Stefan invited me to guest blog about forced mail voting. What King County cheerfully calls 100% Vote by Mail. Stefan asked for the progressive view. What I can offer is one progressive's view: my own.
Opposing forced mail voting is like playing Whac-A-Mole. The enthusiasts offer some new rationalization. We knock it down. Lather, rinse, repeat. What follows is the list so far.
Forced mail voting is cheaper!
Um, no. Mail balloting is more expensive than poll voting. Because of all the extra materials, handling, and facilities overhead. Then add the expense of switchover costs, new gear, and a few million for a brand new mail ballot warehouse. So, in truth, forced mail voting is a total rip-off.
Poll voting is positively cheap by comparison. Poll site rental is $10. Poll workers earn about $120/day. Far fewer poll ballots are printed (just what is needed).
Ah, we meant to say forced mail voting increases turnout!
Says who? Reports are inconclusive. At best, turnout gets a two election "novelty" bump, followed by long-term decline. Just ask the UK.
Where turnout has increased, it's mostly in the primaries, not the general elections. Even then, Oregon's recent primary had really bad turnout.
Yea. But forced mail voting is more secure!
This rationalization just kills me. Mail ballots get sent -- wait for it -- through the mail. Who hasn't had problems with stolen or lost mail? A virtue of poll voting is the unbroken chain of custody. Another is that a third party (e.g. mail processing contractors employing felons) don't sit between me casting my ballot and the counting of my votes.
Your fears are over blown, forced mail voting is more reliable!
Except for the 20% error rate, forced mail balloting is great. And that doesn't even cover the problems counting the votes. Central count optical scanners (how mail ballots are counted) are so bad, the 6th US Circuit Court last month declared them unconstitutional in Stewart v Blackwell. (So King County is adopting forced mail voting just in time to change it back again. Our tax dollars hard at work.)
Well, if forced mail balloting is so bad, then why are 70% voting my mail?!
Darned good question. Today, 1/3rd of mail ballots are dropped off at a poll site. So while 70% of the votes last election received their ballots in the mail, 53% of voters continue to vote in person. Don't forget that 100s of precincts already have forced mail voting. Which inflates the numbers of alleged supporters. And, like us, many voters would return to poll voters if they understood the problems with mail voting.
But, our hybrid system is complicated! Forced mail voting would be more simple!
There's nothing simple about the new system. We currently have paper ballots at poll sites and absentee ballots. We'll soon have virtual ballots on touchscreen machines at poll sites and forced mail balloting if you want a paper ballot.
The complexity of poll site voting and forced mail voting are not comparable. With poll sites, you do one thing many times. And mistakes are caught and fixed before ballots are counted. Every ballots --used, spoiled or missing -- is accounted for.
The complexity of forced mail voting comes from tossing out the order and replacing it with chaos. (This post is getting kind of long, so I'll describe the forced mail balloting system in another post.)
And I hope everyone knows by now the problems with touchscreen voting.
Okay, okay, forced mail voting may be all those bad things. But it is more convenient!
For whom? The voter who didn't receive their ballot? Or whose ballot was lost on route back to the Elections Office? Or had their ballot rejected because the signatures weren't matched correctly? Or maybe the ballot can't be machine read, so needs to be recreated, hopefully correctly.
Yea, sounds a lot more convenient. For the Elections Office, perhaps.
Posted by Jason Osgood at May 25, 2006 09:10 AM | Email ThisI would be in favor of a system where we poll vote except under conditions where we can't make it to the polls, like being out of town or laid up in a hospital. But, I know, it ain't gonna happen.
Posted by: swatter on May 25, 2006 09:22 AM"Hello, this is the King County Elections office. We DON"T care, we don't HAVE to...." (snort!)
They have effectively taken our right to vote and that's that. Complaints? Umm, call someone who cares....
What I cannot understand is how all of the so-called conservatives around here so blithely gave up their voting rights. (and if you believe this is going to be fair and honest, please see me later for some great oceanfront property I have for sale in Arizona....)
the old saw is certainly true:
The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do NOTHING!!!
seems to be a lot of nothing going on lately.
Posted by: elmo on May 25, 2006 09:30 AMYou say VBM is more expensive because of 'extra materials'? Envelopes? I'm not sure what extra materials and you didn't list any. 'Handling'? VBM does not just happen in one day like poll voting. It is a process of over a period of time. Counties begin sorting ballots, checking signatures, etc. far in advance. They do no counting until after polls close on election day, however. This 'handling' uses far fewer personnel than manning polls. 'Facility overhead'? What extra facilities will be needed beyond what the county uses now?
