Beware of the next electoral fraud scheme...

[Andy_Stephenson]

Vote by mail.

In this cheme a voter get a ballot in the mail and returns it. Easy safe right? Wrong! While it gives us a paper ballot...the elections office knows how many ballots they send out...but how many were sent back in? In King County Washington we had a company of less then reputable people sorting and counting incoming ballots.

What if the post man is a Republican and decides that these ballots from a good Democratic area sholud not make it through rain sleet hail or dark of night to their appointed location? Absentee ballots are for those WHO WILL TRULY BE ABSENT!

This scheme is being hatched as a way to vote safely. Well safe for some unsafe for others.

Andy

[shraby]

1. I was thinking that myself,

and what's to stop the counters from having a round file handy?

[RaulVB]

2. Here in Oregon the system worked without a single problem (n/t)

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. How do you know

can you be absolutely certain?

[RaulVB]

5. Look at the numbers,

Kerry won by 3% widening Gore's margin and pretty much matching the polls.

Over 85% of voter participation sounds pretty good to me too.

The problem was before the vote, with a Republican company trashing Democratic voter registrations.

There is an ongoing investigation on that issue

[Andy_Stephenson]

9. Elections are not only about

the Presidential race. Elections cover many races and inititatives.

[RaulVB]

11. We disagree and is a matter of preference at the end

As I said before you have already made up your mind. And that's ok with me.

I have experience with "paper all the way" systems. I used them and I like them.

[roseBudd]

32. That is paper all the way, but mailing brings up chain of custody...

mail does get lost or stolen.

[Carolab]

55. Exactly. Forget the mail in.

Require the ballot be dropped in an appropriate box and/or a receipt be given acknowledging it has been received.

[RaulVB]

57. Well, you can do it both ways in Oregon (n/t)

[Carolab]

58. Is there a receipt? n/t

[FreedomAngel82]

50. I don't trust it myself

What if it gets lost? I've had a few problems with the mail here in the past and losing things. I think we should still have polling places but paper ballots only. That way there's no long lines, no computer cliches to worry about etc.

[Amaryllis]

60. You can call them and see if your ballot has arrived so you know if it got

counted or not.

[mirrera]

3. Totally agree...n/t

[candice]

6. Already been tried on the other end...

Was it 58,000 absentee ballots that went missing in Broward County, Florida. Just didn't make it from the P.O. to the mostly Dem constituency. During the 2000 steal in Florida, Jeb had state officials devote themselves to getting his brother elected. Wonder who took care of Broward this time?

[Peace Patriot]

20. Yeah, but with electronic voting, you can have 58,000 votes...

...disappear or be switched to the other candidate and you wouldn't know it.

[Amaryllis]

96. I think the problem was the ballots didn't get as far as the post office.

[intheflow]

7. I've always been wary of that.

Can't believe how many people advocate that. "At least I'll know my vote was counted." And how will you know that? Like nothing has ever gotten lost in the mail--even legitimately. Geez, we just had a story here last summer where letters from WWII were finally delivered after a bag of mail was found in a dark corner of some post office. What are people thinking?

[burn the bush]

8. while your average mailman wouldn't be the problem but

the post office management is very good at hiding mail when they need to. Though they will never admit that they hold mail, they do when it suits their purpose.

[govegan]

10. Some are pushing this as a step in the correct direction

(not the right direction, arghhhh).

I share concern. It seems like a bad idea to do away with polling stations all together. Although places to hand deliver ballots could help alleviate somewhat, and enhanced monitoring of safe delivery for those mailed. Perhaps a "no vote" option, to allow all ballots to be returned, would be helpful. Citizens who did not return a ballot could be queried as to why they didn't. As close as some elections have been, more monitoring of absentee ballots would seem to be in order, with or without all vote by mail.

[bettyellen]

12. Mail gets lost, and delayed all the time especially in election season in

hoboken...
hey andy, i was just talking about you and someone is making some phonecalls tommorrow! :hug:

[KaliTracy]

13. Ohio officials were calling for use of Absentee ballots the same week

as the election -- to "minimize" the problems that we had... I sent this to as many "officials" as I could

"I listened this morning on public radio to small reports locally and nationally that the Democratic and Republican parties want to make sure that the long lines do not happen in Ohio next time,
and they are searching out ways in which to make Absentee Ballots easier to use (something I think Kenneth Blackwall supported several years ago). I think this idea of having ballots being sent without non-partisan checks and balances to oversee their arrival and to ensure that are counted is something we need to think long and hard about, especially given that in some states voter registrations were alleged to have been tampered with.

"I think the issue is not with the number of machines, but HOW the machines are being dispersed.

"I am glad that the after effects of the election are not as crazy and uncertain as they were four years ago {oh, how little I knew then...}, though in light of recent events, I'm also glad that I heard Mr. White say on WMUB (Oxford, OH public radio station) that the Ohio Democratic Party intends to see that every vote is counted. But that doesn't matter if every person didn't get a chance to vote.

<snip> (my experience with no lines in my very "red" county)

"Seems to me, in this day and age, that an equal amount of voting machines could be dispersed to all voting locations -- or am I missing something? I've looked on the Internet for an Ohio Voting Location Map of some sort, to see precinct voting place lay-out, etc. but have yet to find anything. I'm trying to "breathe deep" and just carry on, but I also feel that in order to STOP any problems from occurring again next time, that everyone, Republicans
and Democrats alike, need to look at how voting places are determined, and arrange for equality in dispersing the machines. I could have waited an hour or more (my boss wouldn't have liked it, but I would have done it and just worked later that night) -- others, needing to pick up children from school, or go to jobs that aren't so forgiving, didn't have this luxury, and so couldn't vote. And, to me, this is completely UNdemocratic. "

11/05/04

Absentee Ballots are NOT the way to go.... I agree totally with you on this one Andy! We need to keep everything open for checks and balances to occur.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Under the Oregon system, you have the option of hand-delivering your

ballot to special booths set up by the county board of elections in central locations.

