Bob F wrote:

## I'm in Texas. Look up "Landslide Lyndon" (in brief, Lyndon
Johnson won his first US Senate race by 87 votes that came in five
days AFTER the election - from a dodgy county).

Don't tell me voter fraud doesn't exist. I was a poll watcher during
one election when a nurse rolled in an elderly person from a nursing
home to vote, and, of course, the nurse had to "assist" the elderly
voter. About an hour later, the same nurse rolled in another. This
went on, voter after voter until almost before the polls closed. The
last person the nurse rolled in was the same one she had rolled in
earlier that morning, but this time the nurse told the poll worker a
different name. I and another poll watcher strenuously objected so
the election clerk asked the lady in the wheel-chair her name. She
couldn't answer. She was a gomer. Nurse was a gomer-getter and using
the mentally incompetent to stuff the ballot box.

And that threw the election? Somehow, I don't think so. It compares
in no way to the numbers of voters that have been denied their legal
right to vote by illegal caging, removal from the roles for
questionable reasons, insufficient voting machines only in democratic
districts. Sure, some of those are given "provisional" ballots. But
those are rarely counted. (Still haven't been from Ohio in 2004).

In the case of Lyndon Johnson, it certainly did change the outcome.

"After most of the tallies, the governor [Coke Stevenson] held a slight
advantage. Then, six days after the election, a funny thing happened: 203
votes turned up in Box 13 from the pint-sized town of Alice, Texas. Even
funnier: 202 of those votes were for Lyndon Johnson. The Stevenson campaign
smelled a rat when it was discovered that the votes had been cast at the
last minute and in alphabetical order. Charges of election fraud ensued, and
the disputed contest went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Justice
Hugo Black upheld Johnson's 11th-hour win. He was declared the winner by 87
votes."

In the nurse story, the outcome probably didn't change, but she did vote at
least ten times. If she had 59 similarly motivated sister nurses in other
nursing homes, that's 600 fraudulent votes. Had that happened (or had there
been 60 MORE nursing homes) in 2000 in Florida, Al Gore would have been
president.

As for your other observations: I don't know what "illegal caging" is.
Removal for "questionable reasons" is never done. Removal from the rolls has
to be under color of law - election officials have no discretion in the
matter. "Insufficient voting machines" is, however, a matter of discretion.
Where Republicans are in contol of resource allocation, they often minimize
machines (and workers) in Democratic areas. Don't like it? Change the law to
remove the discretion. Remember, Republicans usually follow the law and use
it, where possible, to their advantage. Democrats often flaunt the law when
doing so is a plus.

Counting provisional ballots? Why bother if counting them won't change the
outcome? If candidate "A" wins by 50,000 normal votes, and there are 10,000
provisional ballots...