(a) Election frauds not involving the participation of voters The first category involves cases when voters do not participate, in any way, in the voting act attributed to them. These cases include ballot-box stuffing cases, ghost voting cases, and “nursing home” frauds. 12 All such matters are potential federal crimes. Proof of these crimes depends largely on evidence generated by the voting process, or on handwriting exemplars taken from persons who had access to voting materials, and thus the opportunity to misuse them. Some of the more common ways these crimes are committed include: • Placing fictitious names on the voter rolls. This “deadwood” allows for fraudulent ballots, which can be used to stuff the ballot box. • Casting bogus ballots in the names of persons who did not vote. • Obtaining and marking absentee ballots without the active input of the voters involved. Absentee ballots are particularly susceptible to fraudulent abuse because, by definition, they are marked and cast outside the presence of election officials and the structured environment of a polling place. • Falsifying vote tallies. An example of a successfully prosecuted nursing home fraud is United States v. Odom, 736 F.2d 104, 106–08 (4th Cir. 1984), which involved a scheme by local law enforcement officials and others to vote the absentee ballots of mentally incompetent residents. 12 28