Two stories about voting by mail in California

[jls4561]

First my little cousin. When he turned eighteen, twenty years ago., I cornered him at his birthday lunch and refused hear about the new car he'd just bought (that boy has had more cars by the time he'd turned twenty than I've had in my lifetime - don't know if he's ever finished paying one off before he traded it in, but oh well) until he'd signed a voter registration form. He did not want to, because he heard that jury duty is taken from the voter rolls. Prevaricating just a bit, I told him that wasn't true - it was taken from the DMV rolls. So he signed the application and was registered to vote absentee because he was moving around the state a lot at that time.

The ballot came to his mom's house. We were up at my aunt's (his grandmother) and I asked his mom did he vote. This is Bush vs Gore. His mom said yes, the ballot arrived and she filled it out, signed it and mailed it in. Grandma and I both laid into her.
"That's illegal!" I said. "And wrong!" said my aunt. After several minutes of this, we dropped it, because you can't tell mom anything.

Couple of weeks later, mom and I are up at grandma's house again. Grandma was recently widowed so we went there as often as we could. Mom blurts out, "Son got kicked off the voter rolls!" Why? The signatures did not match. Oh really?

Skip to several years later and I'm up at grandma's house again by myself. She has started to vote by absentee because she's getting frail. Election day is tomorrow, but she hasn't mailed the ballot out yet. This the is 2008 primary, Obama vs Clinton, and the vote is tomorrow. She asks me what to do. We looked at the voter information she had and found that I could drop it off at any polling place if she signed and and sealed the envelope.

I went to my polling place on election day and checked with the poll worker. She said grandma's ballot was fine if the signatures match. My aunt was happy because she believes in voting as strongly as I do.

So grandma got to vote, and her grandson didn't. Because the signatures matched or didn't.

The moral of the story is:

States check. Don't believe vote by mail is always about fraud (unless you are in North Carolina apparently).