The new offices and space for county elections is going to happen anyway. If they didn't go to VBM they would be using many more voting machines including the poll site op-scans and Diebold TSx's for the disabled voters with one minimum at every polling site. Where do you think they will be storing all of these machines that are now no longer needed? Yes, the very same warehouse. You save nothing or spend nothing more here. Plus you have to hire trucks to move the machines from the warehouse to the polls. Sorry but it is, at best a wash, and probably a savings for VBM.
The county will now save about $3300 per TSx that is no longer needed. They will also be able to get rid of a large number of their precint op-scans. This will save well over $100,000 every year in technical support contracts, maintenance contracts, licensing, and ballot programming. That's not to mention the cost of replacements as machines break-down.
The county also saves on the replacements of all of their optical-scan machines which are no longer sold by Diebold. Any replacements would have to be newer, updated models.
There have been studies done all over the country that prove that paper based voting systems are far cheaper than non-paper systems. Miami-Dade County Florida wants to change from DREs for just that reason.
I also need to point out that any large number of ballots that need to be printed for VBM is a good thing. That means ballots are getting out to everyone.
Posted by: Dem Voter on May 25, 2006 09:53 AMI stand by my statements. Both Pierce and King County acknowledge that forced mail voting is more expensive. But although stopped making that claim, not everyone has received that memo.
King County intends to erect a Taj Mahal for mail ballot processing. The Executive's supplemental appropriation was approved by the Committe of the Whole on Monday. It's all covered in Logan's Moving to Vote by Mail proposal.
You're correct that forced mail voting is probably cheaper than buying a Diebold touchscreen voting machine for each of the 500 poll sites. To date, King County has bought 200 Diebold AccuVote TSx and leased another 400 (as a bridge to forced mail voting).
The options between Diebold touchscreen voting machines and forced mail voting is a false choice. Both decrease election integrity. So I oppose both.
The most secure and reliable method to vote is paper poll ballots counted by voter correctable precinct-based optical scanners. That's what we're giving up. And I oppose that move.
Posted by: Jason Osgood on May 25, 2006 10:20 AMFor Stefan, whose definition of covert includes someone using their real name and providing contact information, here's full disclosure: My name is Anne and I work for the Oregon Secretary of State. I like vote by mail. Everybody clear now?
"Forced mail" is a nice rhetorical twist. Makes the US Postal service sound like they're getting medieval on your ass. Letter carriers with whips and chains. Be very afraid.
People have already chosen to vote by mail, and if they don't want to send their ballot then they can drop it off in person. There's nothing wrong with that. It's receiving the ballot in the mail that makes it more convenient for the voter, and thus makes the voter more likely to vote.
But, cries Jason, with ample punctuation, all of the arguments in favor of Vote By Mail are false, and I can prove it simply by using exclamation points! Why offer evidence when exclamation points are so effective!
Here's the deal.
(1) Vote By Mail was found to be cheaper in Oregon, based on the experience of our county clerks, other than that, nobody has fully researched the cost issue.
(2) Vote By Mail has been shown to increase turnout in traditionally low turnout elections (school board, library bonds, stadium elections etc.) Here's a link: http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/WSACAStadium1997.pdf
(3) Administration of a Vote By Mail election offers opportunities for more security than polling place elections. Administration is centralized and under the control of trained elections officials instead of temporary untrained poll workers. Ballots and counting machines can be kept under lock and key with a specified chain of custody. The US Postal Service is not full of felons, it is a respectable government organization that is a dependable partner in democracy. Don't hand your ballot over to a stranger on the street, but if you don't trust the postal service you can drop your ballot off in person. Your signature is checked as a safeguard against fraud, unlike in a polling place.
(4) Vote by Mail is reliable. Yes, King County Elections has had some problems, but they're doing everything right by working to fix them. One county in one very close election with problems does not argue against an entire system, especially when a whole state has found that system to be reliable. In a report to the Carter Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, Professor Paul Gronke writes, "Analysis of VBM by two separate academic teams concluded that VBM (and absentee balloting systems more generally) result in a more accurate count." Page 2. Here's the link: http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/CarterBaker.pdf
And the 6th Circuit did not hold optical scan machines unconstitutional. Which is good, since most of the counties in the country use them. See: http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/
Stewart v. Blackwell is an equal protection case, finding that the choice of technology (here, primarily punchcards) can cause discriminatory vote dilution. You can read the case yourself here:
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/06a0143p-06.pdf
(5) Running a dual system of polling places and mail voting is the most expensive system possible, and provides the most opportunities for fraud. Running one system (one or the other) does, in fact, simplify administration, cut cost, and minimize opportunities for fraud. Just like common sense says it would.