You don't have to trust the post office.

[Freddie Stubbs]

88. How many people actually do that?

:shrug:

[Amaryllis]

97. Lots of people hand deliver. They have drop stations in neighborhoods. I

always drop at my branch library. They have a locked box there. You can take them to your BOE too. And you can call to see if they got your ballot.

[eridani]

15. I have used absentee ballots for 15 years or so now

Just because of that possible problem, I've taken to waiting until election day and dropping them off at my precinct.

[garybeck]

16. ANY system is vulnerable

NO matter what is done to improve elections, if there are dishonest people involved, the election can be stolen.

even if we had all paper ballots, and people hand counting every ballot, someone has to write these numbers down, or put them on a computer somewhere, and report them to someone else, and they could give the wrong number. At some point the ballots have to be sitting there, supposedly locked up, and something could potentially happen to them.

on the flip side, even paperless machines could be fine if people were honest - if honest people were writing the code, building the machines. REally the technology is pretty safe. It's just when people get involved that it becomes a problem.

that's the whole problem. human nature. any system is vulnerable.

how in the world can we keep partisan people out of the vote counting process?

In ORegon they had a ton of mail-ins and I think the lowest exit poll deviation in the country.

So yes, mail-in is vulnerable, but so is paper ballots.

I wonder sometimes if these proposed systems where the voter can actually go online to confirm their vote, perhaps they are a good thing. It seems we need every possible way to verify the vote. It is the only defense against human nature.

gary

[Zan_of_Texas]

19. gary -- I thought you were paying attention?!?!?!

Did you know over 2000 computer professionals think that the election technology is NOT SAFE?

Do you care what they think? Some are nationally renowned.

It is not just that people are involved. It is that technology is involved, and is inappropriate for this application.

The way software gets the bugs out (or most of the bugs, see Microsoft Anything) is through USE and CHECKING and FEEDBACK.

The way election software will get its bugs out is ??????? The users who have a stake in how their vote is counted CANNOT CHECK the output. Once it leaves their hand, they have no way to check a paperless electronic system.

A one-day paper ballot system with human eyes watching all day can be successful in what we want -- honesty, transparency, verifiability.

[garybeck]

54. I didn't say election technology is safe

What I'm saying is that the real problem is human nature.

Technology is not inherently unsafe. There are ways it could be applied with honest people and it would work fine. That is not happening now. Look at ATMs and banks. It is basically the same concept and it works.

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to advocate paperless voting systems in any stretch of the imagination. I believe 1000% that because of human nature, every ballot needs to be on paper. And more than that, there has to be mandatory spot checks (recounts) because as we have seen they will take every opporunity to cheat.

[Amaryllis]

61. YOu are right. Any system is vulnerable; the key is finding the least

vulnerable. Or OR system works well now, but the question is how much of that is due to having honest officials and a great SOS. A bunch of us are working on this issue and are in the process of investigating the whole chain of custody. We have Diebold tabulators which makes us very nervous.

We also have a mandatory one percent random hand recount.

[Zan_of_Texas]

62. Okay. We disagree.

You wrote:

on the flip side, even paperless machines could be fine if people were honest - if honest people were writing the code, building the machines. REally the technology is pretty safe. It's just when people get involved that it becomes a problem.

No, paperless machines would NOT be fine if everybody was honest.

They have bugs.

I am not against technology per se -- hey, I even have electricity <G> !

But, when scientists who do this stuff all day say this is not appropriate technology for the job, I listen.

There is upwards of one million lines of code in one of these voting machine babies. If you think the dorks at Diebold worked hard to get every last bug out, you are delirious. The dorks at Microsoft, with more money and more versions and more users than god, can't seem to do it.

David Dill at Stanford says the use of paperless DREs is INHERENTLY a bad idea, given the current state of technology.

1. You can't get rid of the bugs.

2. You can't get rid of dishonest people all through the chain of custody, from development to manufacture to transport, warehousing, to voting day. (AND YOU CAN'T WATCH THEM like you can watch paper voting in the precinct.)

3. Even if the software and hardware had no bugs, and the people were perfectly honest, if someone gets access to the machine for just a minute or so, they can put a new program in somehow, or (using modems) mess with the transmission or totals.

[Land Shark]

77. Who said ATMs work?

They are often breaking down, the local tv news the other day had a story about a woman who saw $4000 just pop out for no reason (and she returned it).

To the extent we "trust" atms is because we've got up to YEARS to seek a just correction by arguing with the bank for a few hours at most or filing suit for a few or many months.

Whereas, with elections, we've less than ten weeks and it's all over and essentially uncorrectible in most jurisdictions except for impeachment and even then many people might feel it wasn't the "winning" candidate's fault, and not remove the undeserving politician.

If an ATM makes a mistake, I got a decent shot at getting justice. If an election fails, all bets are off. ATMs are very different than voting.

Plus, the ATM transactions cost in many cases an extra $1.50 a "vote" on top of the interest free use of your money which may mean that more accurate technology is affordable because of the extra "tax" assessed by the ATM banks.

[suston96]

17. Assigned ballots

Separate federal elections from state and lower elections. Even have different dates.

End time limits on casting or counting votes.

