“Fixing” ballots after an election deadline is a recipe for disaster.
The point of an election is to confer power to someone voted for by a plurality of the electorate — the candidate with the most votes. An equally important point is to convince the supporters of the loser that the winner deserved to win — that the count was fair and unbiased.
So let’s think about what will happen when candidate “A” wins over “B” by, say, 1000 votes and 2000 votes are “tentatively rejected”. Sixteen days later (plus a few more days to validate the new signatures), Candidate “B” is declared the winner by 300 votes. Will the supporters of “A” accept the result? If “A” is Trump and “B” Biden or vice versa, you can rest assured that the loser will loudly scream “FIX!!” and we’ll have only turmoil if we’re lucky. New Jersey is a one party state, but if this kind of thing is going on in several swing states, it will be disastrous for our country and will destroy any governing mandate. This is the hanging chads problem on steroids.
Further, as we already know, the name of the voters who cast the tentatively rejected ballots will be available to OPRA requests. It won’t take long for political operatives to apply pressure to those who live in Democratic or Republican strongholds. Visits from canvassers to these voters will be noted and will cast doubt on the fairness of the result.
This fix might cheer up individual voters who couldn’t be bothered to vote in person or get their signature right, but it’s very bad for the rest of us.
