Let's Create Our Own Paper Trail ~ Right Now
Since every state won't replace their paperless voting machines before November ~ why not start a campaign to encourage voters to create our own paper trail….by using an absentee ballot? Don't trust mail handling? Complete the ballot at home and deliver personally. My family changed to be permanent absentee (or "vote from home") voters as soon as GWB was illegally installed as President by the Supreme Court. Now our votes can be recounted anytime.
I'm a little surprised that progressive organizations have yet to mount a campaign to encourage voters to bypass politicians and just create their own paper trail with the tools we have right now.
This is one way for people to know that their vote will not only be counted ~ but RE-counted, if necessary. Imagine not having to worry about Diebold machines.
We can create our ballot paper trail ourselves right now, this year, this moment ~ all across America.
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What you need to understand about absentee ballots
Because there is no chain of custody for absentee ballots in transit through the mail, absentees are arguably as insecure a form of ballot as DRE.
There are ample opportunities for interdiction, substitution, or deliberate mistabulation of absentee ballots.
Late-arriving absentee vote totals have frequently poured in at the end of closely contested elections, altering the outcome.
These suspicious, suddenly appearing absentees are rarely subjected to post-election audits -- and even if they were, it might be very difficult to if not impossible to demonstrate whether they were the real ballots, or fraudulent substitutions.
Absentee ballots should NEVER be used UNLESS the voter is willing to personally deliver them to their precinct on election day.
Something else the voting public needs to understand about absentee ballots: They are marked on paper, but that does not mean they are counted by hand.
Absentee ballots are counted by optical scanners -- which are themselves proprietary blackbox voting systems capable of being covertly programmed to miscount the votes to undetectably alter the outcome of elections.
Whether the initial ballot is an all-electronic DRE ballot with no paper trail, or a hand-marked optical scan ballot, both types of ballots are counted by the same secret software by the private e-voting vendors, that runs the tabulator computers at the central county election headquarters.
Better than 95% of all ballots in the US are counted by proprietary software voting systems.
The only exceptions (at present) are the lever voting system in New York state, and a scattering of pure, all-handcount paper ballot voting jurisdictions around the country that together account for only about 1% of the total US vote.
For more information about restoring transparency and public accountability, see http://www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org
To find out how you can help, write: Info@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org
Understood
Thank you for your response ~ my commentary noted my hope that progressive organizations would promote absentee ballots, as well as the idea of hand-delivery to one's polling station. In light of your points, I still would like to see progressive organizations encourage absentee ballots, definitely hand-delivered, until we fix the software mess. No matter how they are currently counted, at least they could be re-counted. It's certainly not perfect, but an optical scanner is better than software code. Anyone who is at all familiar with computers and complex software programming doesn't trust a Diebold type machine.
If I may digress a little ~ I lived in Ontario, Canada for 25 years. Know how they vote? The vote is held 6 weeks (!) after an election is "called" in their parliamentary system. No voter is permanently registered. For each election, voters must be registered anew: volunteers go door to door to register voter names. Then the voter list is compiled and posted in public (think stapled to telephone polls, for instance) areas. Voters have to check to ensure that their names appear on that new list, which will be checked against their ID at the poll on election day. The ballot is a paper one, that you mark with checks yourself, then fold and put into a ballot box. It sounds primitive, but they manage to count the votes by hand, and recount them when necessary. Canadian cities and towns have just as many people as ours, so I really don't see why we need expensive equipment to vote. Why not accept hand marked ballots, counted by hand, where the vote results will take maybe 24 hours?
Must we have instant gratification for something this important? In the past, folks had to wait until ballots were counted.
Further clarifications on e-voting machines and ballot counting
I still would like to see progressive organizations encourage absentee ballots, definitely hand-delivered, until we fix the software mess.
Unless a voter lives in an all-vote-by-mail (VBM_) district, we would recommend voting at the precinct.
Voting at the precinct results in precinct-level counts that should be posted publicly at the precinct at close of polls. This provides a solid record of the votes at origin, that can later be checked against (The open question remains, though, whether the voting machines at the precinct are producing accurate reports of the votes actually cast. It is possible that the voting machiens are already planted with rigged software that arrives along with the ballot definition files fromthe county central tabulator used to program the memory cards distributed to the precinct voting machines).
No matter how they are currently counted, at least they could be re-counted.
Theoretically. But in actual practice there are so many potential barriers that can be erected, that recounts are a rare exception. And those that are conducted, are usually in circumstances of very questionable ballot custody, so that there is no assurance the ballots have not been doctored in the interim between election and recount.
It's certainly not perfect, but an optical scanner is better than software code.
It appears that you have still not understood this distinction: optical scanning is a software-mediated vote-counting process. Optical scanning MEANS software code.
The optical scan software converts marks on a ballot to a software code record representing (or misrepresenting) the votes cast.
Tabulator software by the same E-voting vendor than accumulates and totals up the raw vote data imported to the tabulator via memory cards from the individual optical scan or DRE voting machines.
The same tabulator software is used to count optical scan ballots, as is used to count DRE ballots.
The only difference between the systems is the nature of the device used to initially record a ballot. Thereafter, the counting is all done on the proprietary tablulator software of the E-voting vendor that has the county elections contract.
Anyone who is at all familiar with computers and complex software programming doesn't trust a Diebold type machine.
