I mean, what the actual?

"What are we supposed to do? Persuade
voters? I mean, have you read our platform?"

-The GOP

So you know how Republicans love to use the zero cases of voter fraud in America each year to justify naked election theft tactics like closing polling places in areas that tilt Democratic, purging voter rolls, passing restrictive voter ID laws designed to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters, and now literally and figuratively dismantling the Post Office's ability to process the mail? Well get this. Get what? You didn't click on the link? Oh, ok, I'll explain but seriously, seriously, brace yourself, because even for them this is...well in the annals of bald-faced hutzpah, this will go down as one of their hutzpah-iest.

"Just leave it with us.
It's fine. Totally fine."

-California's GOP

Unofficial ballot drop-off boxes, that is, ballot drop-off boxes not sanctioned by state election officials have been cropping up around California. Most of them were set up by the state's Republican Party but at least one in L.A. County was just put up in front of a church by its Pastor although it was emblazoned with a sign saying that it was "approved and bought by the GOP." According to Freedom's Way Baptist Church, we shouldn't worry though, because they don't have access to the box themselves, instead GOP officials will come around and collect the ballots so...yeah, nothing sketchy going on here.  

Um, past experience is how and 
why we question their integrity.

Obviously this is, you know, an incredibly illegal and unethical outright attack on American democracy so-Huh? What's that? Can't they see that? Well, these are Republicans were talking about so of course they claim this brazen malfeasance is totally legit and how dare we question their integrity? Now, there is a 2016 California law that allows something called ballot harvesting-that is, you can hand your ballot over to someone you trust to turn it in for you, and the party is claiming that this is what that is. 

Which it isn't. Of course it isn't, but here, check out the State GOP's super-defensive tweet about how above boards they're being with their pretend ballot boxes:

When you guys do it, everything. Everything is wrong with this.

Above: The Party of Lincoln

Cool, but a box marked "official ballot drop off" isn't a trusted person, it's, you know, a box-a trap really, and doesn't involve a person signing for it as required by law. And should an uninformed person-which is 100% the kind of voter the GOP has counted on for years-happen upon this box, they could easily think it's real. And that's why State election officials have demanded that the boxes be removed and the ballots collected turned over. But how many people used it already? And where are the ballots now? 

It is possible for voters to check the status of their ballots online, but that doesn't preclude tampering. And in an already confusing and chaotic election year, will everybody whose ballots were harvested know that they need to check? I guess we'll just have to trust the Republican Party? And I mean, if you can't trust the kind of people who would put up fake ballot boxes in the midst of the most divisive election in memory, who can you trust?

I'm going to go ahead and say that people interested in free and fair elections don't
write "Official Ballot Drop Off" on a filing cabinet and put it out on the street.