In Washington State, they vote by mail. Should this become the national standard?

[OmahaBlueDog]

Ballots are mailed out (IIRC) a little less than 3 weeks out, and must be postmarked by election day.

7 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Time expired
	Yep - I like mail in-ballots for everyone
	6 (86%)
	Nope - I dislike mail-in ballots for everyone
	1 (14%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Raster]

1. Hell yes! Anything to move voting and the electoral infrastructure OUT OF PRIVATE HANDS.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Increases voting participation.

[MariaM83]

3. I vote by mail. But I would be afraid for this to become a requirement. It would just make it easier

for them to lose (ie steal) votes.

[Generic Other]

4. It is wonderful

We sit down as a family and actually discuss each candidate's merits. We have the internet, we have DU, we have voter's pamphlets in front of us. We actually enjoy voting in my house. And voter participation is way up because of it across the state. The rightwingers hate that, of course.

[Capt.Rocky300]

6. We do the same.

[Travis_0004]

5. I see nothing wrong with in person voting, but I support No-excuse absentee ballots, like Ohio has.

This year I'm voting by absentee, Ohio, doesn't require an excuse to get one (although I'll be out of the country, so that is a pretty good excuse)

A few states have Permanent absentee ballots. Sign up once, and they are mailed to you every year. I support this too.

[Old Codger]

7. Oregon

Has had that for a long time now, it is great.

[kestrel91316]

8. Yep. There is no earthly reason for any election officials to know

the ethnicity or gender or attire or any other interest group identifiers of a voter once they are legally registered and verified.

[MFM008]

9. we did it.

Wa votes exclusive mail. Easy, no poll watchers. no protests, no problem. It should be law in all 50 states.

[bhikkhu]

10. It works great in Oregon

Zero controversy, none of the crap I hear about in the other states. We just get our ballots in the mail, talk things over for a week or so, then mail them back in. Easy!

ed - sp.

[ChazII]

20. Our family does the same. n/t

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

11. At first I didn't like it

because going to the polls, signing in, getting your ballot, going into the booth, full of ritual and tradition. But voting by mail should help eliminate votes being changed or stolen. I hope.

[gateley]

12. I really like it.

[Carla in Sequim]

13. We moved to Wa. last year

No lines at the DMV and were registered to vote with a push of a button. No need to declare party. Also, if you don't want special license plates, you walk out with standard set in about 10 minutes.

We are very happy here. Oh, and we bought a house today. Escrow closes Monday. We are doing our best to get this economy continuing in the right direction....forward.

Go President Obama!


PS-Sorry to my native state of California but we will pass our marriage equality referendum, even the Seattle Times endorsed it this week!

[Nye Bevan]

14. That's how I vote every election in CT.

Technically, you are not supposed to do that, but if you say you plan to be away on Election Day they will mail you an absentee ballot, and nobody stakes out your house to check that you are really away.

[AsahinaKimi]

15. We have it in California

I love it.

[NYC Liberal]

16. I think it should be an option everywhere for sure.

We should also keep physical poll locations and vote over a weekend.

[Bohunk68]

18. I agree with this

because I also work as an Election Inspector at my local precinct, and because I am a registered Democrat in a county replete with Republics, if I'm on the ballot in my own district, I am sent to another to work. Being on SS, this helps my income. We've had 3 primaries already in NYS and the GE is coming up, so that's at least $500 extra in my pocket. It helps with the grocery bill and gas now that it's around $4.10 here.

NYS held out on the HAVA compliance and as a result, while we have electronic scanners for the ballots, we retain the paper ballots and the results can be hand-checked. There have been checks to see if the scanners and ballots agree and they have, at least in my area.

[davidpdx]

17. Yes, Oregon was the first state to have vote by mail

I think it should go one step further. Vote by email.

As an overseas Oregonian I receive both a ballot by email and a physical ballot (the same ballot just scanned as a .pdf file). I print the ballot, mark the boxes, re-scan it and email it back. The county clerk confirms my ballot was received by email.

[eridani]

19. No, it should not. It should be available, but opt-in

An Asian-API political group is researching the problem of people whose first languages had non-Roman alphabets having higher than average rates of signature rejection. This is not OK by me.

Question for those in states with all mail-in (other than WA)--what means are used to contact voters whose signatures are rejected to enable them to deal with the situation. WA requires three contact attempts, one by phone and two by mail. Lower income and less frequent voters are less likely to respond to the attempts. People whose first language is not English may not understand the phone contact, though the two letters have a number of translations attached.

What is the process for ballot duplication, which is always necessary when there are corrections on the ballot, and also when there are stray marks, brown ink, ballot damage in the mail, etc.? What are your options if you don't receive your ballot in time? Doesn't mail-in balloting make same-day registration (which increases participation also) a lot harder?

That said, I vote by mail myself, and use an official drop-box instead of sending it through the mail. 70-80% typically choose this, but I would like in-person voting to be available for the rest.