The problem with Early Voting and Mail In Voting:

[bvar22]

In transparent democracies around the World, the Exit Poll is the criteria for determining the validity of an election.
In THOSE democracies, Exit Polls are the sacred Gold Standard.

In the USA, prior to 2000, Exit Polls were the best (only?) way to verify the ballot counting.
They were considered reliable and accurate, as they are considered in the rest of the civilized (and uncivilized) World.
Only in the USA or 3rd World dictatorships are Exit Polls forbidden or maligned.

Since then, Millions have been spent to discount or disrupt the validity of Exit Polls.
Early Voting and Mail In ballots, while convenient, DO contribute to the argument against the validity and accuracy of Exit Polls, and make it easier to steal elections.

After the clearly stolen election in 2000 and the "questionable" election in 2004, I have deep concerns about the legitimacy of elections in the USA. I would like to see us keep the only tool WE, The Citizens, have to oversee the accuracy of our elections...the EXIT POLL.
Without accurate Exit Polls, we are forced to believe those Corporate interests and their proprietary tools to tell us who has won an election.

For transparent elections we NEED:
1)National Holiday for Voting Day

2)Paper Ballots

3)Hand counted in public at the Voting Station with live Inet Video feeds.

4)No moving of ballot boxes to another location,
and Publicly observed (plus Inet Video)chain of custody of ballot boxes until AFTER to tally is verified

5)Independent Exit Polls


If it is important to you, you will find a way.
If it is not, you will find an excuse.

[littlewolf]

1. K & R

[Oceansaway]

2. K&R...n/t

[Arugula Latte]

3. We're 100 percent vote-by-mail in Oregon, and I like the system.

It gives everyone who wants to vote plenty of time to study the ballot and the voters' guides, which provide us with pro and con arguments, candidate statements, etc.

[oldtime dfl_er]

6. heh!

we were writing at the same time, and I disagreed with you! I think we should have both mail in and polling place.

[leftstreet]

7. It's really easy to drop voters though. Miss a couple ballots, you don't get one

Same here in WA

I don't know your county's particulars, but the ballots stop coming if voters don't vote consistently. Then the major hassle of getting signed up again. And no polling places on election day. It's a great way to suppress voting.

[Retrograde]

33. In my county you can check that it's been received

the registrar has a website that can tell you when the ballot was sent out, and when it was returned. I had one ballot get lost in the mail (never received it), contacted the registrar's office and got a new one.

It does put some more responsibility on the voter, though, to make sure it's been received.

[bvar22]

13. I will agree that Mail In is convenient, but

it absolutely negates the possibility of Exit Polls.
You mail in your ballot, and then sit in front of the TV and wait for TPTB to tell you who won.
Even without an exit poll, when you cast your ballot at a Polling Place, you get to see the turnout, and have some idea of how the vote is running.

Mail In...? :shrug:

[Arugula Latte]

14. One good thing is we have a 100 percent paper trail.

Which is much more than many of those voting on machines can say.

[bvar22]

30. Do you really?

The accumulated ballots CAN be recounted with Mail-In voting,
but how do you really know that YOUR ballot was counted, and that it was the same ballot you mailed in?
Most Mail-In Ballots ARE machine counted, and then sent on to a central BBV tabulator.

[WolverineDG]

31. Last I heard, messing with the mail is a federal felony nt

[bvar22]

34. Like THAT is a deterrent for TPTB.

War Crimes and Invading a Country under false pretenses didn't even slow them down.
If the Attorney General is in YOUR pocket, you have nothing to worry about.
Just ask the War Criminals and War Profiteers from the Bush administration.
Just ask the Wall Street Bankers.
THEY will never know a day of discomfort.

I will be satisfied when I can SEE my ballot taken from the box I put it in, counted in public,
and THEN verified by an independent Exit Poll.
...but I have trouble trusting the government to look after MY interests.

[CreekDog]

37. mail in is great...i slowly complete my ballot

then drop it in the mail.

plenty of time to fill it in, frequently over multiple nights.

no time off work.

there are other ways besides exit polls to have what you desire.

[Upton]

41. Love mail in voting in Washington state too.

My SO and I relax, sit around, discuss the issues, and vote accordingly. The only folks I ever hear against our mail in voting system are Repubs interested in depressing turnout..

