It’s finally come to this: Ballots for the general election are in the mail, and within days, Washington state voters can register their choice for president. But how do you know the vote won’t be rigged, or ruined by Russian hackers? It’s prudent to be concerned, but the state official in charge of the election process says it’s “irresponsible” to make baseless accusations about the integrity of the voting process. “I have full and complete confidence in our system,” Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican who’s up for re-election this year, said in a blog posting this week. “Every eligible ballot will be handled securely and will be tabulated carefully and accurately.”
Washington politicians and voters had an up-close look at the chinks in the voting system back in 2004, during one of the closest state-level elections in history. Back then, Democrat Christine Gregoire prevailed over Republican Dino Rossi by a mere 129 votes, out of 2.8 million votes cast.
During months of legal wrangling, lawyers turned up evidence for more than 1,600 illegal votes – including 1,392 ballots from felons who lost their voting rights, 252 provisional ballots that were mishandled, six cases of double voting, and 19 cases where ballots had been cast for recently deceased voters.
Despite those problems, the courts ruled that the outcome should stand, because there was no way to determine whether the illegal votes made a difference.
Full Article: How election officials guard against a rigged vote.