(6) You can't seriously be arguing that receiving a ballot at home isn't more convenient than taking time off work to stand in line for six hours in the rain at a polling place.
That's all. Thank you for playing.
Posted by: Anne on May 25, 2006 10:23 AMPlease stop spreading misinformation.
You know full well that in King County, an all Vote by Mail system will cost approximately 210% more than the current system. You have been provided with the numbers before, but beasue they don't fit neatly into your highly partisan view of election reform
All you need to do is look at individual expense items per voter on past and present King County election budgets, compare with the requirements for forced VBM and add them up, and the totals are obvious. These are hard facts, not speculations.
Since you live in a small rural county, you may not be aware that King County's operation is run and budgeted much differently than that of a small county.
As far as "more ballots are a good thing" - what forced VBM will do in King County, for example, is put 1.2 million ballots into the mailstream for 1 million voters, given that inactive voters must also be provided a ballot.
Of those 1 million voters, in a primary, for example, about 45% will actually vote.
1.2 million ballots in circulation with 450,000 voters actually voting? If you check your math, I think you may find that is a VERY BAD thing.
Signed,
A card-carrying, 20-year Democratic PCO who is tired of wrong information on this issue.
Posted by: Insider on May 25, 2006 10:25 AMDon't play sorry, be accurate.
Anytime a system (any system) radically changes, it costs lots of money. This isn't rocket science. The question is, is it justified? Not unless more fraud and abuse is your goal.
You say "new offices and space for county elections is going to happen anyway" and "Where do you think they will be storing all of these machines that are now no longer needed?" Exactly . . . where?
You are making Jason's point.
Surplusing expensive equipment is extremely expensive and a dead loss. Replacing it is even more expensive.
Are you aware that you are making Jason's case for him?
If you believe these "studies" you are as foolish as those who came up with them. I have read many of them, and there is not one reputable "study" published anywhere that concludes what you say. The reason is because such a case is totally unsupportable except with the use of phony evidence and surmise.
Ahh yes, and now for the ever popular idiotic liberal more ballots means better elections bull$hit. You say, "Any large number of ballots that need to be printed for VBM is a good thing. That means ballots are getting out to everyone."
Most of us here already understand that democrats are idiots who have no clue about economics . . . you certainly have not disappointed us
If your voters in Oregon had to wait six hours in the rain to use a polling place before changing to Vote by Mail, then it's no wonder your office can't properly statistically examine the effects of forced vote by mail.
Name one instance of that occurance in Washington State. In our busiest recent Presidential election in 1992, wait times of upwards of 10 minutes at super-busy polling places was recorded.
As an employee of any state's Secretary of State, you should be ashamed of yourself and your misuse of Oregon tax dollars.
Can't wait until the next SOS race in Oregon...
"Hello, this is the King County Elections office. We DON"T care, we don't HAVE to...."
Lilly Tomlin is great.
My own judgement isn't that harsh. I've observed, and even participated in, some colossal screw ups. Large computer IT projects tend to pile drive themselves into the ground. It's just the nature of the beast.
I've spent my entire adult life trying to understand why these big, complicated projects fail. Why they're not aborted early, once the problem can no longer be ignored.
The worst bit is everyone involved usually knows there's a problem, but is incapable of acting. It's as though big projects gain a life of their own and swallow people up. And the people in charge have to see it through, because they can't bring themselves to jump off. (Or they take a new job somewhere else, before the chickens come home to roost.)
Posted by: Jason Osgood on May 25, 2006 10:32 AMOh yah, because it's easier to commit fraud by mail ballot.
Notice that not one of those arguments FOR mail balloting included "the risk of fraud is greatly lessened."
Posted by: Misty on May 25, 2006 10:35 AMThe replacements, oh by the way, cost money.
There have been studies done all over the country that prove that paper based voting systems are far cheaper than non-paper systems. Miami-Dade County Florida wants to change from DREs for just that reason.
No kidding, that's why we want to stay with the existing poll based system which is based on paper, is simple, requires far less technical support. Requires simple, time tested scanners which double as secure boxes to transport the ballots, etc.
