[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Absentee voters




Perhaps we should give voters the choice of secret-ballot voting with all it's problems, or OPEN-ballot voting, which could eliminate most fraud by keeping a record of the voter, timestamp etc. like with credit card transactions. This would also permit voting by internet or phone. All open-ballot votes could be published on govt websites to reveal any problems, and to let anyone use their own software to check the announced vote totals.

I recall a survey that showed some 2/3 of voters didn't care who knew how they voted.

Evan

                   http://Vote.org
         Taking the "mock" out of democracy!
   Evan Ravitz, founder (303)440-6838 evan@xxxxxxxx
"Fool's gold exists because there is real gold." -Rumi
also: http://Vote.org/photos  http://Vote.org/paradise

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007, R. Mercuri wrote:

Ralph --

I was not trying to be arrogant, I was just making a statement of fact.

Here is another statement of fact -- the following sentence is an enigma:

The most appropriate voting method is the one where we can match a living
breathing eligible citizen with an anonymous ballot.

If one matches a living breathing eligible citizen with an anonymous ballot, the ballot is no longer anonymous. That is indeed the enigma of the voting problem, which is unresolvable. Anonymous voting is the reason for many of the problems you have described, but the reasons for anonymous voting currently outweigh the need to eliminate it (though some feel it should be eliminated, I am not among them). Some countries do not have anonymous voting -- in the UK, all ballots are numbered, and an election officer can later bring your ballot to you and ask you to validate it. I do not believe that this is something we want to encourage in the USA (especially in a climate where federal prosecutors are losing their jobs because it is not in lock-step with the executive branch's position).

In general, this email dialogue has been mixing apples and oranges and pears and mangoes, and this is causing the problem we are having in communicating. Here are some examples: problems related to aspects of voting (such as absenteeism, anonymity) are not the same as considering the lack of effective procedures for that aspect; problems with the status quo in elections are directly rooted in the laws and customs that keep that status quo in force and need to be addressed by changing those laws and customs; and the way to eliminate problems with election fraud is not to make it harder to vote, but rather to make it harder to commit election fraud.

For example, the NJ procedure for permanent absentees does send out an "are you there" message to permanent absentees, and there's a form that has to be returned each year (yes, it could be fradulated, but this would be a felony). NJ may be unique in sending out a sample ballot to ALL registered voters for all municipal elections and primaries. It is also illegal for the post office to deliver that sample ballot if the person no longer resides at that location. The post office must return the sample ballot to the county, who marks the registrant in the book. If the post office is corrupt and returns ballots improperly, and the people shows up to vote (or tries to register as an absentee), they will be required to demonstrate proof of residence, but they can still vote. Blah, blah, blah, etc. Procedures.

The devil is in the details. If you have no effective procedures for making sure that dead people or non-residents are not continuing to vote, then you can be sure that they will be voting in the precincts as well as by absentee. As well, if the laws regarding buying votes or coercion are not properly enforced, then such things as "voting parties" may occur. As I said, I vote absentee. I know how I voted, I know that nobody bought or sold my vote or changed it up to the point when my ballot was cast, I know my vote was cast securely and anonymously, and I have strong reason to believe that it will be hand-counted in the event of a recount. Unfortunately, I have NONE of these assurances if I vote in my precinct. Yes, it would be great to have even MORE assurances (such as ones that confirm that my vote did not disappear) but I am not willing to give up my anonymous ballot in order to gain those assurances, so at the point of casting my ballot I must trust the procedures and laws and expect that they will be enforced.

It is the responsibility of your citizens to make sure that your absentees have the same confidence in your absentee system as I do here in New Jersey. Cleaning up the corruption through prosecution of any corrupt election officials would be the first step. Changing the laws would be the second step. Making sure that the procedures adequately address the intention of the laws would be the third step. All of these steps can (and should) be worked on in parallel.

I hope you all can recognize that I am not shrugging off your concerns or complaints. What I am saying, though, is that you need to define where these problems fall (procedures, laws, customs, politics, etc.), and then address them appropriately, rather than just fling up your hands and say that "since there are problems with absentee ballots we should get rid of absentee ballots." You must differentiate what the sources of the problems are first, which is what I am not seeing in the emails from your group yet. If you go back through all of this exchange and separate out the issues and identify the different sources of the various problems, I think that will help put the direction for the solutions into focus.

I regret that I am quite busy, so I will not have time to further dialogue here, but I encourage you all to continue the discussion and do feel free to keep me on the cc list of this thread.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Mercuri.