Are mail-in ballots a recipe for fraud? No, says the man who first hacked voting machines
Click to see my interview with Harri
Images of voters crowded together on long lines at ballot places in Wisconsin this week had a lot of Americans wondering about alternative, safe election procedures. Some states, such as Washington State, have embraced mail-in voting during recent elections. Might that be a safer way to exercise our democratic rights during the age of coronavirus?
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump dismissed the idea out of hand, saying it encouraged fraud. So I spoke with Harri Hursti, one of the world's leading experts on election fraud, about the viability of mail-in voting. Hursti is the star of the new HBO documentary Kill Chain, and was also featured in the HBO film Hacking Democracy more than a decade ago. He is also creator of the "Hursti Hack," the first time voting machines had been hacked.
In this video, Hursti says there are many potential issues with mail-in ballots -- voter manipulation, vote harvesting, vote buying, and even tricking voters into dropping off their ballots at the wrong place. But, he says, all these issues can be mitigated, and during a time of crisis, mail-in voting is a valid alternative.