I received an email yesterday that raised a question about yesterday's post "At last—Something not to worry about."

Did it occur to you that this could facilitate black box voting fraud? It would be highly unusual if a large number of registered democrats voted republican, unless they are wrongfully registered republican, and with no paper trail it would be almost impossible to prove if votes have been changed. Alternatively, wrongfully registered republicans voting democrat could be used by the republicans to fuel charges of vote fraud by the democrats. Love your blog, just don’t think this issue is something to dismiss as unimportant.

I really appreciate that all of us are making every attempt not to be blind-sided by unscrupulous practices of the Republicans, so I've taken a look at the question.

There are two states (of which I am aware) that have reported fraudulently switched registrations—Oregon and Pennsylvania.

Oregon uses a vote-by-mail system, so any concern about black-box voting may be set aside. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has a patchwork quilt of voting technologies—from punch cards to touch-screen systems. The Pennsylvania county affected, Montgomery, does use the Sequoia Pacific Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) system. But the number of registrants switched appears to be under 500.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

County voter registration director Donna Hoover said as many as 400 registration suspect forms have arrived in her office. Most of them, she said, changed the registered party of students who had signed up to vote just days earlier during a registration drive by two other groups, America Coming Together and VIP.

In light of this, I still feel that party-switching of registrants is motivated by greed on the part of paid canvassers rather than any nefarious Republican plot. But considering who we're dealing with here, I also appreciate the concern.

Related post:
At last—Something not to worry about