Did we lose a lot of votes by some encouraging absentee ballot use as an alternative to Diebold?

[bigtree]

There were so many of these ballots thrown out on technicalities and on the whim of folks like Blackwell of Ohio. Also, there were problems with getting the ballots delivered in the first place in some parts of the country. Provisional ballots were a crap shoot, in my view.

I remember though, that some were advocating using the absentee ballots to avoid the computer voting. The absentee ballots seem to be vulnerable as well. Hard choice?

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. (Trying hard not to say "I told you so.") n/t

[seabeyond]

2. i just keep remembering 2000 and a good look at our system

seemed like a lot of absentee werent counted or only when the race was close nad a lot thrown out. i am not confident in the absentee

[bigtree]

3. I was set to do absentee and chickened out

I voted into the cyber hole

Look at Ohio alone, where Blackwell and ilk had exclusive say under their state's constitution to rule the ballots valid or not.

[seabeyond]

4. exactly. we got hte machine first time and i voted today on them

i was back and forth myself but trust absentee even less. the only thing in hteir favor today opposed to so many years ago,.... more andmore people doing them, they might have to count them even if race isnt that close

[wakeme2008]

5. Do not think so

with absentee there is always a paper trail... Not so with touch screens...

[bigtree]

6. The validity of those ballots is subject to the discretion of the election officials

usually party hacks like Katherine Harris.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. All it would take is...

A declaration that they were received too late to be counted. If that's too obvious, they can take mail-in ballots, lock them in a closet and "forget" about them until after the vote has been certified and they become irrelevant.

[bigtree]

11. so many opportunities for abuse

[Jax]

7. My county went from touch screen to all absentee

I have no idea if the votes I cast will be counted as cast and my Democratic County Auditor dismisses any concerns about this. Sequoia tabulators and their 'proprietary' info count more than my vote. Very scary and frustrating.

[bigtree]

8. the rub is the correct constitutional right of states to decide the manner

they choose their electors. A lot of these problems are in Democratic districts. There needs to be an acceptable, UNIFORM system, but how you get there and where to go, I don't know.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Every e-vote is also a vote to stuff Bushite pockets with billions of our

tax dollars for these crapass, insecure and extremely insider hackable voting machines!

You want to give your consumer "vote of confidence" to that? Go right ahead. It's your right to be led like a lamb to the slaughter.

Absentee Ballot voting is your ONLY guarantee that you will be able to vote in this election, in case of "machine breakdowns" (which have become pandemic). You will not be stuck in long lines, disenfranchised, or forced to vote on a "Provisional" ballot--because you will already have voted, or you will have your own ballot in hand (delivering it to your polling place.) Nor will they be able to bar you from voting with voter ID shenanigans. You will have settled any questions before hand.

In the case of all touchscreen precincts ("paper trail" or no "paper trail"), an Absentee Ballot is a solid paper ballot vote that, by law, must be counted--whereas the "paper trail" receipt associated with touchscreens (where they have any "paper trail" at all--many do not), is an IFFY item that can be discarded in favor of machine totals.

But MOST OF ALL, an Absentee Ballot vote is a PROTEST against the machines! THAT is the main reason to vote by AB! It is an act of NON-COOPERATION! And it's a very, very big protest, this time. AB voting is up to 50% and 60% of the vote in some places. People DON'T TRUST the machines; they distrust the results we've been getting from these riggable e-voting systems; and they are objecting by voting with an Absentee Ballot! What is occurring here is a massive "vote of no confidence" in the machines.

By voting with an Absentee Ballot, you are joining this huge protest!

I can hardly believe the wrong information, and disinformation, that I see here at DU about Absentee Ballot voting. And I've begun to suspect that it's a stealth campaign by the election theft industry.

The REMEDY for corrupt election officials mishandling Absentee Ballots is NOT to vote on Diebold/ES&S and other rigged machines! The remedy is to get organized, and go down to your registrar's office, and INSIST ON proper handling of AB votes!

