Oh, voter fraud, you gigantic crazy imaginary monster in the closet. So many people worried about people who aren’t registered to vote voting anyway, or voting more than once, despite the lack of any evidence. Yet when it comes to the real instances of potential voter fraud, it’s being committed by the people who have pledged to oversee the elections.

The most egregious instance is in Oregon, where an election official is accused of filling out ballots in which races were left blank with Republican candidates, a move that could potentially shift the balance of power within the state legislature. Via Oregon Live:

The unidentified elections worker allegedly cast votes for Republicans in races left blank, according to Willamette Week, which first reported the story.
…
Clackamas County is considered a swing county. Out of more than 228,000 registered voters – more than 10 percent of voters statewide – Democrats have an edge of just 7,000. As of Thursday, Clackamas County had received 95,294 ballots, about half of those expected.

News of the investigation promptly elicited cries from Democrats concerned about the integrity of next Tuesday’s results. State Democratic leaders said they feared the employee’s alleged actions could tilt the House majority — now at a 30-30 tie — toward Republicans, a result that would affect Oregonians statewide.

The Oregon case is a blatant example of tampering with election results. But less blatant but even more troublesome is the number of those who are having issues voting absentee. In Palm Beach, Florida, a key swing state, the election board is now admitting that 27,000 absentee ballots aren’t being properly read by tabulating machines and are being copied instead. The Palm Beach Post also reports that other voters are incensed to learn that their votes are being rejected due to the canvasing board saying the signatures don’t match.

In Ohio, another highly watched swing state, tens of thousands of voters may not have an address that matches the voter roles on Tuesday, and thousands more had their absentee ballots initially wrongfully rejected due to a “computer glitch” that made change of address information not update properly.

Via The Columbus Dispatch:

Joe Andrews, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, which oversees the [Buerau of Motor Vehicles], said a software glitch caused about 100,000 change-of-address notifications made on the bureau’s website not to be sent to the secretary of state’s office. The bureau began sharing address information with Husted’s office last year to help keep better tabs on the state’s voter rolls.

Andrews said the online address changes are a small percentage of those shared by the bureau and that the updated info was sent to Husted as soon as the glitch was discovered last week.

Matt McClellan, Husted’s spokesman, said of the 100,000 notifications, about 65,000 were registered voters and 32,000 of those already had updated their address information with the secretary of state’s office.

That left about 33,000 voters whose addresses possibly would not match the voter rolls.

While states like Minnesota will be voting on amendments to require photo ID’s at polling places on election day, the real breakdown of a properly and legally cast vote seems to be within the system itself, not with the voters.