Thank you for the article on the election audit [“Arizona Senate Hears of Multiple Inconsistencies Found by Election Audit” by Jack Phillips and Mimi Nguyen Ly, published Sept. 29]. I have several responses to their presentation of a very complex situation.
First, 23,344, 5,295, 29,557, 27,869, 5,047, 3,432, and 2,592 soon add up to the possibility of significant hidden fraud.
Second, mail-in ballots raise the real possibility of significant fraud. It makes the audit needs very complex and seems to create a situation that becomes so confusing that regular auditing procedures can not get to the skunk in the woodpile.
Third, mailing ballots to everyone in the voter rolls creates so many possibilities of illegal use of that ballot that it should be outlawed by all states. The danger it brings to our most important civic responsibility is far too dangerous for it to be allowed.
Fourth, there should be carefully crafted new laws to protect from such fraud. These laws need to address mandatory rules (with penalties) for voters to notify states when they move. To allow a voter to move and not take responsibility for such notification is to treat the power of voting with a 2-year-old’s sense of right and wrong.
Fifth, a law that creates confusion to the point where it is so unclear who is voting legally and who is not just law. It is merely a fog that hides illegal actions.
Six, there needs to be a law for notification of the death of a voter. Again, there should be a penalty for not doing so. States should be obligated to clean up their voter rolls every six years. If the state can mandate masks, it should be responsible for laws protecting our greatest rights. A right that has been so crippled by questionable allowances and no sense of any responsibility of the citizen is no right at all.
True patriots will hold for two things: protecting voting from fraud and voter responsibility in that process.
Rev. Michael T. Buttner
Maryland
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