Posted on 12/24/2012 8:48:56 AM PST by lowbridge
After it surfaced that Democratic Congressional candidate Wendy Rosen had been voting in two states she dropped out of her race against Republican Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) in September
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
What is no excuse absentee voting?
Thanks for the ping; post; info/links/work; thread. BTTT!
It's the practice in some states of giving out absentee ballots to anyone who asks for one, no questions asked. I advocated ending such procedures where they exist, and forcing the prospective absentee voter to give a bona fide reason as to why he or she can't show up at the polling place on Election Day.
Merry Christmas.
I have been doing absentee balloting for about 25 years.
Prior to that, I never missed a vote. One year the day before the election, my boss asked me to go out of town to teach a class for someone who was sick.
It was an overnight trip and I missed the opportunity to vote because I couldn’t get back in time. It was a serious issue with me. When I grew up my parents instilled the importance of voting on me and I maintain that attitude today.
Also, as I get older and suffer from more infirmaries I can foresee a time when it will be very difficult for me to show up at the polls.
I would miss the set opportunity of not having an absentee ballot.
There are scoundrels who vote by absentee ballot and then also go ahead and vote at the polls, perhaps several times. There are also absentee ballots that can get lost or can be discarded by partisan 'Rat election employees and not counted because they have GOP votes on them. Those are types of fraud and cheating that seldom get mentioned, even "flying under the radar" in a forum such as this.
To minimize fraud and cheating, lowering the number of absentee ballots is one of a number of worthwhile changes in election law.
This country is very good at pressing other sovereign countries to annul elections due to vote fraud and various irregularities. But here? We’re too perfect to do that, and prosecuting a few on occasion is little more than a bad joke.
not offended
Indeed. There should be a purge of all voter rolls. I’d support funding to reimburse states for the cost of all-new registration and even advertising to ensure people knew they needed to re-register.
At the same time I would not allow electronic voting - at least not computerized voting. I would favor the old-fashioned “scan tron” type devices which count hand-cast votes cast with a blotter pen, but not on-screen computerized voting and storage of votes. Each voter would get a ballot and the butterfly type ballot device with a blotter pen. No chads, just mark numbers on a ballot.
Then I would also have at-the-precinct counting in full view of observers and volunteers. None of this shipping of locked boxes full of ballots off to a central location for counting. Count the votes at the precinct in front of witnesses and then send the tally on to the SOS. It would be OK to have multiple counting devices to double or triple check the count. In fact this is preferred. But this way there would be scores of witnesses of each precinct count before it ever got to the SOS for validating. Any shenanigans of finding lost boxes full of ballots or ballot stuffing would be harder to pull off.
It might take longer but protecting the franchise is critical and worth the extra effort. If we want to end fraud we have to take control of the process.
I’ve been trying to figure a way to have a ballot that allows a receipt for the voter that they could go online and check to see their vote got counted correctly. Also, it would have to be some kind of duplicate, so it could be counted by two groups, and they had better match precisely or they count again.
Voter rolls should be for ONE election, then discarded. Register 30 days before every election or you don’t vote. NO MORE SAME DAY REGISTRATION. Register with a photo ID, have your photo taken with your photo ID in the new photo, as part of the registration, get a unique registration serial number, and all of it has to match at the election station or you do not vote. It might be like a driver’s license. Then, when you show up to vote, you surrender it. They enter your serial number to ensure it hasn’t been used before. After your vote, you take your ballot receipt home and double check online.
This will be enormously expensive to implement, of course. But hey, just print the money, right?
Some questions:
(1) If by "scan tron," you mean optical scanners of paper ballots, couldn't they be subject to hacking? I believe there were local races involving Diebold optical scanners in Palm Beach County, Fla. in recent years where such fraud was proven in court cases.
(2) Why do you specifically favor "butterfly" style ballots over other paper or light cardboard ballots where the voter inks in a circle or oval next to the candidate's name and the ballots are scanned via optical scanner? What is the advantage of the butterfly layout?
I think that is a great way to reduce fraud. Or if not every election, then every time there are 2 new candidates for President. Then it would be no more than every 8 years, possibly every 4 years. Some kind of system that would eliminate some of the hassle factor. I like your ideas.
Yes I mean some kind of optical scanner but low tech. It just counts. Low tech means cheap and simple and that makes it reproducible so you could have several counters at each precinct. To make elections fair, my thoughts are make it so that the votes can be easily counted in public to improve confidence. The ballots need be counted several times in succession to avoid cheating. Just set up a table and put 3 or 5 scanners in a row, each scanner “owned, hired and approved by” at least 2 people/parties on the ballot, and maybe even at least 1 hired and approved by the people of the precinct (through their various communal organizations).
The counting is done in view of the public. Just line up a couple of tables and count them in stacks. Witnesses and interested parties could all observe the counts at each station. If there are discrepancies in the count everyone would know.
Where I vote we use a butterfly ballot, maybe I am using the wrong term. It looks like a book but with a metal binder that has holes in the middle. You insert a numbered ballot and open the booklet, each candidate has a number. So if you insert the ballot correctly the number on the ballot lines up with the number of the candidate. Then you insert a small blotter pen into the binder and that allows you to blot the number of the candidate. Very simple. And any person can confirm they voted correctly by looking at the numbers they blotted.
I suppose they don’t have to be butterfly style but this works for the purpose of the Scan-Tron because it makes a very narrow ballot that can be easily stacked and scanned at the precinct. And that, to me, is the most important part. Start they day with empty ballot boxes, end the day with full boxes, then count them, all in full view of the public at large. Honest, fair, and very difficult to cheat.
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