Paper ballots.

Ballots assigned to registered voters with identity codes. (Ballot secrecy? Too bad. Nothing else is secret in this world).

Like tracking a UPS package you can track your ballot until it is counted and demand to see it after the ballots have been counted or whenever you want - FOIA!

So many ways to end this madness!

What a disgusting and decrepit democracy we have become.

And we need to blame ourselves for our apathy and gross neglect.

[qwghlmian]

18. Here is the problem with separate federal elections -

the turnout in federal elections ranges from 50% to 60%. The turnout in off-year elections ranges from 30% to 40%. If you separate federal elections from local elections, you will ensure that all local elections turnouts become around 30%, instead of 50% to 60% on Presidential election years.

Since higher turnouts generally favor the Democratic side in the elections, your proposal would, accordingly, lower the chances of Democratic victories in local races.

[suston96]

21. Voter turnout

Uh, that would be too bad but short of mandatory voting - which I fully support, I cannot see prodding citizens into voting based on the "importance" on any of the elections.

I have worked as a voting rights activist for a number of years and your numbers are pretty sound but...

Citizens had better inspire themselves into participating in their own governance.

I always say around election time: if you don't vote, the wrong person will be elected.

If having the wrong people govern them isn't inspiration enough then maybe we should consider mandatory voting.

Works fine in other countries.

[qwghlmian]

22. As I said in other posts that talk about

"mandatory voting" so I will say here -

Voting is a right. If something is a "right", that implies freedom to do it or NOT to do it. Once you make it mandatory, it ceases to be a right and becomes an obligation. I don't want to give up my right to vote, and would fight any such proposal.

[suston96]

24. Voting is indeed a right

...but it is also a sworn duty of citizenship.

"If something is a "right", that implies freedom to do it or NOT to do it. "

Sorry, don't agree with that.

If you are a citizen you have the duty, the obligation to participate in the governance of your society - your country.

People who do not vote should be penalized.

Like in Australia. They are fined the equivalent of $50.00 for not voting.

I am more strident about this. I see vigorous punishment such as forced labor camps or deportation.

Or banishment to the Russian front.

[qwghlmian]

25. Give me an example of another "right"

that is made into an obligation. A right to work implies freedom not to work. A right to free movement implies freedom to stay put. A right of free speech implies the freedom to shut up.

You are proposing to take the right to vote away from me. I will fight that. Just because people in Australia foolishly gave up their right to vote and made it into an obligation does not mean we have to do the same.

[suston96]

37. "You are proposing to take the right to vote away from me. "

No, I am proposing to make voting a basic and required duty of citizenship.

Don't wanna vote? You ain't a citizen no more. Turn in your bathrooom keys and clear out your desk.

There is something in logic that says that the reverse of a truth doesn't always hold.

This is one of them.

(However, be consoled by the fact that the Supreme Court may have decided in your favor).

By the way, you have a right to life but that does not mean that you have a right to end your life whenever you want. Attempted suicide is against the law.

Mandatory voting works in Australia. 98% vote turnouts all the time! A great democracy where you rarely hear of political strife.

And that is because everyone participates.

[qwghlmian]

38. All I can say is

I am glad the Supreme Court agrees with me and not with the authoritarian "Ve vill make you vote - or else" people.

[marions ghost]

28. I think we should consider mandatory voting...

The Australian system works and gets many more citizens involved than otherwise. I have friends in Australia who joke that life is so good there, if you didn't have mandatory voting, NObody would bother. (Or is it mandatory voting that helps makes life good there?)

The fine of $50 is not too much to pay for the right not to vote, and any mandatory system would have safeguards for those who are "conscientious objectors." So this system need not be oppressive to anyone who feels strongly about their right NOT to vote. In Australia, election day is a holiday, and I believe they use paper ballots like Canada.

Otherwise I agree with you suston 96--we have many other duties as citizens, and voting should be one of them. What we have now is that generally people wake up later in life to the fact that they need to be voting, when they see how bad things can get, or when they have children and start to care about "the future." Or--they never learn that it matters at all, because they can't connect the effects of government action on their daily realities. Mandatory voting can help people make the connection.

Oh yeah, and I totally agree with Andy about the pitfalls of mail-in ballots and the dangers of that being promoted as a solution. It might be working fairly well in Oregon, but I don't see at as trouble-free whatsoever. I favor extended voting periods and MUCH more security. The fond notion of honesty in our election system is a nostalgic dream. We can't depend on "honesty" anymore--no matter what the system, election security must be enforced more strongly with severe penalties that hold up in court. We need to get some teeth into the state laws governing elections.

[suston96]

39. Honesty in elections

Yep. Honesty will come when elections are 100% neutral. No partisan politics involved.

Screw this 2 members of the election board are Democrats and 1 is Republican. What crap!

Do away with as many intermediary steps as possible in the voting and counting process.

That means both machines and humans.

Oh, the ballot we have used for centuries here is called the "Australian Ballot". Google that. Interesting history.

[demodonkey]

44. The "right" to vote implies the "right" to abstain.

Look up Robert's Rules or any other parliamentary procedure handbook. If you do not choose to vote on a particular issue, you MAY ABSTAIN. No one can force anybody to vote on any issue.

What if you don't like ANY of the candidates?? In some areas (Ohio Presidential Race, for example) write-ins are not allowed. So what do you do, vote for somebody you do NOT WANT??? And then how long after that until the one-party, one-candidate "elections"????

I agree that having the right to do something implies that you also have the right NOT to do it. While making everyone do their "duty" and vote sounds like a nice idea, it WOULD in my opinion, take away our "right" to vote by making it a forced action. And if citizens are FORCED to vote, it is no longer a true and correct expression of the "will of the people".

