In the heat of the battle, political controversies over yard signs can become an almost comedic proxy for heated disagreements.  I’ve seen people in the heat of a busy campaign drop everything to do battle with people stealing the yard signs of the other side or placing their own signs on property where they aren’t allowed.

A consistent lesson is that people will cheat when they perceive the stakes to be high, when they’re caught up in the result, and when they think it unlikely they’ll be caught.  So, it’s disconcerting to see mail ballots joining yard signs in the heat of the Democrat primary for Rhode Island House District 9.

In addition to the normal yard sign controversies, State Representative Enrique Sanchez is raising a red flag about voters’ phone numbers being switched for mail ballots.  More dramatically, one of his opponents, Santos Javier, has filed complaints, accompanied by notarized letters from people alleging that a Sanchez supporter has been pressuring voters to sign ballots before taking the ballots and filling in the vote for Sanchez.

That sounds like a pretty drastic and risky approach to mail ballot fraud, leaving campaigns apt to be caught, but we should take it as a warning.  The placement of a particular yard sign is of unknowable value in a campaign, but these are actual votes.