Absentee Ballot votes should be HAND-COUNTED in public view, and the RESULTS POSTED BEFORE ANY ELECTRONICS ARE USED.

If those two common sense measures are taken, we have a paper ballot system by default!

Stop settling for second best. Stop buying the election theft industry propaganda. Billions and billions of dollars in corrupt contracts are involved--not to mention the trillions of dollars that are being stolen from us, and from our children, by the corrupt officials of the Bush Junta, Congress and other offices, that have been put in power and kept in power by the election theft industry.

We MUST stop this! We MUST get our elections back into public control. We CANNOT HAVE private Bushite corporations "counting" all our votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code. Period. We MUST end this. We MUST get rid of these machines.

How vulnerable are Absentee Ballot votes, as to getting counted in THIS election? AB votes are about as "safe" as an optiscan vote--the difference being that an optiscan vote is an endorsement of the rigged electronic system, and puts money into the pockets of major Bush/Cheney supporters (Diebold) major donors to far rightwing causes (ES&S), and other bad actors. (The third big player, Sequoia, also has connections to the Republican Party.)

Some AB votes are merely scanned into the rigged electronics--a very objectionable practice! People who vote by AB want their vote HAND-COUNTED! Some Absentee Ballots have been "lost in the mail," or shoved aside and counted "later" after e-voting totals are used to "call" elections. EVEN SO, an AB vote is a REAL paper ballot vote, and, if somebody's going to steal it, they have an OBJECT that they must get rid of, not just a bunch of electrons that can be made to disappear, leaving no trace. You could say that an optiscan vote, which scans your ballot into the rigged electronic system, is a bit more secure that an AB vote that is NOT scanned but rather "entered" into the system (by a word processor--who could make errors). But I don't think ANY of this is all that important. Because WHATEVER they "scan" or "enter" into these electronic systems can EASILY be changed. What's important are the CENTRAL ELECTRONIC TABULATORS--which are ALSO run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, ALSO owned and controlled by Bushite corporations. I believe that's where the theft occurs. And the fatal flaw in the system is that there is NO audit, or--at best!--only a 1% audit (very inadequate), in which the tangible ballots (optiscan ballot or AB) are COMPARED to the electronic TOTALS.

So, if it doesn't really matter how you vote, optiscan vs. Absentee Ballot, WHY endorse those rigged central tabulators and the crooks who make them, by voting on their machines?

Touchscreens and "provisional" ballots are both VERY insecure--avoid them if possible. Touchscreen votes with no paper trail cannot even be recounted, or audited; even with a "paper trail," the machine totals can be favored (so what good is the "paper trail"?) "Provisional" ballots can easily be tossed. Do NOT be conned into voting on a "Provisional" ballot, if you can help it. An Absentee Ballot is far more secure than either of these. AB v. optiscan is a wash. Neither is secure. However, AB votes can be quite valuable to election researchers, who are comparing paper vs. electronic voting machine results. And....vitally important, in my opinion--THE FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY MAY DEPEND UPON IT--an AB vote is part of a huge citizen PROTEST against the machines!

I've already seen three major corporate news monopolies do "spin" articles, in the last few weeks, that the huge increase in AB voting is voters choosing "convenience." The odd thing is, though, that the biggest AB voting increase has been in California, where AB voting has ALWAYS been convenient (and with easy rules). So why the big surge NOW? We once had a good Sec of State, that's why--who raised consciousness about the perils of Diebold machines. They got rid of him ("swift-boated" him out of office on bogus corruption charges), and put a Diebold shill in his place. Now we've had several more Diebold scandals--and voter awareness has grown by leaps and bounds. THAT is why California has had the biggest increase in AB voting in the country. Voters are trying to get around the rigged electronics, by voting AB, and are PROTESTING the machines.

