Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The problem with mail-in ballots seems to be a combination of increased fraud risk as well as the "disappearance" of such ballots. I care not about the breakdown regarding who stands to benefit from the aforementioned issues; I care that they occur, and can occur, and can constitute a meaningful problem.
And I may be being generous to some extent with respect to the above source citations.
Is it a perfect system? No.
Were mechanical voting booths a perfect system? No. Many of them involved registering the actual votes when the handle was pulled back to leave the voting booth. Sometimes that didn't work.
Were hanging chads a perfect system? No.
Have computerized voting options been a perfect system? No.
Frankly, there is no perfect system when you are collecting and counting MILLIONS of votes.
I live in CO.
I signed up to get an emailed reply that notes that/when my ballot was received. I also get an email alerting me when it is mailed out so I know to look for it in my mailbox.
I actually never mail my ballot back. I use one of the secure drop off boxes that are readily available around my county.
I love this process. We get an info booklet in advance of the ballot that contains all of the ballot measures, etc. so we have time to study all of the issues and candidates.
I cannot imagine voting any other way now.
Although now living in Arizona, I lived in Colorado Springs for 10 years, and like you delivered my ballot to the secure drop off boxes. Best voting system I ever used.
LOL I said the same thing upthread. I'm also in Colorado, vote the same way as TigerLily & phetaroi describe, and I absolutely love it.
Even if you do not sign up for the notification, as TigerLily said, you can still go on to the website and enter your information and it will verify that your vote was received. It won't tell you, of course, anything such as "Yes, we got it and here's how you voted, is this correct?" because ya know, anonymity and all. It just pushes out the confirmation after your outer envelope is scanned in, and your signature is verified. The outer envelope is the only place where any kind of personally identifying information is. The ballot inside is anonymous once separated from its envelope.
So basically if you're worried about the mailman losing your ballot somehow, or a mail thief stealing your outgoing mail from your mailbox or something, you can pretty easily just drive by and pop it into the metal ballot box. There's never been a line to wait in when I've driven up to drop mine off.
An article linked above again mentioned the existence of unused mailed ballots as being such tempting bait for ballot harvesters to do fraud with... Again, I just can't really imagine how that works. So many problems with it. My young adult son is one who gets a mail ballot that he does not use. (He's very disillusioned with politics and while he got registered at the DMV, he has not wanted to vote.) So we have a blank ballot. Woo, fraud bait. Right.
1. How does a ballot harvester know to come to our house?
2. Even if they did, what makes anyone think that I answer the door if I'm not expecting you?
3. Even if I did, on what planet am I going to hand over my son's ballot to some bozo at the door?
4. If I can't persuade the kid to vote, how is a stranger gonna do that?
5. What kind of brain dead human jellyfish votes the way some random person at their door tells them to? Or signs the envelope and hands over a blank ballot? Or even fills out their ballot and just gives it to some stranger?
6. Are they paying people to cooperate?
7. In cash? On the spot? What's to stop anyone from knocking them down and taking their money, then? And then voting or not voting as they damn well please? Huh? Seems foolhardy and dangerous to go door to door in a low-voter-turnout area with oodles of cash on your person to bribe lazy folks with...
I just struggle to imagine how this would work in any meaningful fashion. Who is being had with this scheme? Who is really that stupid? How could anyone get enough cooperation or enough ballots to make any difference?
Mail theft now...maybe... I swear, the next place I live that has an old school mailbox, I might just replace it with one that locks. Feel like I need a parcel locker outside my front door with all I hear about porch pirates. But that's a stupid thing to do, too, because there are so many cameras in neighborhoods now, you're bound to get caught and it's a pretty serious crime.
Were mechanical voting booths a perfect system? No. Many of them involved registering the actual votes when the handle was pulled back to leave the voting booth. Sometimes that didn't work.
Were hanging chads a perfect system? No.
Have computerized voting options been a perfect system? No.
Frankly, there is no perfect system when you are collecting and counting MILLIONS of votes.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I'm just suggesting that a rushed implementation of a mail-in system at the national level is potentially fraught with issues regarding both error and fraud, which, if either/both come to fruition, only serves to disenfranchise the collective whole as well as cast doubt on the ability of the United States to conduct legitimate elections.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I'm just suggesting that a rushed implementation of a mail-in system at the national level is potentially fraught with issues regarding both error and fraud, which, if either/both come to fruition, only serves to disenfranchise the collective whole as well as cast doubt on the ability of the United States to conduct legitimate elections.
I think it should be on the states besides this time. Unless we are fine with only electors voting and deciding with no votes or only a few votes.... I happen to like vote at home but it isn't the best option. It simply helps reduce people weighting getting sick and exercising their right to vote.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