Another thing Dem voter misses and that Jason did not mention is that the largest cost savings in using the current Poll system comes in the distributed nature of Poll Voting. All across the county, low pay or no pay workers do their small part to get the ballots in to the voters hands in a secure and verifiable way, then watch over the voters in a secure way, then accept those ballots in a secure way, and watch as the ballots are tabulated in a secure manner and checked for overvotes and readability. That's a huge cost savings because invariably when all these steps are performed by uneducated voters in the privacy of their own homes, there's plenty of room for error that ultimately has to be resolved by a much higher wage, typically union, workforce. And that workforce is employed for some greater length of time than the one day that the poll workers are employed. And in many cases, the union workers also have benefit overhead not associated with the temporary poll workers. It takes far longer to resolve a problem with a particular ballot when it has no context and has simply come off of a pile of incoming absentee ballots, vs. a ballot in the hands of a live voter at a precinct where human interaction between the poll worker and voter can quickly resolve any errors eliminating the costs of correcting them later.
Also interesting is that Democrats who really want VMB fail to look at the long term implications. Typically, voters that take the time to plan ahead and take the time to go to the polls, etc. have had a more conservative overall view. VBM makes voting more abstract, more easily forgotten, removes the inherent expediency of a hard deadline and even removes the opportunity for mass voter bussing to the polls, etc. All of these factors will tend to favor conservative voters. Or at minimum they will tend to favor more independent voters who decide issues on their own, rather than simply being guided by the emotion of a political rally at their church or community center two days before the election which motivates them to go to the polls.
VBM is just a bad idea that's become popular in elitist liberal power circles. Kinda like tearing down the viaduct and replacing it with a $4 Billion+ tunnel.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 25, 2006 10:40 AMYou would do better without the adolescent attitude. Have an adult edit your comment before posting it.
Most of what you included was informative and worth considering.
But, for example, it's silly to say things like this:
But, cries Jason, with ample punctuation, all of the arguments in favor of Vote By Mail are false, and I can prove it simply by using exclamation points! Why offer evidence when exclamation points are so effective!
The only exclamation marks used in the entry were at the end of the sentences which stated the justifications for voting by mail. There were none used in the criticisms of those claims.
Thanks, anyway, for the parts of your comment that weren't snidely put.
Posted by: Micajah on May 25, 2006 10:41 AMIt is harder to fool and not a big costly IT project.
Posted by: Fed Up on May 25, 2006 10:48 AMI'm glad that you appreciate "forced mail voting."
Comparing King County Washington and Oregon State is like comparing apples and oranges.
Today, we have a hybrid system. With forced mail voting, we'll have a hybrid system.
Maybe everything's great in Oregon State. Great. Knock yourselves out. But King County Washington today has problems with mail balloting. One would hope our Elections Office would demonstrate improved core competency by fixing the known failings before making the problem worse. Kind of like validating an idea with a pilot project before a widespread deployment.
Posted by: Jason Osgood on May 25, 2006 11:07 AMAnne, Your lunch break isn't until 11:00AM....GET BACK TO WORK!
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 25, 2006 11:10 AMInsider says, "You know full well that in King County, an all Vote by Mail system will cost approximately 210% more than the current system. You have been provided with the numbers before, but beasue they don't fit neatly into your highly partisan view of election reform." Actually I don't know that and have never been given those figures. Apparently you missed all of the facts about licensing, technical support, maintenance, etc. All of those much, much cheaper now that Vote-By-Mail is a fact.
JeffB says: "The county also saves on the replacements of all of their optical-scan machines which are no longer sold by Diebold. Any replacements would have to be newer, updated models.
The replacements, oh by the way, cost money."
Yes, exactly my point. The county will now not have to purchase those replacements for awhile longer.
And this bit of tripe: "Also interesting is that Democrats who really want VMB fail to look at the long term implications. Typically, voters that take the time to plan ahead and take the time to go to the polls, etc. have had a more conservative overall view."
I wonder what study found that information or if it was just made up. Maybe something from John Fund?
Actually this leads directly to why the conservatives are against VBM. It means people don't need photo IDs to vote and that takes away one of their means of keeping people away from the polls and away from voting.
It's much like destroying Democrat registration forms in Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. And, jamming GOTV phones in New Hampshire. And, changing Democrat registrations to Republican in Orange Co. CA. Anything to keep people away from the polls because when the turn-out is high the votes go to Democrats.
Posted by: Dem Voter on May 25, 2006 11:37 AMI suppose it must give the King County bureaucracy a thrill of sticking it to the Feds at no expense to themselves - and they surely don't show those immense postal costs and the Federal manhours wasted on ballot handling on the debit side of their ledger when they claim that postal voting is cheaper.