This is confusing and inaccurate terminology. Diebold (and indeed, all the e-vote vendors, including the other 3 majors ES&S, Sequoia, and Hart) make both types of machines: optical scan, and DRE (which means "direct record electronic").
Some vendors also make electronic ballot marking devices (BMDs) that enable voters with access difficulties (physical or linguistic) to more easily mark their ballots; however, the BMD only marks the ballot. It does not count them. BMD ballots are then fed into an optical scanner to count them.
E-voting machines
Oops, apologies for inaccurate terminology. I meant, or was thinking, of optical scanners as an older style, basic software with a "dumb" counting routine that scans, then counts, a mark placed in a designated area.
My understanding is that the newer touch screen machines contain much more sophisticated software ~ easier to hack, to change quickly on the fly, etc.
You underscore my original point ~ I'm NOT an expert, and personally do not have a good solution to the election mess. My wish is that progressive organizations discuss the best ways to have our votes properly counted once they are cast, using whatever tools we currently have at this moment. So far, most of the organizations familiar to me have not made a big push to educate voters on the best options to choose, which probably differ depending on a voter's location.
I'm not the only one concerned that republican operatives will try to steal this election any way that they can. They have more than practice ~ they already have been successful at it in the past. This is why I'd like to hear more discussion around this issue now, and into the fall.
Hello Dan. Just one
Hello Dan. Just one problem...in Florida it is common not to bother to count absentee votes unless the vote is so close that there can't be a winner declared.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." ~ Sinclair Lewis
Oregon has been using
Oregon has been using mail-in ballots for quite some time now, with apparently no hitches. I expect Grinch to jump in here to further educate us...;-)
One of our voting problems across the country is that every...
state, sometimes every county within a state has it's own method of marking and counting ballots. Many states continue to use the precinct method in an established voting place while others have opted for vote by mail.
Vote by mail has a lot going for it. Physical voting precincts are eliminated--a considerable cost savings for the state. Also, no volunteers need to be found and trained, another frequent problem in many states.
The vote by mail process is exceedingly simple and has worked very well for us here in Oregon. This also eliminates the confusion of all sorts of different kinds of ballots: absentee for example which appear to show up in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes.
Two or three weeks before the election, the voters guides are mailed out to every registered voter. We have citizens initiatives which are sometimes lengthy and complicated. The time lag allows for close study of these and other measures and candidates...right at one's kitchen table.
About a week after the voter's guides go out, the ballots are sent out in secure envelopes. This gives each voter about two weeks to study the guides and mark their ballots. The completed ballots can be mailed in to a centralized county location, or even dropped by County Headquarters personally. Small towns usually have a designated place where their voters can drop the ballots which are then taken to county headquarters for counting by electronic scanners. Paper ballots and #2 pencils are all that each voter needs.
Counted at the county level, the counts and the ballots themselves are transported to the state capital for recounts and then permanent secure storage of the 'paper trail' so to speak.
This system is relatively trouble free, is cost effective, tamper free and the ballots are available for a recount if necessary.
We are quite happy with this system.
A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.
Anne Hathaway: 1556-1623
The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.
Paper Trails
In the New Jersey county where I live, absentee ballots are not counted unless the number of absentees is larger than the difference in the vote, so I will continue to vote at the polls, especially as I am in a "leaning Republican" Congressional district. However, I agree that it is essential to have a paper trail and am upset that we do not. I think I like the vote-by-mail concept, but how does one ensure that his or her vote is not "lost" in the mail or tampered with before arriving (other than dropping it off)? Certified mail?
What about switching Election Day to a weekend day, probably Sunday, as I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that the "Sunday-sabbath" religions have more lenient laws about observing the day than "Saturday-sabbath" religions (Orthodox Judiasm, Seventh-Day Adventists)? This wouldn't do anything to verify the vote, but might enable a greater turnout of those whose weekdays/-nights are very busy.
Another practice I would like to see implemented is Instant Runoff Voting for elections with more than two candidates, whereby the voter ranks all the candidates, ensuring that if his or her preferrred candidate does not obtain a majority, the vote goes to the voter's second choice of the group.
Resources for Voter Registration and Absentee Balloting
Dear Democrats.com:
Please pass this on to the out of state and commuter students.
http://www.declareyourself.com, is a site that has links to the Secretaries of State for all 50 states for voter registration and absentee ballot forms, deadlines and procedures. It has links to lists of County Clerks/Election/Voter Administration Offices, where citizens must submit their voter registration, absentee ballot applications and absentee/early voting ballots.
Also, the Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census has a nifty county finder to help citizens determine what county they are in so that they can send their voter registration and absentee ballot forms to the right office. The URL is:
*http://quickfacts.census.gov/cgi-bin/qfd/lookup*
* *
I have found these sites very helpful in getting students to register and apply for absentee ballots on campus where I work.
I hope this helps and this has not been already disseminated by your organization or undermines what you are trying to do. Please spread to all your affiliates and campus nationwide.
If we registered 6,000 people a day until Oct.6, 2008 in the key battle ground states, and got them to the polls, Obama-Bidden could win, if you trust the machines and there is not more voter suppression exercises between now and than. Research conducted at Yale University, has shown that face to face contact and recently registered voters will show up if they are engaged and connected to the candidate,
Best regards,
Trainer12