Voter Fraud Is Real; Disbelieving That It Happens Is Naive

According to Newsweek: 

Besides the United States, there are 36 member states in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Forty-seven percent ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad, and 30 percent require a photo ID to obtain a mail-in ballot. Fourteen percent of the countries ban mail-in voting even for those living abroad.

https://www.newsweek.com/voting-fraud-real-concern-just-look-around-world-opinion-1522535

France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people.

Among the 27 countries in the European Union, 63 percent ban mail-in voting unless living abroad and another 22 percent require a photo ID to obtain a mail-in ballot. Twenty-two percent ban the practice even for those who live abroad.

In 1991, Mexico's election mandated voter photo IDs and banned absentee ballots. The then-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party had long used fraud and intimidation with mail-in ballots in order to win elections. Only in 2006 were absentee ballots again allowed, and then only for those living abroad who requested them at least six months in advance.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3666259

In the early 80's we had a friend who was a professional photographer at Fingerhut in Minneapolis. Being single, he enjoyed traveling and sharing photos from exotic places he'd visited. One of his trips took him to Ecuador and he happened to be in that country on election day. 

He showed us photos of people with their thumbs ink-blackened as a sign that they had voted. It was his understanding that voting was required by law, so people were easily identified as having voted or evaded it. The black thumb prevented people from voting more than once.

Here's an article about 25 countries that still mark voters with ink:
https://tricitytimes-online.com/2020/12/23/25-countries-mark-voters-with-ink/

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Here's an abstract detailing the issue of voter fraud in other parts of the world.

Why Do Most Countries Ban Mail-In Ballots?: They Have Seen Massive Vote Fraud Problems

152 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2020 Last revised: 26 Apr 2021

John R. Lott

Crime Prevention Research Center

Date Written: August 3, 2020

Abstract

Thirty-seven states have so far changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the Coronavirus. Despite frequent claims that President Trump’s warning about vote fraud/voting buying with mail-in ballots is “baselessly” or “without evidence” about mail-in vote fraud, there are numerous examples of vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots in the United States and across the world. Indeed, concerns over vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots causes the vast majority of countries to ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad.

There are fraud problems with mail-in absentee ballots but the problems with universal mail-in ballots are much more significant. Still most countries ban even absentee ballots for people living in their countries.

Most developed countries ban absentee ballots unless the citizen is living abroad or require Photo-IDs to obtain those ballots. Even higher percentages of European Union or other European countries ban absentee for in country voters. In addition, some countries that allow voting by mail for citizens living the country don’t allow it for everyone. For example, Japan and Poland have limited mail-in voting to those who have special certificates verifying that they are disabled.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3666259

Countries that require a photo ID to vote: UK Italy Chile Spain Malta Brazil Israel Latvia Russia France Mexico Austria Ireland Poland Greece Croatia Finland Estonia Belgium Sweden Bulgaria Portugal Hungary Ecuador Slovenia Slovakia Romania Denmark Germany Lithuania Argentina Columbia Botswana Zimbabwe Luxemburg Netherlands South Africa Czech Republic

(Just to name a few)

People who deny that voter fraud happens are either naive or ______. (Fill in the blank.)

EdNote: I am not a right-wing nut. Why is common sense so uncommon?

Shrunken Heads and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Shrunken heads… I remember our family going to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History when I was young. Dad drew my attention the shrunken heads exhibit. It was strange, and captivated the imagination. Each time we returned to the museum, I would seek out that shrunken head exhibit. It was creepy. Those were real heads of humans, yet so small. How did they do it?

We moved to New Jersey the year I turned twelve and to this day I have not seen a shrunken head. Yet I recall them vividly.

Today, due to the marvel of the Internet, I can find more info than I ever wanted to know about shrunken heads, and numerous images reminding me of those first gruesome memories.

The biggest mystery was how a whole head could be so reduced to the size of a large orange. Well, now I know. They remove the head from the skull first, then boil it down, dissolving the fat. The lips are sewn or pinned together.

When Westerners first discovered the Jivaro Indian tribe that did these things, there was probably both horror and fascination. What did they think when they first saw these shrunken heads in the remote jungles of Ecuador?

Well, it wasn’t long before a few of the more entrepreneurial of the bunch realized they could make a little money selling these to museum folks back home. “Got any more of these?” the white man asked.

The natives talked amongst themselves. “Sure… for guns we'll get you get a few more.”

And so, for about $25 a head the bartering began between natives and Westerners. And the exhibits garnered the desired attention from a grateful public. Did no one stop to think that the Javaro’s were taking other peoples’ lives in order to obtain these artifacts?

Eventually, the Peruvian and Ecuadorian governments had to crack down on this game,. passing laws against the trafficking of human heads. We're talking 1930's, not 1680.

Yes, the practices of cannibalism and making shrunken heads are barbarian. Are we, who imagine ourselves more civilized, less barbarian when we allow the museums who purchased these items at the cost of human lives to profit from selling us tickets to see them?

It's a strange thing to think about too deeply. Westerners unintentionally contributed to the killing of other human beings in order to obtain many of these primitive relics.