But you and I, dear registered voter (illegal, double, dead or whatever) must bear all those mail-handling costs, so those expenses should rightly be shown when comparing costs of polling-place versus mailed ballots.
And "Anne" with your lecturing and hectoring and mother-knows-best on company time from Oregon - please get stuffed, and let Washingtonians figure out their own processes.
Posted by: Hank Bradley on May 25, 2006 11:57 AMYou've come up with all sorts of reasons for everything under the sun...but you haven't given me a reason for the most important question on Forced Mail Voting:
You say that voting is a right, not a privelege. Why can't I exercise my RIGHT in the way that I choose? Why can't I cast my ballot at a polling place nearby and convenient to my apartment?
Is voting truly a right if King County gets to decide how I exercise that right?
I have the right to practice organized religion - how and when and where I choose.
I have the right to peacably assemble - how and when and where I choose.
I have the right to vote - how and where and when King County chooses.
Martin Luther King Jr and John F Kennedy would be ashamed at you and the rest of the current Democratic Party, especially in this state. You claim there's some Big National Republican Machine trying to disenfranchise us. So you join the Big State Democratic Machine trying to disenfranchise us.
You're eating your nose, and your face isn't happy about it.
Posted by: Larry on May 25, 2006 12:26 PMWhy is proving your legal to vote being disenfranchised? Do you believe that anyone should be able to vote? No rules/laws? If so, why?
Also, more democrats voted in the last presidental race than ever before and lost....hmmm I wonder what happened.
Posted by: Dengle on May 25, 2006 12:32 PMThe National Commission on Election Reform (the Jimmy Carter/Gerald Ford Commission) studied mail voting in depth and found serious problems. This commission is hardly a tool of the right-wing conspiracy.
The following are some excerpts from their report:
"We wish to comment on one final trend to encourage eligible voters to participate. It is a trend that troubles us, however. This is the increasing adoption of procedures that encourage “no excuse” absentee voting, early voting, and voting-by-mail.
Though this trend is justified as promoting voter turnout, the evidence for this effect is thin. Analysts have even noted the possibility that voter turnout in such states may eventually decline, as the civic significance of Election Day loses its meaning.
This trend is adopted in the name of voter turnout, but often seems to be motivated at least as much by considerations of administrative convenience and saving money. More votes by mail mean less need for polling places and poll workers.
The benefits of the new remote and early voting schemes should be weighed against some important costs and dangers:
• Federal law states that presidential elections should be held on the same day throughout the nation. Courts nonetheless have understandably been reluctant to invalidate state laws on this basis. But we believe the statutory plan offers wise guidance.
• Citizens should vote with a common base of information about candidates. If they vote over a period of weeks before Election Day, they vote based on the knowledge available on a scattering of different dates.
• Wherever possible, citizens should vote alone and in secret. The United States adopted the secret ballot a century ago in order to help voters resist pressure to disclose their choices, whether to relatives or to interested “friends.” Permissive early voting threatens the hard won right to a secret ballot.
• The institution of a national Election Day is one of the only remaining occasions in which Americans come together as a nation to perform a collective civic duty. We think rituals and ceremonies do have a part in forming a nation’s traditions and habits. We think this one should not be discarded lightly.
• Growing use of absentee voting has turned this area of voting into the most likely opportunity for election fraud now encountered by law enforcement officials. These cases are especially difficult to prosecute, since the misuse of a voter’s ballot or the pressure on voters occurs away from the polling place or any other outside scrutiny. These opportunities for abuse should be contained, not enlarged.
• Absentee ballots are often counted last. As their numbers rise, timely reporting of election results is more difficult. After Election Day 2000 California alone had more than a million absentee ballots waiting to be tallied over the following weeks.
Significantly inaccurate voter lists invite schemes that use ‘empty’ names on voter lists for ballot box stuffing, ghost voting, or to solicit “repeaters” to use such available names. For generations these practices have been among the oldest and most frequently practiced forms of vote fraud. One of our Commissioners (President Jimmy Carter) has written a book mentioning his encounter with such practices early in his political career. The opportunities to commit such frauds are actually growing because of the trend toward more permissive absentee voting.
The weight of the evidence leans toward a conclusion that early voting and vote-by-mail have slightly increased turnout among committed partisan voters or in low interest local elections. Unrestricted absentee voting probably has not increased turnout at all."
