Who's Got Your Vote?

by windpunk

Have you ever been asked to petition for something?

Someone comes up to you, talks about what they're trying to get passed or stopped, and then they try to get your information.

While out shopping one day, some guy came up to me and asked me to petition to get his father into the election coming up.  I didn't know if the guy was for real or just looking for information so, to be safe, I did what anyone would do: signed my name and wrote down a second address I use for spam.

Of course, my girlfriend signed the petition with the same address.

A month or two passed and I found two letters in my mailbox which said "Voter Registration Card Enclosed."  I freaked out.  How could they know about this address?

I opened the envelope, and there sat a new voter registration card for the state of Maryland with the address it was sent to printed on the card as my home address.  My real home is outside the city limits, whereas my spam mailbox is in the city.

I looked at the bottom of the page and in bold it said "You have been issued a new card because of change of information."  I didn't change any information, I hadn't moved, I hadn't gotten one of these cards since I first registered.

So I called the number for the voter registration in my area.  They asked for my information and told me, "It seems you filled out a petition at the listed address...  Would you like to change it?"  I was furious.

Since when could they take the name from a petition, line it up with a name in the system, and change the address without any authorization, contact, or signature?  I told them I wanted it changed back and then they told me that I would have to come to the office to change the address back to what it was, and sign.

So my girlfriend and I went down to the office to fill out the form to get our addresses changed back.

I confronted the two people in the office about my problem.

I asked one of them, "What would happen if someone put my name down on a random petition with a random address?"  She thought for a second and told me that it would be mailed to the address listed.

Then she caught herself, and asked if someone had done this to me.  Of course I wanted to cover up what I was thinking, (everyone has enemies) so I smiled and told her, "Some people out there may be more devious than others, what keeps them from screwing with peoples' right to vote?"

The only thing she could come up with was that they compare signatures to verify a person's identity between a petition and their past voter registration card.

I do not condone any malicious/devious plans, but... it would be possible to add friends, enemies, teachers you didn't like, etc. to a petition (if you can find one going on) and change their voting addresses.

The person whose name you write down doesn't get any information about the change at their real address because voter registration thinks they have moved.  If you've ever seen how a teacher signs your paperwork, or a friend signs a check, you can get try to get close to what their signature looks like and, with a little playing along with the petitioner, he will think you're legit.

Your target, however, will not find out that their address has been changed until they go to their assigned polling place on election day and find that they are not on file.

Even worse, they could be signed up with an address in another district, which would mean that the people at the polling place wouldn't even see that person in their systems for the district.

Of course this is illegal, so don't do it!

This is a flaw in the voter registration system which takes the signature of the voter over any contact with them (phone calls, emails, and letters) for a change of information.

This worked here in the state of Maryland, so it may work for you.