Can someone explain the advantage of voting by absentee ballot?

[intheflow]

Seems to me that mailing in a ballot would be just as chancy as electronic voting because it could "disappear" by the government claiming it never arrived in the mail, or be more open to challenges to its legitimacy because no one showed up at a polling booth to provide proof of residency if challenged.

What am I missing? :shrug:

[grannie4peace]

1. if they try to vote twice?

[Skink]

2. Like early voting it can be done at your liesure...

there are no long lines to prevent you from voting.

[Skink]

3. Like early voting it can be done at your liesure...

there are no long lines to prevent you from voting.

[Vincardog]

4. IT is on paper. An actual physical ballot. It can be counted by people in public and verified.

None of these things is true of the crooked ass vote rigging machines.

[intheflow]

14. "It can be counted by people in public and verified."

Unless you live in Florida or Ohio. Or maybe Michigan this time around, wherever they think they can get away with keeping the public away from the vote counts.

[succubus.blues]

5. send it certified and you get a receipt

it was delivered.

[intheflow]

11. Oh, you are so wise, Grasshopper!

Certified mail is a great idea! :hi:

[dana_b]

6. you can also bring it to your polling place

and get a receipt. Look, there's no 100% fool proof, tamper proof method but, if fraud were to occur, it would be much easier to tamper with a memory card full of hundreds or thousands of votes (erase and replace) than to alter paper ballots.

Go paper!!

[intheflow]

12. I am not an advocate of e-voting at all.

I don't understand the rush of cities and counties to jump on the freakin' computer voting bandwagon. I mean, I can see why the BushBots love 'em, but the problems are so obviously inherent I can't believe so many election officials embraced it without question. Now more and more places are going back to manual voting, so those machines were just a big waste of taxpayers' money to make corrupt Republicans richer. :grr:

My thing with the mail in vs. walk-in is that they check your name off the list when you walk in, but I really don't see how you can be assured they count your vote when you mail it in. Even mailing it certified means only means it was delivered, not that it was counted. But then, I suppose the same could apply to pencil and paper ballots without public witnesses to monitor the counts. So you're right, nothing is 100%.

[dana_b]

17. unfortunately that's true

it used to be stuffing the ballot box and now it's clearing memory sticks. Stephen Spoonamore said that the memory chips could be set, for example, so that candidate A starts at "0" votes. Then candidate B could be set a -100 votes. So to even get to "0", 100 people would have to vote for candidate B. scary shit!!

[patrice]

7. So you are freed up to do GOTV stuff on the day of the vote.

[intheflow]

15. Good point. n/t

[rgbecker]

8. Do it, Definitely.

1. No lines.
2. No gas to get to polling station.
3. Paper trail.
4. No electronic fraud.

Its the new age. All the republicans are doing it from old folk homes. Meanwhile Democrats, tired after a long day at work, don't want to deal with the lines, getting hassled by a bunch of right wing poll police and end up not voting, thinking what's one more vote.

Thanks for voting for OBAMA.

[napi21]

9. The biggest advantage I see is not having to wait in LONG LINES on election

day. We mailed ours last Wed. here in Ga. I'm very afraid that Ga. is NOT PREPARED for the # of new voters the Dems have registered this year. I physically CAN'T stand in line for hours, and many people cannot either, for a wealth of different reasons.

The only downside I can see is if a voter is unsure of who he/she wasnts to vote for, and something in the next month occurrs that would change their mind, you can never get that vote back!

[LiberalFighter]

10. Various advantages but you have to consider your location

You don't have the 2-3 minute time restraint you would have at the polling place to vote.
Save gas.
Save time.
No traffic.
Don't have to worry if you are voting at the right place.
They will provide you with the correct ballot. Most of the time.

You will be able to do your normal routine on that day. Unless you volunteer on Election day to GOTV or other election duties such working at the poll.

If you are concerned about whether your vote will count you need to contact your local election board and find out. In my county in Indiana they count all the legal ballots. They don't count all the ballots necessarily in the other counties. We had a Democratic Luncheon Club meeting this past week and the speaker was our Democratic member of the Election Board who gave the answers to questions.

[intheflow]

13. That's pretty fucked up about some places not counting those ballots.

That's one of the reasons I distrust the whole mail-in concept. How can any county election board justify not counting ALL legal ballots? :wtf:

[LiberalFighter]

18. You need to find out if they don't and then embarrass the hell out of them in public.

Their excuse is that even if total number of absentee ballots outstanding would not change the outcome then why bother.

That shouldn't matter! What should matter is that every vote is counted and is accounted for in the tallies showing number of voters and other categories.

I wonder how they can really make the assumption that the results won't matter considering that the absentee results might make a difference in a race further down the line where the election might be closer.

[LiberalFighter]

19. You should also investigate and find out how the county election board is constituted in your state.

If your Democratic Party County Chair has any say in who is part of that board then press them to require a count of all the ballots.

[Kickin_Donkey]

16. It may not be a problem in some states, but in California ...

we have the initiative system.

There might be as many as 20 state propositions on the ballot, some of them very complicated and confusing issues (that should never be put before the voters -- that's what legislature are for -- but that's another issue), plus statewide races, state legislative races, federal races, county and city races, judgeships, tax board races, local measures, races for local boards for community college and transit districts and more.

Unless you're a one-issue voter, you pretty much have to vote by mail to thoroughly consider all the choices.

[JonLP24]

20. I have a question. I'm contemplating early voting

First, do they count your vote (Say I mailed a request for a ballot Monday) before, after, or same day of the election? If after what's the point? They usually call the state in favor of a paticular candidate.

[JonLP24]

21. kick

:kick:

[JonLP24]

22. one more kick

:kick:

[intheflow]

23. Your questions are good, and I don't know the answers.

Why not post a thread of your own asking? :hi: