Unless you're telling me that all the ballots are hand-counted, this is no different than voting on an OCR page and having the page scanned, other than the convenience of not having to stand in line at the polling center.

This just separates the filling out of the ballot from the OCR scanning. You're still relying on the OCR machine to accurately count.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/133/81821.html?1326757094

Where there's smoke ...
- Citizens had to go to court to look at the ballots;
- when they did, the county clerk seized a ballot box claiming she had a court order to take it to her private office for inspection (no such order existed).
- Logs for the voting machine show time discrepancies.
- Security precautions during the election were skipped.
- The public needs to be able to match voting machine results (poll tapes) with the announced tally, but the clerk witheld poll tapes.
- Public records on the election requested more than a year ago have not been produced.
- When counting ballot stubs and blanks, the public was not permitted to watch.

Really? Is this called a "public election"?

Center Post Dispatch - Friday, Jan 13th, 2012, By Teresa L. Benns

read full article here: http://www.centerpostdispatch.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=1713

Facts, not personal attacks, tell election story

Photo by Teresa Benns Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers prepares with great gusto to open a ballot box she seized at the end of the citizens count in Saguache last August, by intimating she had a court order allowing her to take the ballots to her office for inspection. No court order to take the ballots had been issued for that particular situation.

It's better than no paper trail, but not by much.

It seems important enough (to me) to spend enough money to make sure the result is correct, and being a computer wizard, I know just how easy it is to fake digital "information". Computer data is made easy to change, to modify, that is the whole idea with computers, it's not where you put your permanent records. We used to know that, but "cloud computing" had to be sold so we went for chaos and bullshit instead. The political classes in this nation have a great fondness for rigged games anyway, since they always assume the game will be rigged in their favor.

We have to know who won the election, tonight.

Why? Isn't it better to know who honestly won, even if it takes a few days or a week, or, OMG, even two weeks? They don't go into office until January, anyway, so why the fucking rush?

Cross post from the Texas Group. GOP may be up to tricking women voters out of their vote. Republicans are very afraid of Wendy Davis being voted in as Governor by the women of Texas in November 2014.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/107812986

Women need to vote in the State Proposition election that Texas is having now (early voting has started). Then register, again, to vote.

Christian, property owner. The way Jesus intended.

I'm not a fan of mail-in ballots for everyone. We need absentee ballots for obvious reasons, but the small number of absentee ballots mean we've avoided a lot of problems. Having everyone vote by mail makes those problems more likely.

Voting in person means vote buying isn't practical: Guy approaches as you walk to polling place. Says he'll pay you $20 to vote for Senator Asshole. You say "Sure". You vote for Senator PuppiesAndKittens. Return to shady man and say "Yep, I voted the way you wanted, where's my $20?"

Mail in ballots mean the shady guy can actually confirm your vote for Senator Asshole before paying you.

There's also been problems with absentee ballots being filled out and returned by someone other than the designated voter - "Mom won't really know if I fill this out instead...."

I realize that Oregon has moved to all mail-in and hasn't had problems yet, but I'm not at all confident that this will remain the case.

There was a family near him who routinely sold their votes to the Republican precinct captain when my Grandfather was the Democratic precinct captain. But the Republican did nothing to verify their votes. So my Grandfather paid them a little extra to vote Democratic instead, but they had to leave a special mark on the ballot when they voted. When it came time to count the votes, my Grandfather would look for those marks and pay them off accordingly.

Republicans lost money. Democrats got votes.

With mail in ballots the Republican would have filled out the ballot for them and had them sign their name. As you say, this makes retail cheating extremely easy.

On the other hand, I imagine very few people would go along with this scheme. Also, this kind of cheating on a large scale would take a lot of manpower. If you have that much manpower, you're probably going to win the election anyway.

Also, Democrats almost always win when more people vote. Most people support Democratic positions. Angry people support Republican positions, and angry people always vote. So anything that gets non-voters to vote is going to be a good thing for the Democratic ticket.

is the relatively small benefit. Turning OR in a national election is not an enormous change.

We're already seeing evidence that money in national elections is well beyond the saturation point - there was literally no ad time to buy in many media markets in 2012. If the SCOTUS rules for unlimited donations, that's going to get even worse.

With the "traditional" route for money in politics closed, "alternative" routes will be more appealing.

Are you from hill country in rural America? I've found that a lot of my family stories are not believed on DU.

