Reply #10: Ballots- not receipts

[RedEagle]

Help yourselves by dropping the term receipt. That stops half the arguments about taking them out of the polling place.

Voter-verified paper ballots- because with voting, unlike ATM's, you cannot walk away with that proof. That ballot stays in a ballot box to be used in recounts and audits and as the official proof of voter intent.

Receipts and audit trail do not have the weight or implications that ballot does. Always use the term ballot.

Voter-verified ballots stay in the polling place in the ballot box. If someone yells about vote buying, ask them how they would prevent it with absentee or internet voting? Double standard. Junk argument.

With an absentee ballot, the ballot goes inside a blank envelope. That goes into another envelope that the voter signs as proof it is their vote. The signature is checked against the records and the outer ballot discarded. The blank envelope (relatively speaking, it does not have your name on it) is collected with others and at some point in the process, then removed and counted.

If you use an absentee ballot, make sure it counts as per normal. Some are treated as provisional, even if you are a registered voter, and may not be counted unless the race is close. Check your state to see the status of these ballots. In states like Washington state, in which voters can request permanent mail-in voting, that ballot is treated like a ballot cast at the polls. That may not be true in all states.

If your ballot is counted just like any other, then by all means vote that way. I happen to like the idea of county auditors receiving a flood of requests for absentee, especially if they are thinking of purchasing all DRE's. That's a lot of expense that won't make sense if they also have to purchase optical scan for the mail in ballots.

I think there is one new system out there that can produce the optical scan ballots, count them, and is also a DRE. Kind of an all in one package- but it produces a voter-verified paper ballot and as we know, some areas don't seem friendly to the idea of protecting the vote.

And what garbage arguments by the 9th circuit court. Sounds like the rational you get from the vendors of paperless DRE's. Hmm.....