Why Don't We Vote at Post Offices?

[kster]

I'm just throwing this out there. Fold the ballot, insert it into an envelope, and deposit it into a ballot box at the Post Office. Have a zip code, lets say 70000 if you voted all Dem, 60000 if you voted all Repub, and 76000 if you voted for multiple parties. At the close of election let the post office use their mail sorting machines to sort and count the ballots.

That would be a small task for the Post Offices.

Why pay Diebiold/Sequioa to count in secret when we can have the ballots sorted and counted above ground out in the open with equipment we already own.



Process and deliver more than 212 billion pieces of mail — letters, cards, ads, bills, payments and packages — every year. Which equates to:

700 million pieces per day

29 million pieces per hour

486,000 pieces per minute

8,000 pieces per second

http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/postalfacts.htm

[BrklynLiberal]

1. More promising than Diebold.

[Ian David]

2. Slot machines and ATMS are made by the same companies that making voting machines...

... yet the voting machines are the only devices that are not secure.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

3. How much you want to bet, the ballots with zip code 70000 gets lost. :( ..n/t

[kster]

4. I could see it now

:)

[Speck Tater]

5. Here in ORYGUN we vote at the nearest mail box. NT

[kster]

6. Which is cool, but, for the people that

want to deliver their (ballot envelope) in person, on election day, for what ever reason, can do so.

The (ballot envelopes) at 7 pm go from the Post Office ballot box directly to the envelope counting/sorting machine.

Then the politicians would have to bribe thousands of Postal workers and election observers in order to rig an election, not just a few people at Diebold and Sequoia.

:)

[Speck Tater]

7. I think there would be a turf problem

requesting federal employees to assist in state, county or city elections.

[kster]

8. And requesting Diebold/Sequoia to sort and count in secret would be better,

I'm gonna have to take my chances with the Federal employees, on this one.:)

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. I do the same thing in Florida

Anyone can vote by absentee ballot for any reason.

[Ellen Forradalom]

9. We can't do that

That makes too much sense.

[autorank]

10. I like the idea. They could store the ballots

The USPS has the ability to handle an election. It wouldn't take much. They gear up for Xmas
and other big mailing days. The approach projects from multiple angles including ergonomics for
their employees. They do long range planning and period evaluation. I've had one or two letters
lost that I've sent in my entire life.

But here's the kicker. The USPS has their own police force and they don't fool around. Mail fraud
is a big problem as are other violations of the law relating to the mail.

http://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/

Check the site out. It is interesting.

Since they deal with fraud, fight it, and have their own police, FRAUD would be anathema. And they'd
have a means to prevent it.

I think this is an outstanding idea.

[grannie4peace]

11. voting at the post office

speaking as an employee of the usps--i believe voting thru the post office would be a disaster. the post office cannot control the workplace bullying problem-- post offices all around the country are corrupt because of this fact. many employee work under stress you could not imagine. i walked out of one ,losing all my retirement, because of bullying. in a workplace where bullying is present it is near impossible to remove the offending post master. the post office i quit still employees the post master after 4 years of the carriers, clerks, & customers trying to save the post office. in an office with 14 routes, there were only 2 substitute carriers to cover the days off of regular carriers at Christmas time. in a healthy post office it should be 1 sub for each route. so the problem is how to keep a tyrant from influencing or tampering with the votes. please think of a better idea.

[Festivito]

12. As long as the counting is done in the open.

And, if counted by machine, some of those counts, randomly chosen, will be voter recounted.

Absentee ballots already use mail.

Absentee ballots should be sent to voting locations and counted at 7PM before 8PM closing. If you get there to change your vote or vote in person, you should be able to get your mailed ballot, destroy it and vote in person.

We should be able to print ballots off the internet to any printer and have the ballot stamped with a worker's personal stamp at voting location. The stamp would be marred at the beginning of the day and the ink given traceable elements in case of ballot questioning.

[2008]

13. Because post offices are Federal facilities

A Federal system of voting would have to be established before they could decide where the ballots would be submitted and counted

There is no Federal provision for voting for elected officials. If I'm not mistaken, it would take an amendment to the Constitution to make this happen

[Sancho]

14. In Clearwater, they "lost" a few thousand mailed ballots!

There have also been some "poor taste" jokes about Jeb keeping Terry Schivo alive so that her mailed ballot would count...voting by mail can be just a manipulated as DRE's.

The only way to ensure fair elections is open registration and a way to recount that is visible.

[Liberal Gramma]

15. I like the idea of getting Diebold and Sequoia out of the vote-couning business but

honestly, have you ever been to the post office? I don't think they are models of efficiency. We wouldn't have voting results for months.

[jazzjunkysue]

16. Oh, GOD, NO! Dont put the RNC in charge of my post office. I'll never get my viagra!

Please, anything but that!
:scared:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

17. The Post Office uses computers to sort the mail, and it is done in a back room

And voting by mail does not eliminate computers.
It eliminates in person voting.

Your ballot may or may not be counted.

Some optical scanners are not good at reading ballots that have been folded, as well.

If you want to get rid of computerized voting then:

make the ballots simpler - no more than a dozen contests on the paper,
allow straight ticket voting - but no crazy weird exception rules like in NC

and count the ballots right after closing in public.

New Hampshire used to have straight ticket voting until recently, and they only
had 12 items on the ballot in Nov 2004.

Unfortunately, it is not clear that the chain of custody is good in NH.

[Crabby Appleton]

19. I live in a town of about 20,000, the small post office here

doesn't sort any mail at all. Every piece of mail is trucked each night to a big city 60 miles away, sorted, and any mail that was sent to a local address is brought back in the morning. Your split ticket votes would still have to be counted, and not on equipment they already have.