------------------

I'm 51 years old. My parents got electricity the year before I was born ("lie! Nobody was without electricity by 1961.&quot . We got indoor plumbing when I was a year old ("lie!&quot because we needed electricity for the pump first ("lie! Nobody had to pump their own water by 1963&quot .

My grandfather died when I was six. He got indoor plumbing same time we did ("lie!&quot . But he never did have an indoor toilet ("lie!&quot . Which is kind of understandable. If you've lived that long without a toilet in the house, you can see where someone might view the idea of a toilet right there inside the house as kind of disgusting. Had he lived longer, I'm sure he would have come around. Or got tired of my grandmother bitching at him.

------------------

By the way, we did call our grandfather, "Paw" and our grandmother "Grammie". But I am, of course, making that up.

------------------

I suppose the vote-buying story could have been made up. My dad told me the name of the family that double sold their votes. I never asked any of them to verify the story. Told me the name of the Republican who bought their votes as well. Actually, we're now married into that family. Far cry from when they forbade their daughter from playing with my sister because we're Catholic.

Of course, I just made up that story too. You pretty much should never believe anything I say.

------------------

KKK came to burn a cross in front of my grandfather's house once. As Catholics we were #3 on the hate parade. Leaders spotted my Grandfather (maybe I should call him "Paw" for effect as long as I'm making up tall tales) sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair ("obviously stereotypical lie!&quot with a shotgun ("more lies!&quot at his side. Decided to ask his permission to burn the cross. Promised they wouldn't do anything or threaten anybody. They just needed to save face.

At that point Grammie came walking out with a shotgun and my two oldest aunts, still children, sporting rifles. My dad, the youngest and only son of the family, was too young. Paw, I was told responded, "first white hood I see come over that hill is going to be missing a head." Klan decided to burn their cross elsewhere. Some relatives of ours living on the same road moved to Michigan (I grew up in Southern Indiana about an hours drive north of Kentucky) about this time. I always figured this was why, but I never asked.

Of course, I just made all of that up. Nice story though.

------------------

Strip mine down the road got too close to our property destroying a fence. Paw just wanted them to replace the fence. Back in those days mining companies purchased the land rather than leasing. A lot of them were crooked as hell. Buy it with a mortgage, run up a bunch of bills, then skip town. That's what this company tried to do.

They didn't owe us much. But when Paw heard them loading up the trucks in the dead of night, he knew what was happening. Shot through the passenger side of the windshield of the first truck. Driver (non-union, of course) quit on the spot. As did all the other drivers. Mining company ended up having to liquidate everything to pay their bills.

They made certain to pay every bill before ours. All they had left to give Paw was a 40 acre ("obvious stereotype&quot played out strip mine. A wasteland of pits that filled with water where no creatures could live.

Hey, I'm getting pretty good at spinning out yarns!

------------------

Paw never owned a tractor, happy to use the plow horses instead. But my Dad broke down and bought one himself the year before he died. One of the very few memories I have of Paw was riding along with him when he took a wagon to shovel out a load of coal from a mostly played out seam ("pouring it on too thick&quot .

I didn't care much for the plow horses. They weren't trained to ride, so not much use for a kid. I remember riding one once when it decided to scratch its back on a tree branch! Pushed me right off the back.

We also had a Shetland pony. I think they used ponies with plow horses like they used Judas Goats with cattle: lead the smaller animal so the others will follow. The pony was a little more fun to ride. One time when we had a big family reunion down at the farm, two of us got on the pony. The cinch was tight enough and it flipped us completely upside down so we were under the pony between its legs until we could get untangled from the stirrups!

Okay, now I suppose I'm going too far. That is such an obvious comedy ploy from old westerns it could not possibly ever be true.

------------------

When I was around 14 or so, the cattle figured out how to turn on the water (push up the handle with their nose). I, of course, was continually blamed and punished for leaving the water on until my Dad actually saw a cow turn on the water once. Anyway, our spring ("yeah, like you had a spring&quot ran dry several times. One time it dried enough to let the mud at the bottom settle and block the spring closed. So I had to crawl down into the spring well to clear it out.

This old well was just made of stacked flat stones from the creek bottom ("yeah, right&quot . So I could easily use the stones as a ladder to make my way down. Dad shouted out to me halfway down to remember which stones I used on the way down. "Why's that," I shouted back.

"If a copperhead didn't bite you on the way down using those stones, good chance one won't on the way up."

