Absentee voters; Macho

[Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Ms. Mercuri:

I have been and will continue to be a fan of yours. Your work promoting fair
and honest elections and your opposition to DREs is near-legendary.

But on this issue of absentee voting I believe you are wrong.

No, please let me be stronger than that.  You are wrong.  Please let me
explain, below.




Let's, for the moment, compare DREs with absentee voting (a variation of
mail-in ballots)

(1) Paper trail:

Neither DREs or mail-in ballots leave a paper trail.

What? Think about it. When one sends in a ballot there is no guarantee that
it goes into the system at all.  There is absolutely no feedback at all that
your particular vote was counted.

(2) It's still counted by a computer.

Here in Colorado the law is such that even if there is a paper trail, the
votes are still counted by fallible computers nad it takes a court order
(hard to get!) to have the paper counted.

(3) It increases voter participation

This is flawed on two counts. First, there is no conclusive evidence that it
really does. I believe that in most localities one finds a spurt when they
are introduced (because of the novelty) but then voter participation is
reduced in future elections.

Second, it is just plain old ordinary much easier to defraud the system.  

Twenty-or-so years ago my friend, Marcy, had (with the permission of the
state's attorney) her dog (Macho) registered to vote.  It made the local
news.

Here's the bottom line: If one wishes to stuff the ballot box, what more
convenient way to do it than out of the site of any observers?

When I was walking door-to-door for a candidate in Colorado Springs working
off of voter registration lists, I was rather shocked to find that a good 5%
of the addresses on the list were for houses that did not exist.

Do you want to swing an election? Just create a bunch of phony registrations
and mail in those ballots.  How would anyone ever know?



In the last few days we have received the wonderful news that dozens of
representatives of Disability Groups have publicly announced their
opposition to DRE electronic-ballot Voting Machines. They have come to
realize that accurate voting is more important than convenient voting.

Mail-in ballots might be convenient (like DREs) but is it worth the risk to
our democracy?

Dr. Mercuri, please reconsider your position.  As a luminary in the good
voting movement, your opinion is so very important.

Ralph Shnelvar
A member of the Paper Tigers
385 Fox Drive
Boulder, CO 80303
303-546-6125



On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 20:11:39 -0500, you wrote:

>I am responding to a message about Colorado's permanent absentee 
>proposal that was sent to me by Al Kolwicz.
>
>Although I have not yet reviewed the Colorado proposal for permanent 
>absentee voting, generally speaking, this concept is actually a good 
>thing. I have been an absentee voter in New Jersey ever since I was 
>confronted with the choice between voting on a DRE that did not have a 
>voter-verified paper trail, or being an absentee voter. Once New Jersey 
>enacted their absentee voter law it made it considerably easier to be an 
>absentee voter (since I didn't have to remember to get the forms each 
>time). Other states (like CA and FL) that have permanent absentee laws 
>have seen the absentee voter numbers increase, so it is a good way to 
>improve voter turnout. Many voters who do not like the electronic voting 
>machines are "voting with their vote" by becoming permanent absentees. 
>Permanent absentees should have the same security, accuracy, 
>verifiability, anonymity, accessibility, transparency, and 
>accountability as regular absentees. These factors can be improved by 
>providing ballot templates for the visually impaired (inexpensive, can 
>be used at home), and by monitoring the process to make sure that 
>permanent absentees do receive their ballots (and ballot applications, 
>if those are needed) promptly and that all absentee ballots are handled 
>properly.
>
>As a permanent absentee voter, I approve and encourage the passage of 
>permanent absentee voter laws.
>
>Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.
>www.notablesoftware.com