[oldtime dfl_er]

4. Independent Exit Polls?

why not do away with exit polls altogether?

Also, I think we need to have the option of mailing or going to a polling site. Personally, I've voted in every election -- including for school board and dogcatcher -- since the 70s, and I missed the primary because Washington state has gone to mail-only voting, and I just never got around to mailing my ballot in. I shocked myself, because I ALWAYS vote, I feel it's my duty to vote, but dammit I want to go to a polling site and feel the democratic process in action.

We also need campaign finance reform, as long as I'm ranting. :)

[Robb]

5. Was 2008 "stolen?"

I ask because there were more early and mail-in votes cast than ever before that year IIRC.

[bvar22]

15. Was 2008 "stolen?"

We don't really know.
Obama & the Democrats may have won by even larger margins.
At some point, the turnout will overwhelm the ability to steal,
unless everybody starts voting by mail.
Then there will be no turnout, and no effective cross check.

[Robb]

19. 30% of ballots cast in 2008 were mail-in or early.

The highest number ever. That would imply to me 2008 would've been the easiest to steal -- not 2004, when 20% of the votes were cast before election day, or 2000 which had 14% early/mail-in ballots.

I agree more cross-check is needed, however. In my state I can verify that the county clerk has received and counted my ballot by visiting that office's website and entering some information. I cannot, however, verify my vote was cast for Candidate X or Measure Y.

The paper trail on walk-in voting nationwide isn't in much of a better state, I believe. So improvements are needed. I just don't see eliminating voting by mail as a panacea -- it does, in my admittedly limited and wholly anecdotal experience, allow a greater number of people to vote than might have otherwise, specifically those who are busy for one reason or another (3 jobs, for instance) or those who find getting to the polls physically challenging.

[leftstreet]

8. K&R

I couldn't agree more

For transparent elections we NEED:
1)National Holiday for Voting Day

2)Paper Ballots

3)Hand counted in public at the Voting Station with live Inet Video feeds.

4)No moving of ballot boxes to another location,
and Publicly observed (plus Inet Video)chain of custody of ballot boxes until AFTER to tally is verified

5)Independent Exit Polls

:thumbsup:

[WolverineDG]

9. You can have my Early Voting

when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

dg

[tammywammy]

11. +1 n/t

[qnr]

18. Really.... hurricanes, for example, do not respect the concept of "voting holidays." n/t

[bvar22]

35. Other democracies with transparent/verifiable elections...

...manage just fine.
Exit Polls are the BEST (only?) tool available to The Public to crosscheck the validity of elections.

Otherwise, it is Trust us...WE won. Would WE lie to you?"

[bvar22]

24. Well, as long as you are comfortable trusting...

that someone else is actually counting your vote in private, then OK.
In some municipalities and states with accountable, good governments, there is a higher degree of trust in the system.
But can you really trust the system for Early Voting accounts from rural Alabama?
You ARE affected by the vote counts in those states too.

I have difficulty trusting the system.
I want to SEE my vote counted, and I want to have it compared to an Exit Poll on election day.
...but maybe thats just me.

[WolverineDG]

32. Actually, each campaign is allowed to have a poll watcher present

when the ballots are counted.

There are other, more sneaky ways to fuck with election results than Early Voting, like not keeping the voting rolls up-to-date & purging voters who die or have moved since the last election. :think:

And, as for your Exit Polls, there are many people there who do what I do: LIE. We vote by secret ballot here in this country & it offends me when someone comes up & asks who I voted for.

dg

[iamjoy]

10. Exit Polls Are Meaningless

In 2000, exit polling clearly indicated Gore had won Florida. When the initial vote count was done and Dubya had more votes, people figured there was some kind of fraud. And it didn't make a darn bit of difference to the outcome, did it?

If the situation were reversed, and our candidate was way behind in exit polling, but higher in the actual vote count, would you think our candidate should step aside?

[leftstreet]

12. You just proved the OP's point

Exit polling = Gore
Vote 'counting' = Bush

:shrug:

[iamjoy]

22. But Bush Still Got to Be President

even though the exit polling convinced some of us he'd stolen the election, it didn't make a darn bit of difference in the end result. So why bother exit polling if you aren't going to have investigations into the fraud or a revote?

[bvar22]

16. Exit Polls Are Meaningless ?

...except in every civilized country with a transparent democracy.