"Thanks, Dad. Did it occur to you that sending your child down into a well possibly full of poisonous snakes might not be the best parenting?"

"Well, if you get bit, I can drop this rope to you and pull you up. You wouldn't be able to pull me up."

Have to admit. That makes sense. If, of course, it were a true story.

------------------

I could keep going like this. There was the time I ignored a fire against Grammie's house because I saw Dad was coming that way anyway, and I was tired of being punished for things I didn't do (see cows and horse trough story above). My Mom telling off my Dad for switching me while he looked at me for help because the welts on the back of my legs was really from falling back against an electric fence that didn't have enough spring to launch me back upright until my Dad suggested I flip over it backwards. My Mom and the Drug Dealers. My Dad's response to my Mom and the Drug Dealers. My friend, the deputy and the corn theft.

And this is all just off the top of my head.

But it is, of course, my imagination. Because none of this could possibly be true.

Of course, I'm 56.

My aunt and uncle owned a farm and were without indoor facilities until the late 60s. I remember using the privy and taking the Saturday night bath in a wash tub out in the shed - the water was provided by a hand pump in the kitchen and warmed on the stove.

My maternal grandmother also owned a farm. Privy there, too. She also cooked with a wood stove and oven. How she managed to bake and/or roast anything without burning it to a crisp amazes me to this day.

My Aunt Elfreda died when I was 15. A 20-something cousin of mine had died shortly before that. The double hit gave my Grandmother a stroke. They tried hiring a couple of people to stay with her as nurses. I was plugged in as a stopgap measure in the interims. Finally gave up finding someone to stay with her, so I lived with my Grandmother til I left for college.

She had a big gas heater in the dining room next to her bedroom. I stayed in my deceased aunt's room which was the furtherest from the heat. But I did have a coal/wood burning stove in my room. So my room was often the hottest in the house. But I did have to keep the fire going.

And that was necessary as she had no insulation under the house. When the winds would blow the carpets would rise and fall.

Different world. I remember talking to a guy at work who grew up in Pakistan. He was quite surprised to hear that people in the United States live that way. Even in Pakistan, he said, only the poorest in the remotest villages lived like that. The United States, of course, has one of the highest percentages of wilderness in the world. But a lot of people don't know that. Or realize what that means.

And political corruption! There were four kinds of people:

- the corrupt politicians and their allies
- people who knew they were corrupt and went along with it, even used it when we could (my nuclear family fell into this category)
- the Church people who "knew" that there was no corruption because they grew up with those people and knew them to be good people (my extended family mostly falls into this category)
- criminals who also knew they were corrupt, but didn't fit in or weren't allowed in and whom the Church people would never listen to (my nuclear family fell into this category occasionally as well)

though.

The Republican was just too stupid to setup verification. So my Grandfather paid them more money to vote the other way, but with verification.

So the Republican bought the votes, but did not actually get the votes because he was outsmarted by my Democratic Grandfather.

The political machines of both parties top to bottom were corrupt to the core with little or no oversight...

With mail-in voting vote buying is less likely.

Too difficult for the buyer to intercept enough ballots to make it feasible.

They just have to "make it known" that they will buy votes. Much like drug dealers still find customers, even when they don't advertise.

National elections already passed the saturation point for money - there was literally no ad time to buy in many markets in 2012. With that route to buying an election closed, and the SCOTUS about to throw even more money into national elections, "alternative" routes to buying an election will start to be appealing.

and blow the scam. Especially in this day and age.

Oh wait.....

Yet that doesn't seem to happen.

and your "making it known" comment made me chuckle

google riggednomore,,,a group in az has been suing for years for clean elections and nothing changes

heck in colorado election integrity advocates have been suing for the right to oversee their own elections and they just get farther and farther away from transparent

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10315

or i hope the pic helps you understand...handfuls of ballots laying out in the open in an apartment building for anyone to take and vote any way they would like....poor people move more so the ones not getting their ballots to new addresses are usually working class voters

while i agree oregon has not yet experienced election thefts ,the system does not prevent it...and that is what we need systems were citizens oversee every part of the election process

Who is then marked off as having voted? That's how it works when I mail in a ballot.

you must sign, date, and print your home address on it or, when received by the election board and the signature on the envelope doesn't match the one on file, the ballot will be set aside.

as it has been in arizona in a bond issue,it is done by election OFFICIALS

the same officials that would be checking the signatures......

here is a web site devoted to getting that story out...http://fatallyflawedelections.blogspot.com/

my point remains the same...we the people need to be able to oversee every step of our elections for them to be valid

unless we actually, physically watch election officials count the ballots correctly, NO election is safe, right? Because even if you go to the polls to vote, you don't see who counts them. You just walk in, sign in, get your ballot, go to a voting booth, vote, return, and then slip your ballot into one of two boxes. And then it's out of your hands, just as it's out of our hands when sending a signed and dated ballot through the mail.