[marions ghost]

45. and in mandatory voting...

you still may abstain. And also write-in candidates. No voting system or poll is done correctly if you don't have the right to abstain (or choose "none of the above)." And there should be provisions for that, as of course (!)you should NOT be asked to vote for candidates you do not support. All that's asked is participation in the task of voting. So that way it DOES express the true will of the people. Think about it--no voter suppression, no registration issues, much less ability for partisans to manipulate the system. A larger turnout in America could mean that the will of the people IS more accurately expressed.

Nobody's suggesting taking away any rights. Talk to an Australian--they wouldn't put up with that. We have alot of things that are mandatory in our society--lots. But done for the good of the whole, not to be repressive.

[demodonkey]

47. No, you may NOT write in candidates in certain elections / states.

Please read my post.

Example: in Ohio, you may NOT write in any candidate for US president. There's no means of doing it on their machines. Like it or not, that's the way Ohio law is now.

And if you just "leave it blank" be advised that some machines now default to a certain candidate (guess who, this last time) -- that is one of the BIG issues we have with the machines. Even on a paper ballot, unless there was a "none" box, don't count on somebody NOT filling in your blank vote to "correct" your "mistaken undervote".

Australia comes from a different background and if they feel forced voting works for their people, God bless them, that's great -- for them. But sorry, I do NOT agree that voting should be mandatory in the United States. And I am a US pollworker myself who has spent over 15 years supporting people's right to vote.

People have died for the true right to vote in the USA and I would also -- but to make it a FORCED OBLIGATION, no way! One of the beautiful things about the United States has always been that (at least up til the last few years, with ** and Co. in charge) we never had to FORCE our people into so-called "citizenship" or patriotism. NOT showing up at the poll is a First-Amendment right of free speech, IMHO. Forced voting, great, then what... forced flag-waving? Forced turning in of "unpatriotic traitors" to the Secret Police?

[marions ghost]

51. Please read my post....

I am not talking about what exists in America now. I am talking THEORETICALLY. Obviously we can't go to anything like mandatory voting under the conditions that now exist in this country, where as you say, it's very unfair to the voter who merely wants to "leave it blank." Yeah, first we have to get 1. write-ins and 2. no "defaults." (and a lot of other corrections.

I would argue that Australians are VERY like Americans, very independent thinkers, not inclined to give up their rights. Australia has much in common with America, but their system is more efficient.

Suggestion--we're probably not going to add anything more of substance here. I will do a little more research and post this as a separate topic for discussion. But actually it doesn't have that much relevance right now because our system is so screwed up anyway and there are other priorities. You're making a mistake in seeing this as associated with police state, instead of associated with "good" laws for the common good. We are much closer to a police state because of the situation the Republican party has dragged us into.

All I'm saying is that mandatory voting should be CONSIDERED. That's all. Peace :)

[qwghlmian]

49. We have a lot of things that are mandatory in our society -

but none of those things are "rights". As soon as you make it mandatory, it is not a "right" anymore. You're willing to take away my right to vote for the sake of "efficiency".

If I don't come to vote, that IS my "will", and if 40% of US voters don't vote in Presidental elections that IS their will as well. It is absolutely ridiculous to propose dragging people to the polls against their will. Thanks, but no thanks.

[marions ghost]

52. why don't we stow this argument for another time

and another thread? I'm really interested but...it doesn't have much relevance in our struggle right now. I am MUCH more worried about the prevention of voting that is happening and the total loss of votes in general, than the loss of "choice" in the matter.

NOBODY ELSE RESPOND-- AND THIS SUBTHREAD WILL DIE! (to be reborn elsewhere--see you "right to vote" guys there). later, mg

[suston96]

48. Leave it blank

"And if citizens are FORCED to vote, it is no longer a true and correct expression of the "will of the people"."

Yes it is.

Leave your ballot blank and you will be doing your duty and still telling everyone how you feel.

As it is right now, public record can tell who votes and who doesn't vote.

The mandatory way, you can avoid voting and still look like you voted.

[bobbieinok]

65. IMO, shouldn't vote if haven't thought about candidates, issues

much better---should do real research

VERY BAD---required to vote, so just randomly check off lines so I can get out of here....BUT, hey, I've done my duty

[all.of.me]

23. I don't trust the mail...

... nevermind who sorts or steals the ballots! We have more mail trouble here - packages, checks, letters lost - on a regular basis. I would NEVER put a ballot in the mail here (which is NM, by the way...).

[Amaryllis]

98. We don't have to mail them, we can take them to BOE or library.

[eomer]

26. I agree with Andy

A mail-in system interjects an additional mechanism between the voter and the vote counter. The post office is a large, complex mechanism. Using it as a middleman provides a vast opportunity for problems - both of the innocent screwup type and the non-innocent screwup type (fraud). It looks like we had both types in S. Florida this time.

The primary polling system should be as simple as possible. Simplicity equals transparency. Complexity equals opportunity for fraud.

Mail-in should be kept as an absentee option as it is now and governments should use PR campaigns to educate voters that the safest option for having their vote count is by walk-in. Of course, I mean in some future walk-in system that is actually safe because it uses a paper ballot and a transparent and verifiable method of counting.

[Coexist]

27. I don't trust the post office from personal experience

A friend and I once turned in a postal worker that we saw pulled over to the side of the road opening mail in December 2002. He was opening colored envelopes (they were littered all around the truck). I can only assume he was looking for cash in Christmas cards. Since we had no "proof" other than what we saw (like most people carry around their video cameras!) they could do nothing about it.

