one suspicious box and inspected the hundreds of votes it contained for signs of fraud, RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively.

At the same time, a key whistleblower told RCI that state investigators pressured her to recant her story about what she and other poll monitors had observed — what they called unusually “pristine” mail-in ballots while sorting through them during last November’s hand recount.

“I felt I was under investigation,” said Suzi Voyles, a longtime Fulton County poll manager whose sworn affidavits have been used by election watchdogs to sue the county for access to the ballots in question.

Arizona Senate on the Verge of Beginning Major Audit of Maricopa County Ballots

April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

The Arizona Senate is poised to begin a major audit of over two million ballots cast in the 2020 election in the state’s largest county, a process the state Senate president claims has been stymied by county officials and which the county claims rests on legally uncertain ground.

Senate subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for information and equipment needed to perform the audit have been pending since Dec. 15, 2020 and were upheld by a judge on Feb. 25. In mid-March, the state Senate announced that Republicans in that chamber would be conducting a “broad and detailed” review of Maricopa’s ballots, one that would involve “testing the machines, scanning the ballots, performing a full hand count and checking for any IT breaches,” among other approaches.