The voting in Venezuela is more transparent and verifiable than our elections in the USA.

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. If the situation was reversed, I would expect a full accounting for

all ballots cast paying particular attention to those districts where the exit polling was at odds with the actual count.

After all, when Gore polled better on the exits, then Bush better on the first count, it was the (ignored and short-circuted) recount that proved the exit polling correct.

If a fully authenticated recount gives it to the other side, so be it. It is fairness and transparency that is important.

[laughingliberal]

17. K & R

International groups who monitor and supervise elections have always considered the comparison of the exit polls to the actual vote counts to be the gold standard for evaluating the presence of election fraud. Results which show a wide variance with the exit polls are always a clear sign of fraud.

Good post. Thank you for pointing this out.

[snot]

21. K&R'd

[progressoid]

23. Huh?

How do you know exit polls were reliable and accurate prior to 2000?

[azul]

25. Yes, there are some draw-backs with mail voting.

But we are voting in a virtual minefield of problems 2010.

The vote in 2008, and in years before for that matter, has no complete verifiable record. No one can say with certainty what the real vote counts were. That is a major problem. How to fix it quickly and correctly?

Exit polls have been a good check on the system until 2000. We dropped the ball there and with electronic voting machines and tabulating machines.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

26. Yeah, but it negates the voter intimidation bullshit

As well as assholes who flyer urban neighborhoods with "you vote next week".

[bvar22]

29. Voter intimidation at the polls is illegal.

That is a Law Enforcement issue,
not a problem with same day, Paper Ballot, public counting at the polling station, independent Exit Polling voting.

[mrs_p]

27. unless we make voting days actual days off from work

i think the mail-in option needs to stay. it's how i even remember to vote as my day often starts before polling stations open and doesn't end until after they are closed.

[struggle4progress]

28. It would be possible to exit polling for early voting in NC: in fact it would be easier

to do that than election day exit polling, since there are fewer early voting sites than election day sites

Just drop a pollster by now and then during the early voting period to grab a few responses at a time

[Romulox]

36. So...early voting (and not the corporations that buy off our politicians!) is the problem?

:shrug:

[Nye Bevan]

38. It's harder for poor people without cars to get to the polls.

Especially if there happens to be a storm on the single day that people would be allowed to vote under your system.

It's also harder for the working class to get to the polls. And I know you are suggesting a national holiday, but many people would still need to work.

I think early and mail-in voting tends to work in our favor.

[hayu_lol]

39. I'll stick with Oregon's Vote By Mail system...

we have had no problems with it. It eliminates lines at polling stations. Citizens can be present at every step in the process...many take advantage of this. Permanent records are kept in a secure location in the event of a needed recount.

Works for us...but then we aren't Alabama or some of those other states.

Our ballots are paper and pencil. We have time to read the voter's handbook on each issue and each candidate. Our turnout is generally far higher than most of the other states.

[Nye Bevan]

40. I wish we had this in CT.

I have been voting by mail for a few years now but I have to request absentee ballots and state that I will be out of town on election day. But it's worth doing; I love filling out the ballot at my leisure two or three weeks before election day and not have to worry about getting to the polling station before the polls close.

[hayu_lol]

42. One more comment about by mail voting...

Repugnants in Oregon HATE by mail voting.

[Winterblues]

43. If Democrats somehow survive this election, it will be due completely to early voting

and vote by mail.. One can always find some fault in every thing.. Weigh the pros and the cons and I am positive the pros of vote by mail and/or early voting will way outweigh any cons you may dig up with your imagination..

[bvar22]

44. Do you have something to base that on?

"If Democrats somehow survive this election, it will be due completely to early voting...
and vote by mail."

Do you have something to base that on?
or is that just a hunch.

Quick review:
Did TPTB tell us the truth about election 2000?...No.
Did TPTB tell us the truth about the Invasion of Iraq?....No.
Did TPTB tell us the truth about the BP Oil Spill?...No.

...but you are comfortable to sit at home, mail in your ballot, and believe what the TV tells you about who WON the election?

Exit Polls ARE the only tool available to The Public to cross check the totals reported by TPTB.
In every transparent democracy in The WORLD, Exit Polls ARE the gold standard for determining Election Fraud.

but if you think they are not important.....