Long read and first post!
TL;DR I brainstormed ways to get away with election fraud and could only really come up with ballot harvesting. If that didn't end up being enough, either the fraud will be noticed via an audit, or those colluded with remained silent.
Ultimately, everything's going to be litigated, so it's important to have evidence. Weak arguments and strong feelings won't cut it in court. (Disclaimer: not an election expert)
When it comes to election fraud, you can get away with "suspicious". It's been done for years. We still don't have Voter ID!
On these forums, I've often seen complaints of large numbers of ballots are suddenly found for Biden (sometimes 100%), and I agree that it's suspicious. Some explanations could be benign, such as numerical corrections, while others are nefarious (i.e., fake ballot counts). These should be investigated, but from our outsider perspective, it is difficult to get a good read on what's happening without a more direct audit. So I'll avoid speculating on these numerical swings.
Some have proposed Benford's law as a way to detect anomalies in the election. IMO, this helps point at possible fraud, but it doesn't prove it on its own. Yes, it is weird that Trump's numbers tend to follow Benford's law while Biden's don't in the battleground state cities, but it doesn't prove fraud. The numbers really could have turned out that way; after all, the ward/precinct numbers aren't necessarily randomly distributed. (One .winner checked Hillary's 2016 numbers, and Milwaukee, MI's look the same way as Biden's. post link) Anyway, if there is fraud, Benford's law only makes you look suspicious.
We need more direct proof.
Vote Counting Process
From what I understand, a voter's mail-in ballot envelope is removed from the ballot during counting. This protects a voter's identity from being tied to their vote. The ballots are tabulated, but the voter envelopes still exist.
I'm not quite sure how it is for in-person votes, but I'm sure there's something similar so that we know who voted and what the vote was (without knowing both simultaneously).
Assuming an audit occurs, both ballots and envelopes need to be checked. For an audit to fail to catch fraud, it means:
- all ballots are properly filled in and tabulated correctly
- all envelopes were recorded with a valid registered voter and signature
Incorrect Ballot Counts: The Dominion machines somehow messed up tabulation in Antrim, MI. Insane as it sounds to me, there's a small chance that the other districts that used this software could demonstrate the same issue. There has also been some miscommunications when reporting vote totals.
I would not expect simply recounting ballots to do much though, so I wouldn't pin my hopes on this. Excluding the watermarking idea, fraudulent ballots can't be detected by simply counting them again.
Incorrect envelopes: It's been stated that some of the battleground states have rather unusual voting rates (i.e., 90% of registered voters) compared to nearby states (~70%). This can be explained through benign means like more intense GOTV efforts in these battleground states or by targeted ballot harvesting (assuming the state allows it). It could also be explained by faked or back-postmarked envelopes.
Unfortunately, faking envelopes comes with a big problem. Each envelope is tied to a registered voter. A registered voter either voted or they didn't, and in most cases, one's voting status can be verified online. If a significant number of voters were said to have voted when they didn't (or vice versa), this would eventually be noticed. To avoid detection by normal people, the fraudulent voters would have to be dead, registered without their knowledge/consent, be apathetic, or not exist. To be honest, burying the evidence simply gets harder and harder with this approach.
An election audit should not have much trouble with identifying if something odd happened to the envelopes or if a bunch of fake people voted.
How else to get away with fraud
Since ballots and envelopes/voters cannot be faked, there need to be other approaches. Let's discuss replacing ballots, ballot harvesting, and using the USPS to back-date late mail-in ballots.
There may be many other methods I haven't imagined. Let me know what you come up with!
Replacing ballots
This assumes you and your accomplices control the counting center. While this collusion bears risk, as long as nobody says anything, you'll get away with it.
Assuming the usual election controls, watchers will ensure that ballots extracted from envelopes are validated and set aside properly. Unlike the aforementioned checks, this is done in the moment. Once separated, there's no going back.
The best time for replacement is when nobody is watching. Philadelphia kicked out its observers, and tabulation has been performed at night in secret. Despite any audits, the counts will look correct, and the envelopes will also appear correct.
There are some minor issues with replacing ballots. You need someone to supply blank ballots, someone to fill them out, and to destroy or hide the true ballots. As long as there's a secret location to store these ballots, it's not too hard. Pre-print them and hide them in the counting center. The replaced ballots can also be hidden there and disposed of at some later time. (Alternatively, use some trucks/vans.)
Ballot harvesting
Whether you do it legally or illegally, ballot harvesting works. Pay some people to collect mail-in ballots, help them fill them out, etc.
IMO, this is the most successful method since it's hard to catch after the fact, and the votes themselves are technically legitimate.
However, not everyone is actually willing to talk to random people who want to help them vote. There must be an upper limit to how successful ballot harvesting can be.
IMO, I would go with this route if I needed to win an election. Even at a staggering $10 per vote, you honestly don't need that so spend too much in swing states. The election is already worth billions (or more).
Have the USPS back-date
This assumes you control or have loyalists at the USPS willing to do a little fraud. This route also assumes that you do have people sending in (or harvesting) ballots after election day. IMO, This is a bit of hail-mary way to commit fraud; it wouldn't be my first choice. Any fraud committed here is more likely to be grassroots than coordinated/intentional. Some states are also required to set aside the late-arriving ballots, anyway.
Project Veritas already has some videos implying that orders were given to this effect in PA. The videos are only from whistleblower accounts, so this isn't solid proof yet.
I suspect that there are additional controls at the USPS that could make this fraud easy to detect.
Briefly, I'll note that you can also win by reducing the opponent's vote total. Perhaps one could destroy(burn/lose) mail-in ballots from opponent-leaning counties. One could even invalidate in-person ballots by giving people sharpies the day-of.
Disclaimer: The sharpies may not have actually caused issues. A properly designed ballot would be impervious to any bleed through, and tbh, I don't see why a machine would have much trouble reading a sharpie. It's a dark mark on a piece of paper.
I don't think these methods are particularly reliable. The former doesn't work on a large scale since people can check if their vote went through. The latter is simply too obvious to everyone in the country if it actually affected vote tallies.
Regarding this election
I've never liked the concept of mass mail-in ballots. They're very susceptible to unfair behavior; worse, it was implemented at the last minute. It also enables targeted ballot harvesting as a way to flip an election, and this method has almost no way of being exposed.
That said, harvesting has its limits, and the polls weren't accurate enough. So what happens if the ballot harvesting approach wasn't enough to flip this election? What if additional fraud ended up being necessary?
We've noticed anomalies, and the Trump team has too. For better or worse, I expect we'll find out the election outcome after all the lawsuits are over, and I do hope we win.