Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), one of the House GOP's most recently elected lawmakers, flew into a rage on social media over the fact that the mail ballot for the previous resident of his D.C. apartment was sent to him.
"Yesterday, I received an official mail ballot at my Washington apartment for a woman I’ve never heard of," wrote Fine on X, posting an image of the ballot with identifying information blocked out. "I’ve rented this place since I got elected OVER A YEAR AGO. All anyone would need to do is fill it out, sign it, and send it back."
"Democrats are stealing elections every day," he thundered, demanding that Congress pass President Donald Trump's SAVE America Act, a draconian package of new voting procedure restrictions.
But many observers on social media, including a prominent former elections official, immediately poked holes in Fine's claims, noting that a mistakenly-sent ballot is something routine that the law has built-in measures to address, not evidence of anything being "stolen."
"*Sigh* I realize my tiny account will never match the reach of @RepFine's, but this is straight-up false," wrote Pat Garofalo of the American Economic Liberties Project. "Unless the signature on the ballot matches the signature on record at the Board of Elections, the ballot is thrown out."
"'All anyone would need to do is fill it out and sign it' as if that would be legal," wrote Julian Andreone of Drop Site. "Nope! That would definitely be fraud!"
The most detailed analysis came from Stephen Richer, the former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona.
"Sure. You'd just need to: 1) Forge her signature (commit a felony). 2) Hope your forgery is sufficiently accurate 3) Hope that she (intended voter) doesn't call election office and ask about why she never got a ballot (in which case that mail ballot would be deactivated, and it would be investigated if returned) 4) Hope that she doesn't send back a replacement ballot or show up to vote in person (in which case the same as #3 would happen)," wrote Richer.
He added that if this were really such a widespread problem, "Where are the mass arrests? Trump has been in office for 18 months now. And there have been lots of ambitious Republican prosecutors and sheriffs in office for 6 years since the 2020 election ... What you have is, at best, evidence of a clerical error that yielded no harm."
