Kerry Signs on to Oregon's Vote-by-Mail System

[ProSense]

Kerry Signs on to Oregon's Vote-by-Mail System

by Jonathan Singer, Fri Jul 21, 2006 at 03:18:09 PM EST

During the 2004 election, a whopping 86.48 percent of registered voters and an impressive 71.24 percent of the voting age population in Oregon turned in their ballots -- impressive figures for a state without same-day voter registration. The key to Oregon's success in getting voters to actually vote is fairly simple: mailing voters ballots and giving every one of them three weeks to turn it in.

Already, Oregon's system has a big backer on the federal level in the state's senior Senator, Democrat Ron Wyden. But now, The Oregonian's Jeff Kosseff reports that John Kerry has jumped aboard the vote-by-mail bandwagon.

"It works brilliantly, as a matter of fact," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "People have a lot of time to be able to vote. They don't have to struggle with work issues, being sick, other kinds of things. And they have plenty of time to have the kind of transparency and accountability that really makes this system work."

As Kosseff notes, not only does Oregon's vote-by-mail system afford voters with a much easier opportunity to vote, it also costs significantly less than traditional polling systems, with some estimates pegged at 30 percent savings. What's more -- and perhaps more importantly -- a vote-by-mail system "creates a paper trail for every vote."

I'm don't believe that Oregon's system is a panacea for all of the nation's elections woes, nor do I intend to argue that Oregon's system is the right answer for every state and locality around the country. Nevertheless, the system has worked wonders here in the Beaver State, so I'm glad to see that a heavy hitter like John Kerry is willing to offer words of support of voting-by-mail. And if other areas of the country begin to adopt the system -- then all the better for our democracy.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/7/21/15189/7340

[Zan_of_Texas]

1. No no no no no.

Yes, vote by mail has paper. Paper is a plus in an election.

But, an election should not be judged primarily by these things:

1. convenience

2. turnout

3. speedy results

4. cost to administer

5. flashy equipment

An election is not a drive-through hamburger, where speed and convenience trump taste and nutrition.

The very planet is at stake in elections in the U.S.

The ONLY way to judge an election is whether every qualified person who wishes to vote, got to vote, and their vote counted. One voter, one vote. AND, if anyone cares to verify that, they could.

(No extra votes, either -- Casper the Friendly Ghost and his large family are not qualified voters.)

All the rest is extras.... options, like heated seats on the car.

We keep worrying about the heated seats on the car, and failing to notice that the wheels are square, the engine is missing, and this electionmobile ain't going nowhere (at least, nowhere the People want to go).

Vote by mail is convenient. But, there is no independent way to verify what happens to the vote between the time it leaves the voter's hands and the time it is counted.

It substitutes a blue box for the black box.



Remember what's at stake -- our elected representatives get to control spending of our tax dollars (sales tax, school tax, property tax, income tax, social security withholding, etc.) and get to determine policies at all levels of government, and get to control the world's most powerful military. Would a crook try to intrude in the election process? Well, gee, think about it.

So, if we the citizens and media aren't watching the ballots as they wend their way through the mails to be counted, could something intervene?

Could somebody "sort" the incoming ballots by zip code, and discard a percentage from certain zip codes?

Maybe a contractor handles the incoming absentee ballots and vote-by-mail ballots? Who is checking the background on those contractors????

Bev Harris found documentation that indeed a contractor was handling this in King County, WA.

Embezzler Programmed System To Connect Ballots To Voter

Friday Dec 19, 2003
By Bev Harris - blackboxvoting.org

An embezzler who specialized in sophisticated alteration of records of computerized systems was programming our voting system, and also had access to the printing of the ballots, and ties to the private company that sorts King County absentee ballots.

<snip>

King County {WA} contracts the mailing of its absentee ballots out to {John} Elder’s division, and Elder’s division subcontracts with a firm called PSI Group Inc. to sort the incoming absentee ballots - the most high-risk security point for absentee ballots. You see, we know how many absentee ballots we send out, but we have no idea how many are filled out and sent back in, especially if they pass through a middleman before being counted by elections officials. The elections division may tell you they count the ballots before outsourcing for precinct sorting, but in major metro areas, up to 60,000 ballots arrive in a single day and they are simply not staffed for this. It makes no sense to count ballots by precinct and then send them out for sorting. According to a 2001 SEC document, our felon friends had contracted for absentee and ballot processing for the following counties:

King County Records and Elections-Ballot Production 7/15/98
King County Records and Elections-Absentee Process 7/10/98
Fresno County Elections-Ballot Production 2/28/99
Fresno County Elections-Absentee Process 2/28/99
Tulare County Elections-Ballot Production 9/03/99
Los Angeles Elections-Absentee Process 8/01/00
Santa Clara County Elections-Absentee Process 9/12/00
Sacramento County Elections-Absentee Process 9/05/00
Purchase Orders based upon Spectrum's ballot production and absentee Statements of Work
Santa Barbara County
San Luis Obispo County
Marin County
Lassen County
Siskiyou County
Humboldt County
Trinity County

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm

I haven't researched PSI Group. For those who are so inclined, maybe you can back this up yourselves. Or disprove it, for that matter.

The point is, whenever ballots are being handled in back rooms or trucks or warehouses out of view, corrupt stuff can happen.

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT DID OR NOT ON A PARTICULAR DAY OR IN A PARTICULAR ELECTION -- What matters is that it can. If the stakes are high enough, SOMEBODY will try to corrupt it.

