For this admission.
So here goes: I am wrong about voting by mail.
I thought voting by mail was the ideal way to increase voter participation. I loved the idea of taking my time to sort through a ballot (especially complicated initiatives), ticking my choices and then mailing it off for an efficient count. I also liked the notion that making voting easier would increase participation. When it comes to democracy, the more, the better.
Trahant goes on to say that his mind was changed by the explosion of vote fraud in Great Britain when they introduced large scale voting by mail.
We have similar problems with voting by mail in the United States. It is hard even to estimate how many fraudulent votes are cast in our elections since the crime is often invisible. If someone steals something from you, you'll almost certainly know it; if someone votes fraudulently in one of your elections, you probably won't know it happened. But we do know this: When fraudulent ballots are detected in the United States, they usually were mailed to the elections office. (In most American states, the majority of ballots are still cast directly, not mailed.)
It is not hard to understand why fraudulent votes are more common with mailed ballots. Over the centuries, we have learned (often through bitter experience) that the act of voting should be public, and that the ballot should be secret. Voting by mail is generally done in private, and the ballots are checked by anonymous clerks in private. Mailed ballots need not be secret, which makes bribery and even intimidation easier.
Evidence caused the editorial page editor of the Seattle PI to change his mind. I think most who looked at the same evidence would come to the same conclusion he did. Perhaps this forthright column will encourage a few more journalists to look at that evidence.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
(For more on the problems of voting by mail, I recommend John Fund's Stealing Elections, especially chapter 3.)
Posted by Jim Miller at September 27, 2005 07:57 AM | Email ThisHe was one of two members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to get a seat at the Democratic National Convention in 1964 (and, with many of the black members of the party, also went in 1968).
He was in WA recently, as he goes around the country helping people deal with issues of reconciliation. I talked to him a bit about various things, and, unsurprisingly, he had very strong feelings about elections.
Ed noted to me that mail-in balloting is, as Trahant realized, wide-open to fraud of many kinds. This was no surprise to me.
But what I had not really thought about was his perspective on identification: it used to be that people -- that is, those who had previously been denied the right to vote -- were quite proud to stand up and be identified as a voter.
I know times have changed, and that we have far less actual fear of being denied our rights, and have shifted instead to paranoia about people knowing too much about us. Some of that paranoia may be justified, but not in this case. We should all be happy and proud to stand up and say we voted, that we are citizens, that we live where we do, that we have a name, and that we voted.
Trahant's failure to acknowledge that problems and flaws in King County's absentee section may have contributed to changing his mind on the issue speaks volumes!
Posted by: Joe on September 27, 2005 09:44 AMThe potential for fraud is greater because we tend to vote in geographic patterns. Professionals know where we live and how we are likely to vote. Consider the impact on a statewide race if 10 percent of Democrat-leaning Seattle's ballots were stolen from mailboxes. Or vice versa from, say, Spokane.
Is the city of Spokane really the opposite of Seattle? Does Spokane vote 85% GOP?
Another reason for my change of heart occurred on Bainbridge Island. Days before the election, a Web site revealed that a mayoral candidate's resume was padded. I didn't vote for that candidate, but I had already voted. What if it were my candidate? I could not take my vote back. I wonder if the frenetic pace of 21st-century life is a contradiction with vote by mail. Two weeks is too long to be committed; the world is changing too fast every day.
Does Trahant sound like a real, grown-up person, or some wishy-washy little kid? Is it wise to have him voting at all?
Posted by: huckleberry on September 27, 2005 10:26 AMI still think we need to do more to re-engage Americans in the voting process. We ought to work harder to get people to the polls, perhaps making voting near effortless.
Trahant doesn't understand that nothing could be easier than the physical act of voting in America. How could it be easier, unless we asked the government officials to just go ahead and vote for us? Trahant totally ignores the hard reality that the difficult part of voting is figuring out who to vote for. Being involved in American democracy isn't primarily about voting, but about being involved in the political process, partisanship, doorbelling, blogging, and no longer reading the Seattle P-I.
Jeesh!
Posted by: huckleberry on September 27, 2005 10:31 AMGood God! He's never even heard of the automobile.
huckleberry nails it with his remark wondering if Trahant is a wishy-washy (yes) little kid (no).
Trahant says he favors "the more, the merrier", I favor "Reasoned, well informed, responsible voters".
So, kudos to Trahant.....for recognizing the obvious.
Posted by: alphabet soup on September 27, 2005 11:07 AMBut when it comes to ballot fraud in King County, he turns his thinker off. He's never addressed the excess of ballots over voters, nor the freely counted unverified provisional ballots.
And when he comes to a photo-ID concept, he not only turns off his thinker, but puts hands over his eyes and corks in his ears. Pity the would-be voter, he says, who quivers in fear and loathing at obtaining such a demeaning document. Oh, no problem having one for establishing one's age at the liquor store, or buying gummint-financed prescription drugs, but VOTING? Unthinkable, to him.
Looks like his distaste for voter fraud has its limits.
Posted by: Hank Bradley on September 27, 2005 11:20 AMOregon has been doing vote-by-mail since 1998, any fraud there? Nope
Many Washington Counties have been doing vote-by-mail for years now, any fraud there? Nope
So you have to travel over to Europe to find some fraud? Not very convincing.
Come up with some EVIDENCE next time, it makes your case much stronger!
Posted by: Scott on September 27, 2005 12:46 PMIt takes a tin foil hat to think everything is just a-OK.
Posted by: Bostonian on September 27, 2005 12:54 PMStephan's '1,000s of fraudulent ballots' has more holes in his argument than swiss cheese!
Thats why the case before Chelan County was all about proportional analysis, and not actual fraud!
Must resist the Kool-aid, fraudsters!
Posted by: Scott on September 28, 2005 07:22 AM