Oregon's Secretary of State proposes Oregon's

[tblue37]

vote-by-mail system as a solution to our country's voting problems. Originally published in the Washington Post, this op-ed piece by Bill Bradbury, Oregon's SOS, was featured today on the editorial page of our local rag:

Oregon extols mail ballots
By Bill Bradbury - Special to The Washington Post

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

SALEM, ORE. — This month, as controversies emerged in other parts of the country over polling place problems and malfunctioning touch-screen machines, we here in Oregon prepared to swear in a new crop of elected officials with nary a question about the legitimacy of the count or the functioning of our electoral process. We accomplished this with a turnout on Nov. 7 that was, once again, among the highest in the nation. How? With Vote by Mail.

<snip>

The system has proven to be fraud-free. Oregon is one of only two states in the nation to verify every single voter signature against the signature on that voter’s registration card. Our process is transparent and open to observation. Finally, the returned paper ballots, which are the official record of the election, can be recounted by hand.

With voting by mail, Oregon’s turnout is consistently among the highest of any state without same-day voter registration. We don’t suffer with long lines at polling places, with voter harassment or intimidation, with fears about malfunctioning or easily hacked voting machines, or from lack of a paper trail. Even floodwaters don’t keep voters from participating. Under Oregon law, mailed ballots are not forwarded if a voter has moved, and those returned ballots have allowed us to maintain one of the cleanest and most up-to-date registration lists in the country.

Voting by mail is also a cost-effective way to run elections, costing taxpayers about 30 percent less than polling-place elections.

<snip>
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/nov/21/oregon_extols_mail_ballots/

More at link. . . .

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Oregon RULZ!

:bounce:

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. In my county in Washington, we vote all by mail. I have mixed feelings

I think that going to your polling place is an important ritual. Just like church, ritual creates importance.

However, vote by mail leaves a paper trail, regardless of the mechanism that is used to tally the votes.

[sandnsea]

3. We sit around the coffee table

Go through all the ballot initiatives, discuss the pros and cons, look stuff up online. It's a new ritual, that's all.

[FrenchieCat]

8. Agreed......and a better ritual than waiting in line for 9 hours,

in the rain! That's for sure!

[OregonBlue]

15. We do to and it's nice to have the time to really consider the issues

before we vote.

[buddysmellgood]

4. One could have an option whereby you take your ballot to the "polling place" and put it in the mail.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Something like that actually happens

At least in Multnomah County (Portland), the county clerk sets up drop-off booths in the few days before the election in order to pick up procrastinators who aren't sure that the U.S. mail will deliver their ballot in time.

[Ron Green]

11. That's true all over the state, I believe.

Even here on the rural coast we have drop boxes.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. Our ritual is sitting at the kitchen table, discussing and researching

then marking and dropping off our ballots.

When ballots start arriving in the mail, people start discussing the measures and candidates. I've found it's more of an extended community ritual than in the other states I've lived, where you are all at the same building for a few minutes.

[roguevalley]

6. Oregon, always ahead of the curve. OREGON RULES!!!

[dmosh42]

9. Very good alternative to consider.

Thanks for posting this. I had seen this a couple weeks ago from someone in Oregon, and wondered if this election still worked out ok.

[tblue37]

10. I would like to see this op-ed used to help fuel

a groundswell of opinion to switch to the Oregon model. I plan to send it to a lot of people--including a lot of representatives at the state and national level.

Please join me in this.

[Tiggeroshii]

12. YESSSS!!!!!!!!!

There's more to be done, to help increase voter turnout even more, but I think that is an EXCELLENT start.

[Greyskye]

13. My birth-state rocks!

My folks live there (Dad is still active in politics - he's in his 70's, and was out canvassing for months before the elections). They love the vote-by-mail system; I wish everyplace did it.

[Qutzupalotl]

14. I LOVE VOTE BY MAIL!!

:bounce:
You sit in your cozy living room with a warm beverage and a voter guide, read through all the pro's and con's, flip a coin (just kidding), and take your sweet time. You can mail it or, if a stamp is a hardship, drop it off at any of several locations.

Voter turnout in presidential elections is often over 80%.

You can watch the process of sorting ballots by precinct. It's exceedingly accurate, with many safeguards in place--including privacy, thanks to an inner envelope and an outer one with a signature (which gets verified). The ONLY problem I ever heard about was this year, when flooding threatened to spoil some ballots (but didn't succeed).

I voted a week before election day (straight D, thankyouverymuch). Once they get your ballot, you stop receiving the candidate mailings. :-)

[Faux pas]

16. Voting by mail is an excellent thing. Tampering with the mail in

ballots would be a federal offense on top of a federal offense. Works for me.

[LWolf]

17. It's simple. It's elegant.

If all those paper ballots were counted by hand the first time around, it would be perfect.

One of the things I love is having the ballot and all the materials well ahead of time; I can curl up by the fire, read, ponder, and take my time. I can set the ballot aside when an issue seems to need more research. Finally, when I'm done it goes into my own mailbox, and I'm done. Life moves on, and I check back in the day after the election to get results.

[eridani]

18. What about COUNTING all the votes?

What about auditing central tabulators, which are notorious for having a slight undercount compared to poll scanners?

What do you do with ballots which cannot be read by the tabulator? In King County (WA), we had to hand-duplicate 30% of them, an expensive and time-consuming process, the need for which can be partially eliminated if voters could self-check tabulation at polling places.