If we don't have enough transparency to stop them, we're toast.

I believe we have not been stopping them for at least 3 national elections, and if you look around, you'll see what I mean by toast.

[sandnsea]

2. I can call my county election official

They will tell me if my ballot arrived and went into the pile to be counted or not. So, no, the ballots do not just disappear into a void. And if one is really that paranoid about their vote, hand deliver it to the county election office. But it's not necessary, there haven't been any of these kinds of complaints with mail-in. If you want a system where people who want to vote - get to, this is it. Unlike the system where precincts are shorted of machines and voters are jerked around from precinct to precint and told to stand in the wrong line and don't have an opportunity to correct it in time to vote.

We still need registration receipts, public software, and mandatory ballot audit. Other than that, Oregon has the best election system in the country.

[karynnj]

3. Actually, if you add in the integrity of the system

which Kerry and everyone else concerned with the issue, this is an excellent list.

What is your problem with:

1. convenience - Assuming the system is good, you want it as easy as posible for people to make an informed vote.

2. turnout - The higher the turnout the more people are represented, would you prefer a system where it was so time consuming or difficult to vote, only the elite and really committed do.

3. speedy results - I would be willing to wait as long as a week, if it meant the results were complete, unambiguous and believed by both sides. If it can be done as accurately and speedy, so much the better.

4. cost to administer- Budgets are what they are and if a technique is both acceptable and cheaper, that's good.

5. flashy equipment - I saw nothing in what Wyden said to success that the equipment is or has to be flashy. I doubt 4 and 5 are compatible.

Kerry's comments were at the beginning of his Senate speech after Wyden spoke about how well it worked in Oregon. I take Kerry's remarks to be that this sounds like a good idea given Oregon's experience - he did NOT immediately say everyone should switch to this immediately. It does seem reasonable to be enthusiastic about something that did, from several measures, work well. You seem pretty closed minded about even looking at anything.

[Zan_of_Texas]

8. You misunderstand what I'm saying.

Convenience and turnout in an election are meaningless if it's a crooked election.

So what if it was easy to vote, and 80% turned out, if the person the majority voted for lost because of crooks.

Same thing with accessibility -- I want every person, disability or no, to be able to vote.

But, only if the election is honest does the rest of the stuff have any advantage.

The purpose of an election is not convenience or speed, but electing our representatives.

It's not that I'm closed minded. It's that I've read thousands of articles, talked with security experts, and traveled to Oregon at my own expense and talked with election activists there. I won't attempt to speak for them, but my impression of the experienced ones is that they, mostly, understood some of the security limitations of mail-in ballots.

[karynnj]

10. I agree with you - I think everyone agrees that the

whatever process is done security and integrity have to be maintained. Kerry's Senate comments clearly show he gets that. He was commenting on Wyden's comments and clearly was impressed that there was at least enough promise that it be considered. He didn't say, drop every thing and implement Oregon's process now.

Like Gore, Kerry is likely keenly aware that elections can be stolen.

[ProSense]

4. Senator Kerry's full speech

posted here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1698593&mesg_id=1698593

[liberaldemocrat7]

5. Vote by mail with paper ballots countd by civil servants.

You need these mail in paper ballot votes counted by civil servants and the registrations have to get made by civil servants and kept track of by civil servants.

[Toots]

6. It is about time

Oregonians are very happy with their system. It Works We never hear anything about voter fraud or voter intimidation from Oregon. It is about time a National democratic figure has spoken out for something as beneficial as this. It just boggles my mind why so many here at DU arte opposed to this. The Republicans have known for a long time that vote by mail is by far the best means for getting their voters to vote. It is why they mail out absentee ballots to everyone. Wake Up DU this is what we have been praying for...

[Reader Rabbit]

7. Maybe they'll get smart and do this!

And if you're worried about posting your ballot—which I don't think is a problem, but as usual, the corporate media has managed to vilify the U. S. Postal Service, an efficient not-for-profit government agency—run it down to the library. My local branch keeps the box right by the checkout desk, and they cheerfully monitor everyone dropping a ballot in.

However worried you are about ballot tampering, I think I can safely say that nobody is going to mess with a librarian. :)

[sandnsea]

9. Ours is at the police station

Which I personally don't like because I think it's intimidating. But for those who are super paranoid about safety, I suppose they could put a drop box outside police stations instead of libraries. I don't think anybody is going to try to steal a box from a police station either.

In some places though, they would need a tighter chain of custody between the box and the county office. A Democrat picks them up a few times a week here and that kind of partisanship just wouldn't work in some parts of the country. The envelopes are signed, after all. In a small town you do know each others politics too.

[bobaloo2]

11. It works great

I really don't understand the resistance to this, it's worked great. My town averages over 90 percent turnout, I don't know what the national average is but I suspect it's about half that. The ballots are read by optical scanning machines. I talked to the county official in charge of electiions. What they do is they have a sample stack of ballots, a couple hundred, and they're split between the candidates for votes. They run that sample through the machine, verify that it counted correctly, then run the actual ballots through the machine, then run the sample pack again to verify it's still counting correctly. I'm 100 percent confident my vote was counted, and counted correctly, how many can say that?'

The other big issue is that we get a "voters' pamphlet" a few weeks ahead of the election with explanations of the various ballot measure and statements by candidates. Anyone can buy a half page for $500 and make an argument for or against. We can sit down in the evening over the dinner table and do our voting, and be fully informed when we do it, it's great.

Are some people just afraid of increasing turnout?