Election Supervisors Support Implementing New Election Season (not day!)

[Tab]

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida's elections supervisors have proposed dramatic reforms to eliminate Election Day, replace it with an 11-day election season and eliminate voting precincts.

The association of the state's 67 election chiefs voted in concept at its annual winter meeting Tuesday to informally present the idea to state lawmakers and begin building support for voting changes in the state that was the epicenter of the overtime 2000 election.

"I think the voters spoke loud and clear in the general election of 2004 that they want other options than to be limited to 12 hours on a Tuesday to vote," said Bill Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections and president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. "We should seize upon the opportunity in 2005 to make the changes so we can try it in 2006."
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/C61545/

Note, this goes on to describe the crashing of the meeting, already captured in
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1035594

but the important part here (not found in the orther article) is what the meeting was about, namely moving to a season for voting and not just a day.

[farmbo]

1. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic...

If a verifiable paper trail is not part of the process, people can vote over a whole year's time and the game will still be fixed.

[4democracy]

2. Also paper ballots, openly hand counted. Germany does it, why can't we?

[boi1946]

3. My sentiments exactly. And stretching it out

will only lead to more opprotunities for the machines to be tampered with. I still think early voting is a good idea, but on paper ballots, numbered, with a copy given to the voter so that votes can be verified in case of an "irregularity". Having the ballots on some sort of watermarked paper, having random numbers on the individual ballots, locking ALL ballots if need be in a vault until time for counting, then counting in one single sitting in an open and transparent way with election officials from all parties present. How expensive would it be to sent up video cameras of the process? Not very.

[movonne]

7. I cannot understand why the other states don't have mail in voting

as we do here in Oregon...our election process seams to be pretty much problem free.

[dkofos]

4. WTF

Doesn't Fla. already have early voting??
Transparancy is what is needed.

[AndyTiedye]

5. This is Just a Recognition that Early Voting is Here to Stay

Early voting has already turned it into an "election season",
and it will be even more so next year, just because of the horrendous
waits that many had to endure to vote, the voters who got disenfranchied
for voting in the wrong precinct (sometimes the wrong table in the
right building!), challengers, bad weather, and all.

That is one election result from Nov 2nd that nobody can dispute.

[Matariki]

6. I guess that would get rid of those pesky exit polls n/t

[SoCalDem]

8. A good START.. People's lives and commuting habits have changed

There was a time when people LIVED near their jobs, and could easily vote, but those days are OVER..

The only thing that bothers me is that campaigning would have to stop as soon as the "season" started.. and the ballots already cast would have to be verified, and accounted for..

I have a sneaky suspicion that a lot of the "early votes" were just vaporized..that it was a way to give the eager-to-vote folks a way to voice their anger and outrage, while eliminating them as potential troublemakers on the "real election day"..

The fact that almost 1/3 of eligible Florida voters voted early, and showed Kerry up by double digits....only to have that totally negated on election day by machines that counted backwards, stopped counting altogether or a myriad of other "glitches", proves to ME that something smells in Florida...again.. The only reason that it has not devolved into a major snafu this time, is that Ohio was the "mess du jour designee" this year.. Notice how the press magnified the potential, early on... as if to say.. "nevermind Florida..hey everyone..look at Ohio.."

I will be a pariah for saying this, but I would rather see the correct person inaugurated, than to "preserve my secret ballot".. People who put 500 signs in their yards and festoon their cars with stickers, are not really voting secretly anyway, are they?

I say separate the nationally held offices from the rest of the election...give everyone in the US a voter ID number(actually I favor everyone having a passport), and be accountable for your own vote..

It's infinitely harder to steal elections if a name is attached to that vote you are planning to ignore.. That alone would provide a valid crosscheck..

For those who say they do not want to be part of a national database, I say."you already ARE..on several"..

a simple paper ballot would suffice...It could even be mailed to you.

president........
senate...........
congress.........

choose one from each category..

Elections involving local and/or state issues could be held in "odd" years, so that proper attention could be given to them..

Even years would be for nationally held offices that affect every citizen in the US.

How flipping hard would it be to send every registered voter a damned numbered postcard with a "choose 1 from each category" on it??

Everyone knows who the candidates ARE by the end of August..so send them all out Sept 15 and have a "must be received by" date of Nov 1. They could either be mailed or delivered to the registrar's office, with a "receipt of ballot" given.

That would surely give people plenty of time to figure out which THREE people they wanted in office.

Have each candidate QUIT campaigning on TV as of Oct 1.

Either junk the damned machines, or use them for local elections only.

For the important offices.. the ones that cause people to hate each other, paper must be used and it MUST be verified at EACH location BY BOTH parties.
The totals would be reported "up the line" aftre being verified at each combination point. Totals posted online as they are verified, and cut the damned TV people out completely..

They can report on who won, but get them off the tv with their dumb and misleading maps.. :grr:

[ItsThePeopleStupid]

9. brilliant

that would invalidate both exit polling (especially doing away with precincts) and historical analysis of voting irregularities, such as the study that guy from Berkeley just did which showed that something very, very weird happened there in the last election.

And, would manual recounts, at least of optical scan ballots, still be possible?

They need PAPER BALLOTS and spot check manual recounts, not this.

[Skarbrowe]

10. This election meant so much to me, as it did to millions of others and

I know my vote didn't count because I voted by absentee ballot 2 weeks before election day. The only votes that mattered according to all the news channels that always want to be the first to "call it" were the "projections" of votes on that friggin Tuesday. I bet no one even looked at my absentee ballot.

We have to change everything about the way we vote in this country. The one big change is to make it a law that the media can not name the winner until days after the election is finalized and all votes are counted and recounted.

Maybe starting the voting the first week of October and not have any election decided until the first week of December.

And that's just a beginning.