Also, there were two times that I (and on a straw poll, ALL of my neighbors) have not gotten our cable and power bills). Most of us didn't even realize it until we got the late notices a few weeks later. What happened to the mail those days and what else didn't we get - ya know?!

Not that I believe that postal workers are dishonest - but we are all human.

Anyway - if there was a system where you could drop the ballot off and have it "registered in" somehow, I wouldn't be against it. It's better than what we have now.

[eomer]

29. Agree

Anyway - if there was a system where you could drop the ballot off and have it "registered in" somehow, I wouldn't be against it. It's better than what we have now.

I agree, but it depends on the details. I'm sure you're aware of the absentee ballot scandals in S. Florida in the past. A drop-off system would need a way to keep "vote brokers" from scamming the system.

And I would think it should use a precinct-based optical scanner to avoid under and over vote problems. It should also use open source counting software that is accessible, verifiable and transparent and be subject to random (not the Ohio definition of random) audits.

[Coexist]

30. I agree - retail stores keep track of inventory

on a staggering scale with scanner - and open source software should be a given at this point. A mandatory, random audit might also scare some shifty people straight - if we first successfully prosecuted someone (as an example - any volunteers, Mr. Blackwell?!).

[Amaryllis]

74. We can drop it off and can call to see if they have it in Oregon.

[Amaryllis]

73. We can take them to our BOE or drop off sites. Don't have to use USPS

[roseBudd]

31. My newly registered voter registration forms were hand delivered to BoE

for exactly that reason. I did not trust the post office.

[satya]

33. What if ballot is scanned and posted on internet when received?

The scanner (open source, of course) counts the votes and posts an image on the internet.

The voter has a stub with serial number, to look up his/her own ballot to verify it was received and not changed.* Just like with a credit card, the voter is responsible for hanging on to that stub until the election is certified. Anyone who values his/her vote will do this.

Anybody can see ALL the ballots on the internet, to audit the counts. We could organize into groups to do this.

Haven't really thought this through, so feel free to point out the flaws.

And thanks for all your hard work on this critical issue.

*I voted absentee in King County. I could look up my voter reg number in a text file online to see if ballot was received, but have no idea whether it was counted. And because it is my reg number (and not ballot serial number), it's not a secret ballot...

EDITED TO ADD: Same process used for both absentee and in-person ballots.

[satya]

34. What if touch screen machine used to print ballot only, not count votes?

To address the issue of accessibility. People who need or want to use this machine to make selections could, but ballot would be printed and treated the same way as in my post above.

Most people at the polls on election day should be marking paper ballots, so you don't have long lines or the problem of broken down machines.

[Cocoa]

35. be wary of anything that BBV tells you

BBV is dedicated to preserving fear.

They warned us about Rush Holt's legislation, they're warning us about Christopher Dodd's legislation, and now they're warning us about voting by mail, which is in reality a good development.

[satya]

36. Andy's one of the good guys, in my book.

I guess I don't understand your post.

[meganmonkey]

40. Cocoa has a mental block against realizing that Andy is no longer

affiliated with BBV/Bev Harris. It's just one of those things, I guess :shrug:

[Cocoa]

41. Jim Bakker had a falling-out with Jimmy Swaggart

it didn't make either one less of a fraudulent clown than they were when they were friendly.

[meganmonkey]

43. I have seen Andy's work and I know he has integrity

Whereas the only impression you have made on me in my 4 months here is that you don't like Andy. So I'll just keep on respecting Andy's opinions. That doesn't mean that I won't question them and maybe even disagree with some of them, but your baseless remarks trying to discredit him certainly won't sway most thinking people here, I imagine.

KEEP HOPE ALIVE

[Kelvin Mace]

66. Could we make that distinction Bev was famous for?

Andy doesn't work for bbv.ORG, but us folk over at bbv.COM haven't taken anyone's money nor cussed out any reporters nor publicly brought discredit to the movement.

I agree with Bev on the need to be specific about this. <s>

David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[demodonkey]

42. Geesh -- Andy is NOT with BBV!

And neither of them is a "fraudulent clown".

DOUBLE GEESH!

[greatauntoftriplets]

46. Andy Stephenson has NOT worked for BBV since early December.

Bev Harris did and said some terrible things about him. Your repeated accusations are unfounded.

Below is a quote from him from a thread he posted last week about his current job.

"I am currently working with CASE America, National Ballot Integrity Project, and Velvet Revolution to build the broad-based coalition it will take if we are to succeed. CASE America, is led by Susan Truitt. As co-founder of CASE-Ohio, Susan built the grass-roots organization that forced Secretary of State Blackwell to back away from his plan to install Diebold touch-screen voting machines across the state. After the election, CASE members brought Ohio’s voting nightmares to national attention, while Susan has served as co-counsel on the lawsuit that brought the Conyers Committee to Ohio. The evidence they brought to light led to Senator Boxer standing up in the Senate to challenge the Ohio electors.

"CASE America and the National Ballot Integrity Project are working together, under the CASE America banner, to form a new 501c3 organization to energize and empower the grassroots across the nation to take on voting machine and election law issues on a county, state and national basis. The National Ballot Integrity Project, which is a 501c4 organization, will continue as the lobbying and advocacy arm of the CASE America-NBIP effort."

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

93. anything Chris Dodd does is suspect in my book

he signed the Dear Colleague letter authored by Bob Ney to tell fellow congressmen and senators NOT to amend HAVA to require VVPB.

Dodd helped keep HR2239 from getting heard for a vote.
So did Steny Hoyer.

