Mailed-Ballots
There appears to be widespread complacency about the sanctity of every legitimate ballot but a look at the 2024 election statistics help can remedy that.
Election officers who are checking signatures don’t whimsically throw out ballots… they deliberate with their working companions, compare additional voter signatures, and then make an election-altering decision to toss or to keep the ballots.
If we had only known back in 2002 that there was a nation-wide conspiracy in which the enemies of election-integrity were designing a system which would enable election manipulation, we could have resisted the pressure to alter our ‘gold standard’ system. Now, however, some sitting legislators neglect to triage the known election vulnerabilities with attention proportionate to the revealed problems. Mailed-ballots would surely rise as a top concern (thousands of ballots) compared to some benign problems impacting one or two ballots for which we see some legislators piously flailing their arms.
Lets take a look at a couple of 2024’s Primary Election statistics.
One-percent of the 454,030 mailed and drop-box ballots, or 4,526 ballots, were tossed on signature suspicions alone in June. In other words, if we had about 200 signature-checkers in Utah, then each pair of checkers would have discarded about 45 ballots in the June 2024 primary. It would be a common occurrence for them and likely discomforting.
My county, Box Elder, likely would have had more wasted ballots from non-matching signatures had they not had the lowest percentage voter-turnout of any county in the state:
At the end of the eighteenth century one of my progenitors was working at the prison in Sugarhouse (east bench of Salt Lake City). He was very troubled because the prison required him to be present during the executions of prisoners whom he had watched-over and gotten to know. I find similar distress at the thought of your ballot being canceled by the introduction of a falsified-ballot or by the accidental mis-judgement of a well-meaning election official (either to keep a fraudulent ballot or to discard a legitimate ballot).
The entry of a ballot into an election system should not be scrutinized by anything less than in-person-identification out of respect for the conscience of each election official and a decent regard for the voter’s sacred right to participate fairly. Are legislators sincerely addressing this structural election problem that effects thousands of ballots? We’ll have to see what this year’s legislation produces.
Utah News: Candidate Phil Lyman’s petition, #24-528, for writ of certiorari with the US Supreme Court is scheduled for conference on Friday, January 10th 2025 and is accompanied by an amicus brief from Trent Staggs, Kris Kimball and 216 Utah GOP Convention delegates.
This article marks my 100th publication on the Substack platform. I’m planning to discuss a way of life that brings me many blessings as the subject of my 101st post.
Note: when browsing my posts the health related articles contain ‘IDLH’ in their titles.
Congrats on 100 posts! And looking forward to the 101st.