Ballots Archives - The Ohio Star

Voters Increasingly Returning to In-Person Ballots over Mail

May 17, 2022May 16, 2022 Ohio 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 Ohio 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, 2022March 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 Ohio 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, 2022March 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 Ohio 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, 2021November 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 Ohio 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 Ohio 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 Ohio 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 Ohio 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 Ohio 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 Ohio 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.

‘Horrendous’: Georgia Audit Lawyer Demands Full Investigation into Fulton County’s Ballot Irregularities

June 24, 2021June 23, 2021 Ohio Star Staff

Alawyer spearheading a major ballot audit inside Georgia’s largest county is warning the irregularities apparent in that county’s election management are “horrendous” and cut against “the basic principle of our democracy.”

Atlanta-based attorney Bob Cheeley made those claims while talking to Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon on Tuesday night’s “Securing our Elections: Protecting Your Vote” special on Real America’s Voice.

Cheeley is among the investigators approved by a Georgia court to audit the 2020 absentee ballots of Fulton County, Ga., a county critical to Joe Biden’s historic 2020 win of Georgia that helped propel him to the White House.

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 19, 2021 Ohio 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.

Investigation Finds Georgia Officials Decline to Prosecute or Correct the Double Voters They Catch

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 RealClearWire

More than 1,700 Georgians were singled out for illegally casting two ballots in 2020 elections – including last month’s hotly contested presidential race – but their fraudulent votes weren’t canceled out, according to state election officials. And so far, none of the cheaters has been prosecuted, raising concerns about continued fraud as Georgia prepares to vote again in twin U.S. Senate runoff elections next month.

Georgia’s Cobb County BOE Denies Ballot Shredding-After Videos Produce Evidence of Ballot Shredding

November 22, 2020November 27, 2020 Jason M. Reynolds

The Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration is defending itself after being accused of shredding election documents during Georgia’s controversial recount.

President Donald Trump’s attorney Lin Wood tweeted videos shot by a witness who identified herself as Susan Knox and said she was outside the Jim R. Miller Event Center, where ballots were stored, on Friday. She documented a mobile shredder company destroying documents, which she called ballots.

In Sworn Statement, Prominent Mathematician Flags up to 100,000 Pennsylvania Ballots

November 21, 2020November 20, 2020 Ohio Star Staff

In a sworn declaration, a respected mathematician says his analysis of election data and phone interviews with Pennsylvania voters raises questions about as many as 100,000 absentee ballots requested in the key battleground state where President Trump and Joe Biden are separated by just about 82,000 votes.

RNC Chairwoman Confirms 12K Incident Reports and Over 400 Affidavits Filed for Voter Fraud

November 14, 2020November 13, 2020 Corinne Murdock

According to a press release, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has confirmed about 12,000 incident reports and over 400 affidavits filed concerning potential voter fraud.

McDaniel appeared on Fox Business to provide the brief update. The chairwoman shared that the campaign has issued nine lawsuits currently nationwide.

Georgia Whistleblower: Officials Used Ballot Machines Missing Security Seals in Gwinnett County

November 10, 2020November 9, 2020 Corinne Murdock

A GOP poll watcher reported that officials allowed workers to use ballot machines that were missing security seals in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Beth Sexton first called into The Tennessee Star tipline to report the incident on Monday.

According to the report Sexton gave the tipline, a group of concerned-looking poll workers were gathered around a ballot machine. When Sexton approached them, she overheard them discussing missing security seals.

Glitch-Prone Dominion Voting Software Used in Georgia Counties

November 10, 2020November 9, 2020 Corinne Murdock

A glitch-prone voting software called Dominion Voting Systems (Dominion) was used in all 159 of Georgia counties. Dominion classified their presence in Georgia as a “statewide voting system rollout.”

This past week, Dominion has caused delayed voting and reporting results in Gwinnett County, Morgan County, and Spalding County. Gwinnett County is the same location a whistleblower claimed had ballot machines used that were missing security seals.

Democrats Invite Voters to Exploit Georgia’s Weak Residency Rules to Stuff Ballot Boxes in Runoff Elections

November 10, 2020November 9, 2020 Corinne Murdock

Democrats are advocating for blue voters to become Georgia residents for the upcoming runoff elections. Georgia doesn’t have a minimum residency requirement, which poses a legal loophole for both parties. Democrats could drum up enough voters to match general election turnouts and flip the state, and Republicans could ensure their hold on two Senate seats.

Additionally, the state’s voter I.D. laws allow individuals to use an out-of-state driver’s license to vote. However, the law defines residency as “without any present intuition of removing therefrom [the fixed habitation].”

County in Georgia Re-Scans Ballots After Coming Up Short, Cites ‘System Error’

November 9, 2020November 8, 2020 Corinne Murdock

On Saturday, Fulton County officials discovered that the number of scanned ballots didn’t reflect the totals received. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the news of a rescan that afternoon.

Raffensperger dispatched a monitor, investigators, and Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs to moderate the process at State Farm Arena.