[Amaryllis]

99. Dodd helped stop HB 2239? I thought it stopped because Delay wouldn't

give it a hearing? What did Dodd do?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

106. Dear Colleague letter signed by Dodd, Hoyer, Ney and McConnell

March 08, 2004 Election Law Blog:

(http://electionlawblog.org/archives/000810.html)

"Caution on Election Reform Urged"
Roll Call offers this report (paid registration required), which begins:

"Congressional sponsors of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 cautioned their colleagues that ongoing efforts to amend the law to deal with security issues could do more harm than good.

In a 'Dear Colleague' letter last week, Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) warned against a rush to judgment on HAVA, urging lawmakers to let the new Election Assistance Commission examine issues related to the security of electronic voting systems." Dan Tokaji has more coverage of this issue here. The letter is posted here: (http://www.house.gov/cha/dearcolleaguemarch3-04.htm)

[Amaryllis]

107. Well then, he is either really not too bright, or complicit. Not

trustworthy in either case, unless he has changed since then.

[NationalEnquirer]

53. I would NEVER trust the USPS with something like that. n/t

[kitkat65]

56. What if there was some form of certification required?

This is a standard post office procedure. Someone MUST sign for the item and there's even an option for the sender to receive a reciept upon delivery.

[SharonRB]

59. I thought this worked so well in Oregon.

It's really the way I thought we should be going, but maybe not. Why are they so successful in Oregon?

[Qutzupalotl]

67. It does work well.

86% turnout, highest in the nation. Consistently around 80% since its inception. No problems that I'm aware of. Perfect recounts and totals that match votes received. They have a great system of double-checking everything.

Our county clerk fought against proposals for Diebold touchscreens. Asked the reps how they could do recounts, then laughed in their face when they had no answer.

I have to disagree with Andy. Tampering with the mail is a bigtime felony all by itself. Until I see some evidence that this is a problem, I'm a believer in vote-by-mail.

[Amaryllis]

75. See post #68.

[ottozen]

63. Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested

How much insurance?

[Kelvin Mace]

64. Oh dear,

I must disagree. With the right safeguards, this is a pretty safe system compared to the many others being promulgated.

It is being considered in NC, but it would require these provisos:

1) No contractors allowed, only election officials and employees handle ballots.
2) Ballots are stored in an secure, publically observable area with video cameras on 24 hours a day.
3) Delivery confirmation must be used (thus the ballot could be tracked in the postal system).
4) Envelopes should be brightly colored for easy visibility. This would make them much easier to find in the postal system and easier to spot people making off with them.

Concerns about partisan postman seriously don't worry me. Think about it for a moment. First, for every dishonest Republican postman, there could be a dishonet Democratic postman. Second, screwing with the ballots in ANY way would actually be TWO felonies for the price of one: 1) Ballot tampering AND mail tampering.

Also, despite complaints about the system, the USPS does a pretty good job getting the mail through.

No, if the correct safeguards are applied, I favor mail-in system. Cheap, simple, high turnout, much better security than DREs.

Also, one very important feature. It cuts WAY down on some voter suppression tactics. They can't park a police car in front of every mail box to scare off minority voters. Also, since ballots are sent out a month in advance, problems are discovered WAY before election day. If I don't have a ballot within a week of them being mailed, I am on the phone to the BoE to find out why, rather than screaming at them on election day.

No system is perfect, all require serious security efforts, but this is a pretty good system.

David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Amaryllis]

68. Here are details on how the Oregon system works:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=315852&mesg_id=315852

[Amaryllis]

70. We can call and get confirmation that our ballot has been received and

we get them 18 days before the election so there is plenty of time to get them there. (in regard to your comment about delivery confirmation)

[rumpel]

69. I posted this on another thread, too but this is an incident report:

11/02/04, 2:08 PM PST
Absentee-ballot related problem
unknown, Los Angeles, Florida County, California
The caller is a Pacifica radio host in Los Angeles, and received a phone call from a listener in California who said that her sister was either present at, or works at, the "main post office" in Florida and saw "bags and bags" of undelivered absentee ballots either yesterday (11/1) or today (11/2). No more information.

https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&tab=ALL&state=California&county=Los+Angeles&cat=ALL&start_time=&start_date=&end_time=&end_date=&search=florida&go=Apply+filter

[Kelvin Mace]

71. A simple anonymous phone call

to the local BoE or postal inspector would bring a quick investigation. So, I have to wonder why this wasn't done if what the caller said was true. They may not have seen what they thought they saw.

It can happen, but I trust USPS more than I do a LOT of election officials.

[JohnGideon]

72. Andy, Did You Go To The Polls Last Nov???

or did you join the over 75% of Washington voters who already vote by mail? It's very easy to figure out how voting systems can be improperly used.

Yes, that rogue mailman can decide to throw away ballots. Why would he? Maybe he's a Republican and picks-up in a highly Democratic area? Could be. Or, maybe he takes the ballots all home with him and he steams them all open and only delivers the Republican ballots. The Democratic ballots all get sent through a shredder and end up being mulch in his worm farm so he can use the worms to grow record breaking giant pumpkins.

Call the Oregon SoS Office. Ask them about the system that they use. It's really good and just as safe and secure as any other system and, OVER 75% OF WASHINGTON VOTERS ALREADY VOTE BY MAIL ANYWAY. (caps are mine and on-purpose)

[Andy_Stephenson]

76. I took my absentee ballot to the poll

and dropped it into the box there. Lot of good it did. Mine was one of the uncounted ones here in King county.

