Why do they number the absentee ballots?

[Baitball Blogger]

So I get my absentee ballot and it's numbered. A big surprise, it's a low number. Like less than 100. I live in a red county and I was expecting it to be higher. But I digress.

How can it be a secret ballot if the forms are numbered?

[jberryhill]

1. Run off a hundred copies, send them back, and find out

Whether you vote by absentee ballot or in person, the fact of your having voted is not secret.

If a serialized absentee ballot was sent to voter X, then it should come back from voter X.

How else would you keep track of whether you were getting them back from the voters who requested them?

[Baitball Blogger]

3. So, secret ballot is a myth?

[jberryhill]

10. It depends on their handling procedures

Quite frankly, it seems you have never really thought about the absentee ballot process.

You have the right to vote by secret ballot. If you want to do that, then go to the booth.

Different states use entirely different procedures for absentee or mail in ballots.

Some have a detachable part which says who you are, and you sign. When the ballot is received, that part is detached from the form.

There are a lot of different ways to manage it, with various ways of attempting to provide security.

For example, if the ballots are sent out serialized, your name might not be associated with the ballot, just the serial number. But in that situation, there is no way to determine whether the ballot is coming back from the voter to whom it was ostensibly sent (i.e. by signature comparison to the voter registration, if the ballot is signed).

I really don't know what you mean by "the secret ballot is a myth". One of my adult daughters is blind, and she has to be assisted with voting. Do you think her ballot is secret? Hell no. Obviously there are situations in which the ballot is not going to be secret, and we go through this every election with her.

[nycbiscuit]

2. could be

so they can make sure that 10,000 ballots are not returned when only 1000 were sent out.
Or so that there aren't 15 copies of Ballot #2 returned.
There should be no tracking or logging of a particular ballot number being sent to a particular voter, though.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. It's handwritten.

[tabbycat31]

5. mine was not numbered

It probably depends on your county board of elections, but I would give them a call about it.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Is there someone at the State level I can reach?

In my county, people like me get treated like cattle. They couldn't care less if they were abusing my rights.

[jberryhill]

11. Before you embarass yourself about your "rights"

See my note above about my blind daughter. I guarandamntee you that the votes of blind people are not secret. And, yes, she votes by absentee ballot.

Whether your name is matched up with the serial number in anyone's database is unlikely. If they have designed a system in which they send out serialized ballots, they may simply account for the return of the serialized ballots, which are no longer associated with names.

But what you might think about doing before you embarass yourself, is think about how it "should" be done.

If you think you should be sent a ballot which can be duplicated by anyone who can print scan forms, with no inventory control, then you might want to spend a little more time thinking about it. Because I also guarantee you that the people who run your elections have thought about it more deeply than you appear to have.

You have the right to go to the booth and vote. Being provided with an absentee ballot is an accommodation. There is no requirement that any state use absentee ballot procedures of any kind. If you want your vote to be secret, then go to the booth. As long as that option is being made available to you, nobody is depriving you of a right to a secret ballot merely because you choose to use an alternative procedure provided to you as a convenience.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. You have a very indelicate way of making a point.

Considering that it is the Democrats who are appealing to the Democrats in this county to resort to the absentee ballot to make sure their votes are counted, I would think that a more diplomatic manner of communicating would come across better.

[jberryhill]

13. Not at this time of night after the day I had, no

If I recall correctly, you had suggested that your user name is suggestive of "baiting" or something along those lines.

Do I recall correctly?

[Baitball Blogger]

14. You must be confusing me with someone else.

It isn't so difficult to do a google search to find the definition. But since you've had such a bad day, I'll do the hard work for you.

When small fish sense the presence of a predator, they tend to group together, presumably to appear to be a more formidable force against whatever is after them. That's a baitball. And it's an ineffective response to the danger because the skills of predators have improved over time as anyone who watches the Discovery channel can attest. From the bottom of the ocean, dolphins or sharks will attack the baitball, and the response of the small fish is to escape even to the point of jumping out of the water where they are eaten by sea gulls. The response then, is for the school of fish to dive into the water, where they are eaten by the sharks or dolphins.

I liken the baitball to the dilemma Florida residents face because no one is looking after their interests. Our constitutional rights are getting picked off little by little as our local government has been taken over by real estate interest. We have Mayors and Commissioners who are sitting on the dais who own property in the areas which they are suppose to regulate. In order to cement their power, they let their friends or the civic groups they belong to, break governmental rules without fear of reprisal. They become enforcers in our communities by taking over the boards of our HOA's. And if a regular Joe tries to fight back, they get ostracized or threatened by their own fucking neighbors.

And because the fucking State Attorney's Office has been a part of this good ole boy networking, over the last fifteen to twenty years the interests of this power group has taken control of our legislature, which is why today we have Republicans in control, who are trying to usurp the court's power in order to make it harder to file an action against them for what, it turns out to be, fraud and conspiracy. So now we have state and local government who claim to be doing things in the name of the public, which in reality, they are just biting away at our individual constitutional rights to make it easier for them to make a living at our expense.

Get it now? The Florida public is the baitball.

[jberryhill]

15. Oh okay

I was under the impression I was supposed to hit it with a bat.

But yesterday, I was pretty much primed to hit anything with a bat.

[riqster]

7. It is a way of protecting against fake ballots

By numbering each ballot that goes out and connecting it with a person, they can protect the integrity of the process. The counting is done by machine, and the ballot number is not used during that part of the process.

Much like if you vote in person, your ballot number is recorded in the poll book. Your ballot is not secret per se; it is during the counting, which is when it matters.

[Cosmocat]

8. All ballots are numbered

and when you go into your voting booth, they write your name next to the ballot number in a book.

[msongs]

9. so that the number turned in is NOT higher than the number printed? nt