Justices Deny Fast, New Look at Pennsylvania Ballot Deadline

October 29, 2020October 28, 2020 The Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would not grant a quick, pre-election review to a new Republican appeal to exclude absentee ballots received after Election Day in the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania, although it remained unclear whether those ballots will ultimately be counted.

The court’s order left open the possibility that the justices could take up and decide after the election whether a three-day extension to receive and count absentee ballots ordered by Pennsylvania’s high court was proper.

Voting-Related Lawsuits Pepper U.S. Before Election Day

October 12, 2020October 11, 2020 The Associated Press

Hundreds of lawsuits about voting have been filed before the Nov. 3 election. The cases concern the fundamentals of the American democratic process, including how ballots are cast and counted.

Judge Again Blocks Restrictions on Ballot Drop Boxes in Ohio

October 9, 2020October 8, 2020 The Associated Press

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked an order by Ohio’s elections chief that limits the number of ballot drop boxes available in next month’s election, calling the move “essential to vindicate a vital constitutional right.”

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose moved immediately to appeal.

Secrecy Requirement Could See 100,000 Pennsylvania Ballots Disqualified, Dem Official Says

September 23, 2020September 22, 2020 Ohio Star Staff

As many as 100,000 Pennsylvania voters could have their ballots discarded in November due to a state law that requires absentee ballots to be returned inside a secrecy sleeve, according to a Democratic official on the Philadelphia city commission.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ordered election officials to discard “naked ballots” in a decision issued last week, a move that could result in tens of thousands of ballots disqualified in a critical battleground state, City Commissioner Lisa Deeley wrote in a letter to Republican state legislators.

In Battlegrounds, Absentee Ballot Rejections Could Triple

September 8, 2020September 7, 2020 The Associated Press

Thousands of absentee ballots get rejected in every presidential election. This year, that problem could be much worse and potentially pivotal in hotly contested battleground states.

With the coronavirus creating a surge in mail-in balloting and postal delays reported across the country, the number of rejected ballots in November is projected to be significantly higher than previous elections.

Commentary: We Know Why Donald Trump Wins Re-Election

September 7, 2020September 6, 2020 Ohio Star Staff

Donald Trump wins reelection because his supporters enjoy but one means of political expression: the ballot box. Donald Trump loses reelection because his supporters enjoy but one means of political expression: the ballot box.
We do not know who claims victory for another two months but we already know why it happened.

Dems Again Blast Secretary of State LaRose Over Postage for Ballots

August 28, 2020August 27, 2020 Ohio Star Staff

State Democrats are again blasting Secretary of State Frank LaRose after the state Controlling Board did not hear his request for authority to pay return postage for absentee ballots.

Last week, LaRose said he wanted to use up to $3 million to pay for postage for absentee ballots cast in November’s election.

Puerto Ricans Demand Answers Over Primary Ballot Shortage and Election Delay

August 11, 2020August 11, 2020 The Associated Press

The future of Puerto Rico’s botched primaries rested in the hands of the island’s Supreme Court as answers trickled out Monday on why voting centers lacked ballots and forced officials to reschedule part of the primaries in a blow to the U.S. territory’s democracy.

A plan to hold another primary on Aug. 16 for centers that could not open on Sunday could change depending on the ruling of a lawsuit filed by Pedro Pierluisi, who is running against Gov. Wanda Vázquez to become the potential nominee of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. Joining the lawsuit was Puerto Rico Sen. Eduardo Bhatia, of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party.

Governor DeWine Vetoes Transparency Language for Property Tax Levies

July 19, 2019July 18, 2019 Maggie Leigh Thurber

State Rep. Derek Merrin (R-47) got a surprise this week when his bill to update the requirements for ballot language on property tax levies was added to the state’s budget bill. But his excitement was short-lived when Gov. Mike DeWine used his line-item veto authority to nix the idea.…

Commentary: California’s Rigged Election Process Is Coming To America

December 6, 2018December 5, 2018 Admin

by Edward Ring The conventional wisdom among experts who monitor elections in America is unvarying: Voter fraud is statistically insignificant. These sanguine claims are made despite the fact that internal controls are often so poor, or even nonexistent on election integrity, that it is nearly impossible to know if…

Florida’s Recount Begins Amid Allegations Officials Tampered With Ballots

November 12, 2018November 12, 2018 Ohio Star Staff

by Chris White Florida’s secretary of state announced Saturday afternoon that the races for governor and senator would will be reviewed through a recount as Republicans allege officials tinkered with the results. Republican Gov. Rick Scott leads incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by more than 12,500 votes. Former Republican…

Rubio Warns: Dems Are Actively Trying to Steal the Florida Election

November 10, 2018November 9, 2018 Ohio Star Staff

by Luke Rosiak Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is warning that the fate of his state’s governorship could hang in the hands of Florida’s Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, whom he’s called incompetent for violating state and federal laws. A liberal candidate similarly painted her as incompetent and…