[merwin]

79. Serious? That's CRAZY. I was one of lucky few in King County that got

counted :-)

[Andy_Stephenson]

80. Serious...I was uncounted.

read this:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002119969_danny15.html

[Land Shark]

81. Both Andy Stephenson and a Dem County Council member

did not have their votes counted, or at least were on the original list of not having their votes counted.

But Andy, your opinions are great and ability to analyze great. But if we emphasize the problems of EVERY system (and there always are problems) instead of trying to find the best way out and then improve that system from there, we may never got our society out of the catastrophe of DREs.

Step One: Stop and eliminate DREs
THEN AND ONLY THEN
Step Two: Improve the replacement system.

From vote by mail we can go back to polling places if desirable, using the same paper ballots. and improve counting by implementing all or significant parts of the counting as hand counting from the beginning. If randomized at the beginning, if any group is statistically different than the other groups, then we could recheck right away (but this would not count as a recount, just improve first time accuracy). This way, even if one republican was able to prevail in the democrats or trick them into skewing results, it would not match the other groups counting the same races.

[merwin]

89. Well, one good thing about vote-by-mail is that you will know if your

vote didn't count, since names are tallied.

[JohnGideon]

83. Great!

Any Vote-By-Mail plan includes the ability for voters to drop their ballot into a box at the voting office or in other sites around a county. Just exactly as you did.

[Andy_Stephenson]

85. But the vote by mail scheme I have heard bandied about

does away with polling places alltogether.

So that would force me to go downtown to drop it off...wouldn't it?

[JohnGideon]

91. Probably; or put it into the mail....

I cannot for the life of me understand how someone would trust checks, credit card applications, and all of the other things that we entrust the Post Office with but not a ballot. You assume immediately when you talk about your ballot that everyone is out to commit fraud. They are going to, somehow, know how you voted and take your ballot because you voted contrary to how they vote.

It's not going to happen anymore than it already is across the state. In fact, it may have less of a chance of ever happening because the ballots may have a bar-code that can be scanned, at the elections office, by a completely separate system. You may be able to check to ensure that your ballot was received; not that it was counted correctly or counted at all. It's not VoteHere. It's just a barcode software. If they get a lot of complaints from one postal pick-up area then the Postal Inspectors will investigate. That's a federal crime.

[Andy_Stephenson]

92. With the way things have been going John...

I dont trust anyone with my ballot. Almost don't trust the county...as evidenced by my ballot not being counted.

[Amaryllis]

101. Yes, you can call to check to see if it was received. I did. It took them

about one minute to verify that they had received it. People need to read all the safeguards that are built in to the OR system before criticizing vote by mail. THe biggest problem is we have Diebold tabulators and we are working on this.
See here for details on OR system:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x315852

[Amaryllis]

100. No, we can take to our BOE or library and put in locked drop box.

[fearnobush]

95. Makes me wonder if I ought to feel good about my 50 yr old lever

machines we use in Central NJ. Sorry to here that, but this problem knows no bounds since my hair dresser's vote was likely not counted as she was made to wait 4 hrs in Ocean Co court house just to get a provisional. She was registerd, but her name went missing from the polling book at her precinct. Her sample ballot precinct info was wrong.

[Land Shark]

78. Dude, you're becoming a cynic

If vote by mail was going to be a huge problem, then because we've had the hand recount here in Washington with literally every voter being investigated, if vote buying and so forth were a serious risk we would at least have heard some rumors about it by now.

I guess we shouldn't have any parties because, they could break down and someone could get hurt, or even murdered. yes, there are risks but all we can do with risks is make them illegal and, if a serious risk as in the days of the Wild West, we might make you check your weapon at the door when you come to the party. But just like we don't outlaw parties because of the risk of violence, we shouldn't outlaw vote by mail because of a theoretical risk of vote buying or mailman corruption, which are serious offenses we have little evidence actually occur, plus those concerned about it can PERSONALLY DROP OFF their ballots at the election office.

But, then let's say I'm wrong and Andy's right. Because in some states (like Washington state) the VERY most likely bill to pass is all vote by mail, we would be much better holding hands to get out of the burning building (getting rid of DREs) AND THEN modify the vote by mail system.

Right now counties in WA state are rushing to buy DREs so to oppose vote by mail is a piss poor strategy, it just brings us more DREs because it makes it look like there are no improvements since all systems are problematic, so we might as well stay with DREs and stay the course we're on.

Let's agree to kill the DREs first, then work collaboratively to improve the rest. The DRE cancer is growing because of the paper trail by 2006 talk.

[Pacifist Patriot]

82. I will never vote by mail unless I am certain I will be unable to

make it to the polls. I've seen too many odd things with absentee ballots since 2000 to feel comfortable with them.

[Land Shark]

84. Given the problems with polls too, that puts us in a heck of a bind

the key is we have to WEIGH which one's problems are fewer. If the standard is to only support some perfect system it (1) likely doesn't exist (2) if it did exist would probably not be simple and thus require much new public education and (3) insisting on near perfection or perfection may make everything but DREs seem like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, and thus we remain stuck on the present path, which is rapid expansion of touch screen voting.

[Pacifist Patriot]

90. Funny you should mention that....

Here is my letter to the editor today:

_____ County has an excellent precinct system with courteous and well trained poll workers. I commend the Supervisor of Elections and his staff for their work. ____ ______'s (Supervisor of Elections)priorities of complying with election law, ensuring a smooth election process and doing so within budget are entirely appropriate. Ironically, forces in our society that value technological progress and speed of information at the expense of voter confidence pose a threat to these goals.

