Can we promote absentee voting to all voters who MIGHT be

[napi21]

disenfranchised? I was sreading several posts that phone lines will be jammed offering rides to voters on election day, or people turned away, or told they aren't registered.

Why can't we ask the folks who fear this could happen to them, to request an absentee ballot NOW? Worst case, it would show any people who show as not being registered, it would eliminate the "jammed phone lines" problem and the excuse of "I couldn't get time to go to the polls."

Don't we have enough time to fix any problems that might show up?

I don't mean that ANYBODY couldn't vote absentee, but are we pushing this as a means to fight off some of the problems we've had in the past elections?

[havocmom]

1. It was the absentee ballots of Black Soldiers from FL that GOP tossed

http://www.gregpalast.com/massacre-of-the-buffalo-soldiers

GOP sent first class mail to soldiers they knew (hmm, how'd THAT happen?) were deployed out of country. Wrote DO NOT FORWARD on envelopes. When the envelopes came back undelivered, GOP used that as evidence that the troops were not living in the district they registered in. That district is highly DEM by the way. The ballots got tossed.

Thinking Absentee ballots are no guarantee of anything. If our people aren't represented as polling place judges and election officials, nobody's ballot is safe, no matter what method is used to vote.

And a lot of people ARE registered but will be denied a ballot in Nov. How will they know now that they will be challenged then? Beats me. We need to make sure every voting place in the nation has DEM poll watchers and/or election officials to keep an eye out for rights violation and things like not enough machines/ballots and so on.

We are gonna need a mess of lawyers.

on edit: typo

[napi21]

2. It wasn't sending the ballots First Class that was the problem

with the deployed soldiers, it was the "do not forward" indicated on the outside! My son is in Italy, and I always use First Class Mail to send his mail. It goes to an FPO and he gets itin about a week.

I didn't mean that promoting absentee would cure all the problems, but if it could eliminate even a few, dons't you think it's worth it?

Having poll watchers isn't going to do anything about phone jamming, or someone being told they just arent registered!

I THINK, when you request an absentt ballot, theregistration list is checked before they send out a ballot to you. Why don't you believe THAT would at least cure THAT problem?

I believe in tackeling any problems you can withany means you can, and deal with the unexpected ones on election day. No matter what we do or don't do, you KNOW there will still be SOME problems!!!!

[havocmom]

4. Yep. The GOP knew they weren't home and sent mail themselves

Now, think about all the vets, active duty personnel, refugees from NOLA and federal workers (many of whom have to travel for work) who had data 'stolen' via disappearing laptops...

Ballots sent out are good. Sent back marked even better. What I am mentioning is there is a method already in place for the GOP to have those ballots excluded from being counted. The people who voted were absentee have no way to defend their ballots.

[whistle]

3. how about on-line federal voting with a save feature as an audit trail

[napi21]

5. Not right now. Too many really good hackers!

I know what we need is SOMETHING that is auditable, and still offersfast tabulation. I can't imagine ANYTHING except a paper trail of some kind to enable that.

There's NO WAY we're going to get that by November!

THAT's why I was suggesting promoting absentee ballots...to at least help eliminate some of the problems we've experienced in the past elections.

As soon as this election is over, we ALL need to junp on thepaper trail bandwagon so we have it in place for 08!!!!!!!