When the corporate news monopolies bother to plant this crap in the "news"--all in sync, with the same wording--you know they're up to no good. In this case, they are deliberately ignoring the obvious: People DON'T TRUST the machines. They don't even MENTION it as a possibility--with AB voting quintupling in some places! This dramatic increase in AB voting has paralleled the cancerous spread of these election theft machines all over the nation, during the 2002-2006 period. (And I'll bet we find that, in NY, for instance, which has resisted electronic voting, and still has the old, reliable, and virtually unriggable, mechanical lever voting machines, that there has been no such increase in AB voting!)

The Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute are against Absentee Ballot voting. That's almost reason enough, by itself, to be for it, it seems to me.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009167

We just have to make it BIGGER. Everybody voting by AB--and an outraged citizenry demanding that our PAPER BALLOTS be properly counted! I love it! Ordinary people have shown the way! This IS the winning strategy for election reform. We don't have to engage in a head-on collision with Diebold and its corrupt minions. We just take away their power by attrition. If no one will vote on their machines, and we force election officials to count the AB votes properly--posting the results before electronic entry--we will have circumvented the whole problem by making the machines obsolete.

------------

Here are some things you can do to make your AB vote more secure:

1. Fill out ballot and envelope carefully (to avoid disqualification). (Pay particular attention to your signature on the envelope--sign exactly as you signed your voter registration form, and as it appears on voting materials from your registrar.)

2. Hand-deliver it to your polling place on election day, or hand-deliver it to your Registrar ahead of time, or mail it certified/return receipt requested (to make sure it gets there). (1st class postage is acceptable; I've heard some heavy ballots require two stamps--get it weighed; some jurisdictions pre-pay the postage--check your envelope--but I wouldn't trust 1st class mail, at this point.)

3. Check local rules. (I'm familiar with Calif. Other states may have different rules.)

3. Get organized--put pressure on your Registrar to HAND-COUNT Absentee Ballot votes and to POST results BEFORE any electronics are involved. Let election officials know the public is watching, the public is fed up with these e-voting shenanigans, and we're going to throw them out of office if they don't give us transparent, verifiable vote counting!

------------

Bust the Machines--Vote by Absentee Ballot--if possible! But, in any case, VOTE!

NEVER give up on your right to vote! NEVER! It IS our democracy!

[Terri S]

12. I still favor absentee

I've voted absentee since moving from NY to FL 3 yrs ago. But I'd recommend bringing it to the polling place rather than trusting the post office. Can it still get lost or tossed? Sure. But it's still better than e-voting.

Besides I read that the Repubs were recommending their members vote absentee, this year. Must be a reason.

Sad how in America in 2006 no one can be abolutely sure their votes will be counted!

[bigtree]

13. the post office thing is a good point

a lot of the problems were blamed on bad postage

[ProgressiveEconomist]

14. Fact that Gov Bob Ehrlich (R-MD) has urged voting absentee for

months could mean that, in some states, you may be framing absentee voting incorrectly. Making it easier to request absentee ballots and encouraging their use inherently may tend to raise the Republican vote and depress the Democratic vote.

Before the Help America Vote Act shook things up, in many states suburban Republicans had much more experience voting absentee than did Democrats. Many states required written requests including reasons for wanting an absentee ballots, and meeting deadlines far in advance of Election Day. Wealthy Republicans tend to be better at dealing with bureaucratic red tape than poor Democrats. When Republicans receive absentee ballots in the mail for the first time, chances are they'll do a better job complying with confusing instructions to the letter, and they'll have other experienced Republican absentee voters to call on if they have a question. More Democrats than Republicans who receive absentee ballots for the first time might fail to fill then out altogether, or might fail to fill in every required item.

The mail is less reliable in poor neighborhoods than in wealthy suburbs, and Democrats who request them may not get thim in time to send them in. If so, they would be told at the polls they cannot vote in person because of their absentee request.

So before 2000, many election analysts opined that a larger absentee votie favored Republicans That still may be true.

[bigtree]

15. you do have to get them in early and fill them in correctly

I live in Md. I have no better way of knowing if an absentee vote of mine gets counted than I do an electronic one.