Re: Absentee voters

[Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:16:10 -0600 (MDT), you wrote:

>
>Same problem with mail-in voting.

Which is why many of us are opposed to all of
	mail-in
	absentee
	fax
	email
	internet
	permanent absentee
	telephone
	telepathic
voting.

In terms of casting/voting, I am only really comfortable with elections
where

  the voter shows up at the voter's neighborhood precinct,
  goes into a private area,
  marks a plain-paper numbered ballot,
  places the printed paper ballot into a security sleeve/envelope,
  takes the ballot to a locked transparent bin,
  the numbered stub is removed and the stub is taken by an election judge,
  deposits the now-unnumbered ballot into the locked transparent bin, and
  gets a sticker saying "I voted."

Last step is optional.

Ralph


>
>On Sun, 18 Mar 2007, Paul E Condon wrote:
>
>> With open-ballot voting there would be a possibility of voters selling
>> their vote. Should we also have a market in votes with open bidding,
>> and payment ( via PayPal, perhaps )? Should income from vote sale be
>> taxed, like income from gambling? Should it be a matter of public record
>> who paid for a vote? Interesting... ;-)
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 18, 2007 at 11:54:25AM -0600, Evan Daniel Ravitz wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Paul E Condon
>> pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>