At least in Maryland, you're now allowed to vote absentee without needing a specific reason (like being out of town or something), something which always used to be required. I don't know if that's a widespread change, but it could have something to so with it.
so=do, and there's one two many "something"s in there for comfort.
fuck. too. I need to stop drinking on the sabbath.
1: I think that's now the case most places. It is in NM, at least, where the whole system seems to be set up for people who are in town but don't want to go to the polls; when my sister and I went over to get absentee ballot applications this summer (because we had to go back to school and stuff, and it takes forever to do this by mail) they basically told us "yeah, we'll give them to you, but don't turn them in too early 'cuz we're probably going to lose them." Needless to say, this caused us some concern. I mailed mine in early anyway, and when I called in early Sept. or so to check on it I was told that there was no way they could tell if they had my application because they had so many of them and they hadn't entered them into the computer yet, but I could call back in early October when they started mailing out the ballots to see if mine had been mailed. Come early October, I call like they said to and ... no answer. Not even a recording. The phone just kept ringing until I hung up. I tried again the next week, and the same thing happened. I was pretty concerned, but then last Monday I got my ballot in the mail. Score one for the Bernalillo County Clerk's office; despite their manifest incompetence, they managed to get me my ballot in plenty of time. I filled it out and will mail it tomorrow.
As the NYT piece mentioned, Oregon elections are all by mail-in ballot, so technically all absentee. I assume we're counted among the 20 percent.
I am hypothesizing (based on two data points) that there is a bit of a West Coast/East Coast split. I know several people who routinely vote absentee in Washington state, merely for reasons of convenience.
In contrast, my sister just voted absentee in PA, and we were amazed at the hoops she had to jump through, including of course attesting to her absence from the county (not just the municipality!) and/or physical illness/disability preventing her from doing her civic duty in person.
There's also a reaction to the paperless touchscreen systems. "You will take every inch of my paper trail and love it!" Some folks even drive down to the pollign place on election day just to hand in their absentee ballots.
I'm really kinda creeped out by the non-anonymity of absentee voting (e.g., your boss could ask to see your vote as you were sending it). I'd really like absentee voting to be restricted to the housebound and people who are genuinely away from home.
your boss could ask to see your vote as you were sending it
Solution: don't vote at work.
I make a point to vote at work to set a good example for the people who work for me and let them know they can take time to vote on Election Day. Then again, I'm a huge dork.
9: What do you do if your boss asks you to bring your ballot in? Or (to demonize my own side rather than the opposition) when your union leader announces that the October 15th meeting is voting day -- everyone bring in your forms, and we'll all vote for the union-friendly candidate together?
There are reasons the secret ballot was a good idea.
Tell him you're not voting absentee. I don't see what's so hard about this.
And he tells you that if you want to keep your job you are. Or implies it in such a way that you worry about it. Does it seem unlikely to you that people can be pressured by employers, union leaders, pastors, or any other authority figures in their lives? ("Hey Louie, round up a couple-dozen winos, and get them to request absentee voting forms. We get $30 for each vote we deliver.")
I suppose it's possible, but is there any evidence that this is happening? In any case, I'll trade the increased convenience (and hence higher turnout) of absentee voting for the risk of coercion. If it gets to be a problem, we can always switch back.
None that I know of. I'm still not crazy about it.
Your arguments are sounding eerily similar to the ones people who complain about "voter fraud" use.
Except that what makes the 'voter fraud' arguments bullshit is precisely that the hypothetical fraudulent voters can't coordinate. Each non-citizen, or felon, or whoever else isn't properly allowed to vote has to independently decide to commit a crime for no personal gain, because no one is buying a vote they can't verify. It's not that the sort of voter fraud silly people talk about doesn't happen, it's that there's no reason for it to happen much; it's one criminal for each vote, and the value of casting a vote to the voter probably isn't enough to make them commit a crime for it in most cases.
Once you're in a situation where votes can be bundled and sold (you're an employer, or a pastor, or a union leader, who can promise fifty votes to a campaign in return for money or out of political loyalty), it starts being worth committing a crime for.
Obviously they're not the same issue, but they are related, and I'm just talking about your rhetoric anyway. Seems like an odd thing to worry about, is all.
Possibly. I don't worry about types of fraud that can't be committed in a coordinated manner enough to have an effect on an election. I do worry about types of fraud or coercion that could be committed in such a matter. The distinction between the two doesn't seem all that arcane to me.
Seems like an odd thing to worry about, is all.
No more odd than walking around barefoot.
Not to hijack this thread, but I can't find the last orange one because I am dumb, this one seems dead and it's sort of related: I have done exactly zero to research NC's implementation (or not) of HAVA standards. I have, however, called my Board of Elections and left voicemail with the director (who's busy running no-excuse voting in the other end of their building) telling him I'm someone who works in computer security and is interested in volunteering, particularly if my area of professional expertise is of use to the BoE in terms of implementing HAVA. So, there's my report...?
Dude, you are the man. No one else has done anything useful.
I got a call back from my BoE director. He's a very cool guy, we chatted for about 15 minutes about the system in place in my county. He doesn't need a computer security volunteer because they took the time to make a good choice when they became HAVA compliant this year (he was very vehement that there are no DRE touch-screen machines in use and said he hopes there never are). I did, however, end up signed up to be a precinct official next year for the municipal elections. Heh!
Anyway, my county is using the AutoMARK machines from ATS. These are, from what I've read, easily one of the best choices available; I had heard of them in passing before, and have done some more reading during a little down-time this evening.
In my county (and in every NC county in which I've voted) we use plain paper ballots with a "fill in the arrow next to the name" means of marking one's vote. We simply step into a little booth, use the marker they give us, fill out the ballot, put it in a ballot box. The AutoMARK's whole deal is that it uses whatever the standard ballot is in a given precinct; the device itself in no way stores or tabulates votes. The voter who requires assistance is given their ballot, shown to the machine, they insert their ballot and by means of headphones, braille and/or an adjustable, large-font display, make their choices. The AutoMARK marks their ballot for them like any other ballot and then that is deposited in the same ballot box mine goes into. That is some slick stuff. The BoE director said that Durham Co. complies with HAVA by having one AutoMARK available at every polling place, including at the no-excuse early voting sites. He offered to make an appointment with me to let me try it out, but I told him I'd take a gander at it when I'm working the polls next year. How's that for a productive afternoon? All that and I burned exactly enough calories to dial his number once.
Now, there are questions I could raise about the AutoMARK. Who programs the large-font display, or the braille buttons, or the voice-over used with the headphones (particularly the non-English versions)? On the other hand, all the easiest means of abusing electronic voting machines to throw an election work best in an environment where there is no paper ballot, and this fixes that. Of the options available, I think I like it best, and I'm going to keep an eye out for it this year and next.