I would like to see voting by mail across the US.

[Aerows]

Last edited Sun Oct 18, 2015, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Some states have mail out votes. To me, that seems the most reasonable. It's verification that you actually live there, one ballot per voter, and everyone participates.

I am highly concerned about the electronic voting systems we have. Diebold is run by Republicans - which is why I am convinced they were certain that Romney would win, but didn't.

I'm not going to throw around conspiracy theories, but the bottom line is that if we actually want people to vote (which apparently many don't want too many of the "wrong" people participating in democracy) we need to make it more accessible, more fair and more VERIFIABLE.

Voting software has been proven to not be reliable - it's no black box. Everyone that gripes about internet polls being unreliable needs to turn their concern, outrage and fears where the real problem is - THE REAL POLLS getting gamed.

That is not to say you shouldn't go vote if you live in an area where electronic voting is the method at the polls, I just think we would be doing a better service to our country and to voters if we did voting by mail.

[msanthrope]

1. This is straight out voter suppressing nonsense.

Look at any challenge to gerrymandering.....while your vote may be supressed, it can and will count as evidence in later lawsuits.

VOTE. GODDAMN IT......VOTE. MAKE IT SO YOUR NUMBERS SHUT THE POLLS DOWN!

Demand a challenge ballot. Ask for the judge of elections. Calmly and without rancor stand in the line and refuse to leave. Forget the CT...there is a conspiracy to defeat through defeatism... Don't fall for it.

[Aerows]

7. Somehow, the point I was making in the post got lost somewhere

not your fault, I worded it very clumsily. Of course voting matters. Every citizen should vote.

My point was concern about the electronic voting software, and that it would be a heck of a lot better if we managed to get vote by mail across the US. I, in no way, was attempting to discourage anyone from voting - just the opposite, actually.

I edited the OP to better express where I was going with this thread .

[BainsBane]

9. It's laying the groundwork to explain away a Bernie loss

If the American people don't vote as I want, it's that the election software is rigged. Never mind he's consistently been down 20 points in the polls.

The reason the Romney folk were surprised is they had their own alternative narrative about the polls. Remember the site "unskewed polls"? The Sanders supporters have the same thing going. Online polls count more, they claim. Professional polling results from the MSM corporate conspiracy. In Romney's case, he had craven, political operatives telling him what he wanted to hear so they could keep getting money from him, and the differences were small enough that it probably seemed plausible. Sanders supporters don't face those same circumstances, so just as any thought that doesn't confirm their own views is the result of corporate manipulation, so will the polls.

What the OP describes in terms of mailer verification of residence is called caging. It's what the GOP does to purge voters from voting lists. It happened to me in Texas, so I know of it first hand. I was caged in the 1994 election while I was a grad student doing research out of the country, and that was one vote that Ann Richards didn't get. That was the election that made George W Bush Governor of Texas.

Every state has different methods. In my state of MN we have a paper trail. Everyone saw it first hand during the Franken-Coleman recount. We also have voter registration at the polls on election day, which results in the highest voting participation rate in the country.

If folks have concerns about how their states run elections, they need to get involved at the state level and work to change it. This sort of thing only suppresses turnout. In my view, I rather have every single person in the country vote and elect someone I don't want that have a smaller turnout and elect the person I do prefer. But then I maintain the heretical beliefs in equality and democracy.

[RandySF]

2. I used to freak out over electronic machines

but, except for Georgia in 2002, I didn't see any results that appeared to be altered. I do like paper ballot better though (which is what we use in CA).

PS. - I think you have the legal right to ask for a paper ballot.

[msanthrope]

3. Yes....you do. nt

[Arugula Latte]

12. There were several R candidates in Texas who won with exactly 18,181 votes in 2002 and 2004.

The odds of that happening legitimately were astronomically small.

We are probably only seeing a very small part of the tip of the iceberg.

[hobbit709]

4. VW proved that the computer can be programmed to give accurate results

DURING the test of the machine, not during its actually working.

I work with computers and I trust not anything that can't be verified and the source code cannot be examined.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. It always matters that you vote. If you think your area is being cheated it matters even more.

It is important to know facts and to pay attention. Diebold no longer owns any election systems having sold its Premier Election Services division in 2007 to ES&S Election Systems and Software out of Omaha Nebraska. ES&S is a division of The McCarthy Group LLC....

[Aerows]

6. Of course it matters

And the purpose of my post, and I guess I worded it clumsily, is that we need to ensure that our elections are fair. I am very leery of electronic voting machines.

In any case, YES WE SHOULD ALL VOTE!

[Lizzie Poppet]

8. It's been vote-by-mail for a good while now here in Oregon.

I love it.

[Arugula Latte]

14. Same.

[pinboy3niner]

10. We're LOVING it in California

Though I sometimes still like to go to the polls to witness that democracy thing in action. It gives me such a kick that I once volunteered my home as a polling place for a few years.

[bettyellen]

11. Me too! My town is still pretty corrupt, and tries to send away new voters in some spots still.

They have a whole bunch of phony old registrations (moved and dead that are kept on the rolls) that they pay other people to vote when elections look tight. And they have a lot of polling places that pretend that they can't find the persons registration when they are new. It's getting better, but it skews things.

[Snobblevitch]

13. I like to vote with a paper ballot

at the polling location on election day. My state allows voter registration on election day. There abesentee ballots available for those who wish to vote by mail.