I am concerned that Mr. _____ has indicated ________ County will be acquiring DRE/touchscreen systems, which do not provide a paper trail, in order to comply with HAVA regulations for accommodating visually impaired voters. HAVA requires accommodation but does not mandate the means. Instead, I urge the ______ County Board of Elections to aquire ballot templates such as those already used in Rhode Island, Canada and Europe. A lifetime supply of ballot templates costs less than maintaining a single DRE machine for a single election and allows for a paper trail in the event of a hand recount.

Given the problems reported with these systems across the nation, it is vital to the integrity of our elections that we not allow paperless proprietary touchscreen voting in ________ County.

At the moment our polling system seems to engender more confidence than absentee ballots. Should we acquire DRE technology I imagine my opinion would change drastically.

[Amaryllis]

108. I have been looking closely at the OR system. There are many safeguards

built in; I trust it a WHOLE lot more than DREs, that's for sure.

[bardgal]

86. Oregon is the ONLY place that matched the polls... mail voting WORKED.

And it's A BILLION times better than e-voting. It's also easier to verify.

[Generator]

104. Thanks!

It seemed weird at first, not going to the polls-but it has worked wonderfully for a few years now.

The opening post seems a wee bit paranoid. I really don't imagine the postal service as evil and with an agenda-but I've heard that for years-I've never had anything lost in the mail. My mail carrier is a lesbian by the way-I guess she would be destroying the fundie votes. Good plan-only gays in the post office and mail voting- a very suberversive way to change this country, doncha think?

That said, it doesn't matter because there are many drop off sites-and you don't even have to go all the way downtown(quell horror) to drop them off-or even the election office but I did take mine this election and in election 2000 directly there, for all the good it did with the rest of the country's bonehead voting (or not-I'm in the Kerry won camp, and I wanted him to win camp not I just hated Bush camp). Big sigh. Save .34 cents and feel civic was my goal. I still trust the post office.

Maybe Andy is really saying that other states will screw it up because well that's what other states do. Anything can be set up for fraud, fraud is hardly new. I'm not sure any one system is the answer-but clearly making voting clear and as accessible and as transparent as possible is the goal.

[bardgal]

105. exactly. Bottom line is e-voting in the easiest way to perpetuate fraud...

on a MASSIVE scale. Mail is one of the easiest ways to stop it.

[bush_is_wacko]

87. I agree this system has mostly failed us in Colorado. The public has no

Idea how many absentee ballots were sent out so they have no idea how many should be counted. We also have early voting. I was an early voter this year and I also watched my Kerry vote jump to bush. I was able to change it and the end screen did say I voted for Kerry, but who knows how my vote was counted? The machines and trickery has to go. Paper ballots counted on money machines (mechanical money machines that are calibrated immediately before and checked often) and Iraqi purple indelible ink to insure the thugs have nothing more they can bitch about and the removal of all current ways for BOE officials to skirt the law is a MUST. No pussyfooting around IT ALL NEEDS TO BE DONE! Absentee ballots should be used ONLY for those that are indeed absent from the country or state they live in. I'm not sure I even trust that.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

94. Facts on Oregon Vote By Mail

(I admit, I worry about the ins and outs too)
**Note, for live links, go to the
webpage: http://www.ncvoter.net/OregonVBM.html

VOTE BY MAIL IN OREGON
Oregon votes by mail, tested it first in 1981, made it permanent in 1988
Oregon Secretary of State A Brief History of Vote-by-Mail from the Oregon
Secretary of State website


Signature verification is the primary safeguard against fraud, and it will become an even more effective safeguard with
centralized voter registration.

5 Year Study by SOS of Oregon comparing undervotes with three different voting methods:
punch-card, optical scan and hand counted paper ballots. Good data.
1992 General Election Undervote Averages:
punch cards: 7.67%
optical scan: 6.24%
paper ballot: 6.90%

1994 General Election Undervote Averages:
punch cards: 6.50%
optical scan: 5.16%
paper ballot: 6.11%

1996 General Election Undervote Averages:
punch cards: 7.03%
optical scan: 4.91%
paper ballot: 5.08%

1998 General Election Undervote Averages:
punch cards: 7.85%
optical scan: 6.21%
paper ballot: 7.23%

2000 General Election Undervote Averages:
punch cards: 7.11%
optical scan: 4.13%
no paper ballots

Kerry wins Oregon's seven electoral votes
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Democratic presidential contender John Kerry won a convincing victory
over President Bush Tuesday in Oregon, a traditionally Democratic state that Republicans
had tried hard to win this year.

Oregon Electoral Votes: 7
President 100% of precincts reporting

Candidates Party Vote Count % Votes Cast
Kerry Dem 890,698 51
Bush Rep 823,210 48
Badnarik Lib 6,824 0
Cobb PAG 4,952 0
Peroutka CST 4,945 0

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/or.htm


This and links to news articles on Oregon Vote By Mail at my website, http://www.ncvoter.net/OregonVBM.html
Bill proposed in NC: http://www.ncvoter.net/votebymail.html

I believe that in Florida, it wouldn't matter how you voted, there would be massive skullduggery.
It is a shame that we can't have votes counted publicly.

[Amaryllis]

103. More details on OR system (lots of safeguards built in):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x315852

[yurbud]

102. Why are private contractors handling the votes at all?

Every state has plenty of employees they could release from their other duties for a couple of days of vote counting--it would probably cost less, and the DMV and court employees would probably enjoy the change of pace.

[Amaryllis]

109. Darn good question and one I have wondered about. Companies

have no business in the voting business. Except printing the ballots maybe.

[Rocky Top]

110. "kick"