Officials Warn of Absentee Vote Factor in Recall Election

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/national/07BALL.html

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6 — About 3.2 million Californians have requested absentee ballots for Tuesday's recall election, and election officials are growing worried that counting this record number of absentee ballots could drag out the results of an already unwieldy election.

More than 2 million absentee ballots had been returned to election officials by Monday, state officials said. But about 1.2 million absentee and other ballots will not be counted until well after the election, and officials said on Monday that those votes could decide a potentially close race, raising the specter of an election with no clear winner for weeks.

[Drifter]

1. Why wouldn't they have counted these ballots already ?

The vote can't change, and you could actually see partial results before the polls open.

Cheers
Drifter

[tlcandie]

2. Solution ... fix the blackboxes so there is a paper trail!!!

Maybe we should ALL get the hint here and do absentee ballots period for the 2004 elections!!!

But then again, maybe they will outlaw them like everything else that's good :(

[slackmaster]

3. I don't follow their logic

Absentee ballots all have to have been turned in by yesterday (Monday) evening, and they've been trickling in for about a month. Why would it be harder to count all the ballots when some arrive early, as compared to the alternative - Having every single one turned in on Election Day?

:shrug:

It kind of sounds like a middle manager whining about having workload shifted to his or her department. Wake up folks, we all live in the same state.

[cally]

7. Not true! You can drop off

you absentee ballot at any polling place! I just did because I forgot that I had signed up as a permanent absentee voter. I like it because then I am sure I'll always vote even if I unexpectedly have to travel.

[slackmaster]

14. OK, but they still know how many ballots to expect

There can't be more ballots to count than there are registered voters. Even if turnout is heavy it won't be more than about 60% of that number.

Their failure to plan adequately for the volume of ballots sounds like whining to me.

[Maine-i-acs]

4. Yes it will take a while ...

To carefully screen the ballots, shred the ones that have the Wrong Result on them, and turn in the rest. Echoes of Florida. Check Jeb's basement.

[Bandit]

5. This is bad for California because most Republicans use Absentee

ballots. They have come to the correct conclusion that more of their base will vote if they can do it at home. We should learn this lesson before it is too late. It may already be too late for California. Our biggest problem is getting our base to the polls. If they didn't have to leave their homes they would have a tendency to vote more often. IMHO

[buckfush2]

6. Perfect for Repugs to vote absentee

Who wants to leave their gated community, drive in traffic, and then have to deal with "public servant" types at polling places? And the people in line, phew!

Its much cleaner and safer and you don't have to associate with <ugh> people if you vote by mail....

Now if the postman didn't have to actually bring the mail, all would be well

[xxqqqzme]

13. The Democratic club here in Orange

County did a big push to get people 2 vote by mail. I used my 'vote by mail' speech 4 every dem I registered. When people learned how few polling places were going 2 B open, they checked the box.

[old_dad]

8. well, I voted

I wasn't going to even vote. I'm starting to feel like voting is a form of denial. However, something made me fall back into that trap of thinking my vote still counted. It evidently didn't count last fall when I voted for Davis as the lesser of two evils.

So I went ahead and voted. I voted for a man who I felt has no chance of winning, but has a lot more integrity than Arnold. I voted for Larry Flynt.

[Bandit]

10. As long as you voted No on Recall

I doubt that the three votes Flynt will get will put Ah-nold in but :shrug: who knows?

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. I wonder if Poppy will remember to tell his CIA operatives

to sign the forged absentee ballots this time :eyes:

[teryang]

11. Maybe they can go to the county office

...and just go through their records and fill in their registration numbers like they did in Florida. But those were "retired" CIA agents.

[MoonRiver]

12. It WILL drag out if Schwarzgropper is losing,

GUARANTEED. Pretending that these absentee ballots are causing a huge counting backlog (in opposition to all previous experience) will buy Pukes more time to figure out how to dismantle/change/scrub votes in their favor. :puke: :puke: STINKS