[BlueIris]

19. Bill Bradbury (with a little help from Ted) SAVED OREGON.

If it hadn't been for this brave, hardworking man, Oregon wouldn't have fallen to the neo-cons like a large portion of the rest of the country back in 2001. Bill is one of my heroes. I worship him and his genius. He's right.

[IndyOp]

20. Will NOT work in states with partisan election officials --

It just makes it easier for them to steal.

Oregon's Vote By Mail Fails To Fulfill Its Promise
http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-72.htm

<snip>

Ballots will be stolen from mailboxes, as they are in Texas. Third-party ballot collectors, who register with the state and agree to deliver your ballot to an official site, will throw away whole groups of ballots based on voters' sex, perceived political leanings or race.

Ballots mailed to senior citizen's homes will be systematically stolen, destroyed or sold. Spouses will begin throwing away or fraudulently signing each others' ballots. "Get out the vote" efforts will take on new meaning in Oregon. Sense of community goes, too....

Timing is another big issue. When you turn in your ballot weeks before election day, you make significant decisions prematurely. The most crucial and revealing phase of any election is in the last weeks — even days, research has shown. Mail-in voting forces candidates to inundate us with elections materials for an even longer period, likely resulting in more expensive campaigns. And you'll inevitably see local TV stations conducting "exit polls" and reporting on "results" weeks before election day. Given all of these problems, vote-by-mail might actually dampen civic participation, not improve it. Voters already had the right If you think all these risks are too apocalyptic and still prefer voting by mail because of its convenience, consider this: Prior to adopting universal vote-by-mail, Oregon had the most lenient absentee voter law in the country.

Anyone who needed or wanted to vote-by-mail could register as a permanent absentee voter. This law upheld the rights and wishes of those who needed to vote away from home. Vote-by-mail wasn't even necessary.

When this method was proposed, it was staged as a bold, innovative and practical idea that would surely add convenience and increase turnout. Without a doubt, we need creative solutions to strengthen the integrity of modern elections and inspire greater civic participation.

Unfortunately, vote-by-mail is a gimmicky, pale imitation of genuine voting reform; it does nothing to address the root causes of low turnout. Despite the hard work and thoughtful implementation of Oregon's election officials, vote-by-mail adds significant risk to electoral integrity.

[IndyOp]

21. Lies, Damn Lies and Mail In Elections...

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-69.htm#fraud

See especially "Why Mail Ballots Are A Bad Idea" by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.
http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-70.htm#pgfId-1399102

In early 2006 I was asked by a local election official to tabulate the problems I'd seen with mail ballot elections and absentee balloting. Obviously conscientious election officials do their best to minimize these problems but most of them cannot be entirely eliminated. However, all too often we've encountered, and document in this chapter, incompetent or corrupt election officials who ignore or are ignorant of the problems listed here.

<snip>

In no case should all-mail elections be used, especially in special district elections involving developers, or other elections where large dollar issues are at stake. As noted in a subsequent section, the State of Oregon's statewide mail elections have been widely touted, but have not been as successful as politicians would like us to believe.

Voter registration problems with mail ballots

• Falsified voter registrations are common.
  
• Poll books and voter registration rolls are corrupt with no independent check possible.
  
• Voter disenfranchisement of about one-third of registered voters occurs as ballots are only mailed to active voters.
  
• Eligible voters are disenfranchised when someone else returns their mail ballot without their knowledge or consent.
  
• Even with requested absentee ballots about 10% may be returned by Post Office as undeliverable to that address.
  
• Unknown numbers of ballots are lost either in the mail or after receipt by clerk.
  
• Wrong writing instruments are often used by voters at home to mark ballots.
  
• Contradictory instructions may be given to voters on how to mark ballots.

Ballot box stuffing is facilitated

• Repeat voting is easily accomplished.
  
• No method exists of checking for duplicate handwriting if an individual has registered under multiple names at multiple addresses by mailing in multiple registration forms.
  
• Voter signature and birthday often appears on outside of envelope compromising voter's privacy and security.
  
• Ineligible ballots from voters who have moved or are otherwise ineligible, e.g., in prison, are counted.
  
• Total loss of ballot inventory and control is inherent.
  
• Thousands of ballots are sent to questionable and temporary addresses (fraternities, sororities, nursing homes, apartment houses, brothels, motels, bars, empty homes, etc.).
  
• No independent check is possible on whether a voter received the proper ballot style, or whether the ballot they receive has all applicable issues and candidates included (or excluded).
  

Vote buying and selling

• Voter intimidation by employers, unions, political parties, neighbors, special interests, relatives, and others is enabled and encouraged.
  
• Vote buying and selling is enabled.
  
• Ballots can be and are collected from voters by special assistants who may or may not deliver the ballots for counting, or who may help the voter fill out their ballots.
  

Facilitates manipulating the vote count

• Back room counting of ballots occurs without citizen oversight and often by relatives or cronies of county clerk.
  
• Eligible votes may not be counted.
  
• Scanning errors when counting ballots are often ignored.
  
• Problems with optical scanners misreading folds in mail ballots have also been discovered.
  
• Ballots are often redone by election officials in order to be machine readable.
  
• Mail ballots are often scanned multiple times.
  
• Voter has no idea whether their ballot was received and counted as marked.
  
• Loss of secret ballot.

Note: This tabulation is not exhaustive and many more scams are possible, and commonly used with mail ballots. That is why they are currently the method of choice for election fraud.

[Toots]

22. That would mean using some intellect on America's part

I can not see that occurring..