'Rigging' the election

Is it possible to "rig" a Pennsylvania election? Rudy Giuliani thinks so; he believes voter fraud is quite common in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, although he is unable to point to anything more substantial than urban legends floating on the Internet.

Nonetheless, to reassure anybody worried about the possibility of cheating, I will explain the steps necessary to vote more than once in a Pennsylvania election. On Nov. 8 I go into my polling place for "Towamensing North." My precinct has five poll workers: a judge, a majority inspector (in my precinct a Republican), a minority inspector (Democrat), a clerk, and a machine operator.

Four of the five workers know me. If I am a first-time voter, I am required to show some ID, but I'm not. They hand me a large book containing facsimiles of the registered voters' signatures. I write my name in a block below my signature. They hand me a plastic card. I step up to the voting machine and I vote.

Obviously, I can't return to my own polling place to vote again. So I drive to the Aquashicola firehouse, the polling location for Lower Towamensing. I would need to know a male voter listed on the rolls. I would need to know he isn't planning to vote. If he voted already, I'm caught. If he votes later, I'm caught. And if any of the five poll workers know that person and know that I am not that person, I am caught. If I mess up his signature, I am caught.

But let's say they don't know the voter, the voter doesn't vote, I fake the signature, and I get away with my deception. I have successfully cheated and cast one extra vote (and committed a felony).

Now I go to the polling place for Palmerton East to cheat again. I have to know someone listed on the rolls who hasn't voted, doesn't plan to vote, isn't known by any of the poll workers and forge another signature.

How likely is that? How realistic is that? Which is why we don't have in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania. If you point out that the Election Board could collude to cheat, remember that five people, including Democrats and Republicans, would need to conspire. How likely is that?

But suppose I am an expert hacker. (Anyone who knows my computer skills is laughing, but let's suppose.) Could I hack the Carbon County computers and change the outcome? I could not. The system is closed and not connected to the Internet.

On Nov. 8, vote with confidence. The election results might not turn out the way you had hoped, but it won't be because of any "rigging."

Dr. Roy Christman taught political science at San Jose State University for 29 years before retiring to Carbon County. At SJSU he taught the "parties and elections" course, and he has served on various precinct election boards.