EDIT: See @AnimePhantasm comment below! My friend called the election board and they confirmed what @AnimePhantasm and @fmstrat commented! This was Virginia reusing last year’s envelopes.
OP I am an absentee voter in Blacksburg just next door. Shine a light on the blacked out part. I am 99% sure this is legit, they just crossed out the witness requirement. I can see the word witness under the sharpie in your picture. Virgina doesnt have to do that witness thing anymore. We did at the last general election, so I am guessing they just reused the same envelopes. You should call and ask your elections office before alerting the news. They are hardworking folks whose jobs are already 100 times harder then they used to be. Stirring up reports of election fraud where it isn’t happening makes us just as bad as them.
This is a felony, and can likely be traced back to the election helper who did it.
Report it!
I don’t usually recommend this but also post on Reddit and X. This needs to get out there.
A lot of the virginia ballots were mailed out with the return envelopes already sealed up. I called the election office and they said to cut them open and just seal them back with tape 🤣
Edit: to all the folks concerned about my vote, thank you for your concern. I’m not too worried about it for several reasons. You can check online to see when your ballot is received and accepted, so I’ll be doing that. If it isn’t accepted in the next week or so I’ll definitely be making some calls. Worse comes to worse, I can always go to my polling place on the day and get a provisional ballot in case something happens to my mail-in. I live in a pretty blue area so I have some trust in the local offices here; they’ve given no reason for me to be suspicious. Nonetheless I’ll still be double checking.
This can happen if the envelopes get damp, but they should send you a replacement. Otherwise, someone could swap out your ballot and then just tape it closed.
Which is exactly why I called my local election office, and I even mentioned it might have been because of the rain we were having, but I was told no, it wasnt the damp that caused it because they had confirmed with the factory that sent the ballots out that some had been sent out like that. They then told me to tape it and when I was hesitant because I had the same thought as you they told me they had checked several times with the registrar that taping them up was what to do. They said it was a known issue so it would be accepted.
…what…
How can an election office accept envelopes that have been tampered with? Call them back and record the answer, then call local news, blast them on every social media you have, put a crazy persons handwritten sign in your window about it, whatever it takes. The person who said they would accept envelopes that had been cut and taped just admitted they will accept votes that may have been tampered with…
Same thing happened to me in Pennsylvania. Will be watching very carefully on the ballot status emails to make sure it’s still accepted.
And the Republicans will scream about how democrats are using provisional ballots to vote twice. They’ll try to cast doubt on any non-favorable election result, and they’ll have the provisional votes as proof. The fact that it doesn’t mean the vote was counted twice will get lost in the noise, and it’ll be one more BS piece of “evidence” to cast the election as illegitimate.
I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong, I think you’re doing the right thing. But we’re just in a very fucked up place politically right now.
Don’t just call the election office, call the local news, get it trending.
It’s almost as if Republicans can’t win the popular vote and have to cheat or something (:
Just to be real, they really don’t care about the popular vote. They care about the electoral vote. And even that isn’t totally true. They care about the electoral victory. They long ago abandoned democracy; they don’t care about having democratically granted power. They just want the power.
A little felony by blacking out a mail-in ballot is literally the least they’re ready, willing, and able to do to win.
I continue to be incredibly frustrated by how little democrats have done to counter the fraud, voter suppression, constitutionally dubious laws, takeover of state election boards and volunteers, and armed, volunteer “ballot watchers” the Republicans have deployed.
The republican “ground game” that extends beyond simply GOTV efforts and campaigning and into the wide-ranging and widespread strategies and tactics to literally dismantle and inhibit the democratic process has been met with very little resistance by the democrats. Somehow they’re going to be blindsided by this, cry foul retroactively, and then be hamstrung trying to play defense from behind. Wilfully ignorant, short-sighted, and incredibly dangerous idiocy for something so fundamentally important.
The democrats don’t have to be unethical because the Republicans are, but they should have been being proactive and serious about countering these attacks on the democratic process. Instead the approach seems to be sticking their fingers firmly in their ears and going “lalalalala.”
and armed, volunteer “ballot watchers”
I’ll be there on election day. Take that as you will.
That just works against your own interests. The point is people patrolling around glaring at people is voter intimidation. You think people will recognize “oh, that guy is on our side”?
Even if that was the case, do you think knowing there are TWO armed groups that hate each other prowling around a voting location is less intimidating?
We get it, you have a gun. You’re not helping.
There’s a neat post I came across some time ago showing how few votes can still win the electoral college.
Turns out, though unlikely, it is possible to win the election with less than 25% of votes through the magic of the electoral college and disproportionate representation.
Yeah, clear cut election fraud.
Anyone want to take bets on it being a Republican behind this?
They’re the ones always claiming there’s fraud. They must know something we don’t.
