Reply #33: Absentee ballots are subject to widespread mishandling.

[seafan]

I used to think absentee ballots were acceptable, but I don't any longer.

Several reasons:

For one, in late October 2004, thousands of absentee ballots requested by Broward Co., FL residents for the Presidential election NEVER ARRIVED IN THEIR MAIL! Broward County is a huge bastion of progressive/Democratic voters. The post office began its investigation, but it was TOO LATE FOR PEOPLE TO RECEIVE THEIR BALLOT to get it voted and sent back in time to be counted before the deadline! Unacceptable.

Also, with the almost certain possibility now that our first-class mail is subject to NSA tampering by *'s henchmen, my trust in the absentee vote is severely diminished... in both its potential for outside tampering and whether it will be "lost in the mail", with no accountability whatsoever.

For another reason, how does the voter EVEN KNOW that his/her absentee ballot arrived, was accurately counted, and was not altered or trashed?



IMHO, pen and paper voting at the poll on ELECTION DAY ONLY, with immediate hand counts at the poll's closing, under direct nonpartisan observation, and with results called in immediately to the Sec of State's Office is the safest, most secure method to ensure a fair, accurately counted vote.

Early voting sounds good in principle IMHO, but it opens up multiple days' voting tallies to more potential crimes, as many more people are involved, more numbers are crunched over several days, and added to different tallies..... chain of custody is very murky.


Why not just vote on ONE DAY ONLY.

Make it a holiday. This eliminates all kinds of shenanigans. One-day-voting and immediate hand-counting at the precinct opens everything up to transparency.

Diebold, ES&S, optical scanning, absentee voting, early voting etc., do not.


Another problem I have w/absentee: Do we even know how the military voted in '04?

Maybe I missed how the military vote broke down, but I have not seen any information about it. Add to this all the funny business in 2000 in several Florida counties when republican operatives were allowed into the Supervisor of Elections Offices to "add" information to the absentee ballot envelopes that was not completed by some military voters overseas....



IMHO, there are too many unknowns about how these absentee ballots are handled.


Then, there is the thorny problem of counting the absentee ballots with Republican corporation-owned optical scanning machines. This does not inspire confidence in the outcome.


The most important issue solved with returning to pen and paper ballots is transparency at every step possible. With paper ballots that are hand-counted on the spot under direct observation at the polling precinct, this fulfills that requirement.


Absentee ballots counted by some hidden machine or routed incorrectly to or from the post office makes me wary. If this were 10 years ago, I wouldn't be such a cynic, but today, I have come to expect any and all types of criminal activity associated with our voting process.

Just like any two-bit criminal, if they keep getting away with it, why do they need to change how they are doing it...


It's the voters who need to change what we are doing.



For most voting precincts, it is up to local county election officials to choose which voting method to use. In view of this, I think people should exert pressure on local election supervisors, in every county across the U. S., demanding pen and paper ballots for all upcoming elections.

IMHO, nothing short of this will restore our faith in free and fair elections.