Another frequently heard justification is, "The majority of people already vote by mail." So let's not just assume that this means that everyone does so because they want to - some have no choice. I voted by mail for years because the work I did meant I might be out of the area on short notice and wouldn't be able to vote from wherever I might be. Now that I'm retired I was looking forward to voting in the polling place again - but where I live that is no longer an option.
Let's put it to a vote, in the form of a state-wide referendum or initiative, complete with campaigns Pro and Con and see if the majority of people, once all the facts are made known to them, will vote to make Washington an all VBM state.
Posted by: KAB on May 25, 2006 01:14 PMMy observation is that people from the right are mostly concerned with voter fraud. Whereas the left are mostly worried about election fraud and secret vote counting. These are complimentary concerns. It'd be a shame if we miss the opportunities to work together to increase overall election integrity.
Posted by: Jason Osgood on May 25, 2006 01:47 PMThe elites like Sims, Logan, Larry Phillips, etc. can't be bothered with a vote. They've already decided that VBM is best for you.
Rational discussion, financial analysis, the actual preference of voters? C'mon, that's all stuff for think tanks like EFF or Blogs to discuss, but in King County, those in power know what's best for all of us.
Just sit back and enjoy the ride to VBM, higher taxes, failed schools, a Big Dig like Tunnel project, ourageously expensive subsidized mass transit, removal of downtown Seattle parking, more HOV lanes, rural property confiscation, subsidized stadiums, etc.
We'll be arriving at our Socialist Utopian destination soon.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 25, 2006 01:56 PMWe used to be part of the Soviet Union, but after the break-up the other Republics wanted capitalism and free markets! Can you imagine such things?
Luckily we have Comrades Simskovsky and Nickelsovich to direct us how to vote so we never have to worry about the vaguaries of capitalism and a true democracy.
Posted by: Larry on May 25, 2006 03:31 PMIt's the counting of the vote.
When that's "taken care of" then the party in charge will shift over time to liberal policies of universal suffrage. No matter the party.
All the shenanigans outside the polling place you can dream up won't amount to the error rates of the scanners on a great accuracy day for the scanners.
You can vote in who you want, the officials or the programmers of machines will count in who they want. Didn't anybody learn anything in 2004?
Posted by: Paul Lehto on May 25, 2006 06:50 PMI appreciated the thoughtful approach of your post and comments. However, I do not agree with your assessment of partisan motives.
Given the case you make re VBM, you would be far more comfortable amongst the Republican crew than the Democrats for several reasons.
Look at what Anne says and how she says it, and ask yourself if you trust her comments. If a Republican like Stefan ever made such a shallow case, I would tear it apart without reservation. If you doubt me, take a look at One Week Suspension Eyed For Instructor's Condi-Watermelon Gibe, authored by self described conservative blogger Matt Rosenberg where I rip Matt apart. I'm no blind partisan and neither are any of my compatriots here at Sound Politics. You cannot honestly say the same for Anne, or Dem voter.
Please don’t pretend that liberals and conservatives are both interested in honest voting. They are not. All conceptions of “honesty” are not equal. Liberals are honestly for winning at all cost. Republicans want a decent reasonable honest society left over when all is said and done. The two are neither the same nor compatible, and VBA benefits the liberal conception.
If they were, you would not have anything to comment about.
Thanks for your valuable comments.
"(2) Vote By Mail has been shown to increase turnout in traditionally low turnout elections (school board, library bonds, stadium elections etc.)"
Anne, you didn't say anything about high-turnout elections.
Does VBM decrease the turnout in those, as occurred last week?
http://www.oregonlive.com/elections/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/114784360210780.xml&coll=7
Or did the voters just not like ANY of the candidates on the ballot?
32%. Yikes. Ouch.
Real
Posted by: ewaggin on May 25, 2006 10:03 PMLiberals are like teenagers who want a pony no matter the cost, the fatal impracticality, or the best interest of the pony.
Ever wondered what would happen if they were in charge?
This statement: The most secure and reliable method to vote is paper poll ballots counted by voter correctable precinct-based optical scanners. That's what we're giving up. And I oppose that move.
is factually incorrect and has been demonstrated in study after study. You may not like it, but well designed DREs are consistently shown to have the most accurate, have the lowest residual vote rate, and the lowest error rate.
Why? Poorly designed ballots, incorrectly marked ballots (e.g. stray pencil marks, multiply voted races), torn or damaged paper ballots, etc.
See CalTech/MIT Voting Technology, University of Maryland ballot study, Election Law journal, etc.
Posted by: paul on May 30, 2006 01:19 PM