I'm not saying that election theft hasn't happened in some states and/or districts - especially those states and/or districts that are predominantly Republican. What I'm arguing is that it makes no difference whether you vote at the polls or mail in your ballot because you never see who counts them and you're never going to know, 100%, if no election fraud is happening behind the scenes.

If you're advocating for a citizen panel to oversee the ballot counting, I agree with you - especially in states and/or districts that are predominantly Republican. But even with citizen watchers, an election can be stolen. Remember Florida 2000?

correct

before electronic voting and scanners we had much more citizen oversight......ab ballots were used but only out of necessity,most ballots were marked and dropped into the box...and when polls closed,citizens (supervised by each other and election officials) counted those votes in public,announced the totals in public and any citizen interested could go to their county office and double check that what was posted election night was what was posted in the aggravate vote totals....quaint ,huh?

what i advocate is a return to that system with enhanced transparency thru the net

bradblog calls it the goldstandard of democracy....http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7417

blackboxvoting.org calls for smaller precincts to accomplish this

mathematician richard charnin has written several books about the red shift that has occurred since electronic voting began including analysis that says the recent walker recall in wisconsin was stolen

btw about the 2000 florida election...the supreme s STOPPED the count....several newspaper did count the ballots after the fact and found gore would of won

But yes, that would be the "gold standard of democracy.

About the 2000 Florida Election ... I know Gore won. I'm not certain he lost his home state, either, and I call into question whether it was just another stolen election in order to boost the GOP argument that he couldn't win his own state so naturally he shouldn't be able to win Florida. But I'm almost certain he didn't lose Florida, especially after all ballots were counted using different methods - and they all showed he won.

The point I was trying to make was the mess that the recount had become with partisans and well-paid Bush lackeys, the so-called Brooks Brother Brigade, were disrupting the ballot counting every chance they got. They will do it again should the people demand a fair and open counting of the votes in our elections. You can bet on it.

The point I was trying to make was the mess that the recount had become with partisans and well-paid Bush lackeys, the so-called Brooks Brother Brigade, were disrupting the ballot counting every chance they got. They will do it again should the people demand a fair and open counting of the votes in our elections. You can bet on it.

//////////////////////////////////

i agree some people will disrupt or try to but it is harder to do when you are counting votes with your own neighbors than when nameless faceless protesters show up,and the brooks brother would never of had any power if the electronic machines had not first botched the count...thats why we say,"get it right election night"

i live in cd-13 illinois,it is supposed to be the down state dem carve out but a tea bagger supposedly won it by 1000 votes...the district covers 14 counties so thats about 70 votes a county that had to be "flipped"...did someone steal it? i dont know and i have to take a spanish firms word for the results,the same soe software that reported those 2 dems recently losing their seats in colarado,the same company that gave an unemployed guy without a campaign or even a phone the win against a respected dem judge in sc

anyway thank you for the enjoyable discussion!

I also understand the need for absentee ballots, but I think most voters should go to the polls on election day and fill in a paper ballot.

and I time to look at the issues and candidates and make more informed decisions. If we had to go to the polls for every election, I'd probably miss the less well known elections or primaries. Vote by mail is great!

I am also opposed to voting early by mail or by the voting booth. I think everyone who can, should go to the polls to vote the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

I do have a question however. How does voting by mail give you 'time to look at the issues and candidates' any more than voting in person?

issues and people especially for the low level county positions. My job doesn't give me a lot of time to pay attention to every little issue so this gives me that time to make informed decisions on who or what I vote for.

I work on call 24/7/365. If it was your way and I was out of town on election day, I guess it would be my loss since I wasn't home to vote. Vote by mail brings democracy to everybody who can vote. The more that participate in democracy the better.

I don't get what you are trying to say here. I have a sample ballot, research the candidates and any issues on the ballot. I go to the polls on election day and vote.

polling station is so much different from doing it from home?

It's the exact same amount of time. If someone is voting as they should, they are informing themselves about the candidate and the issues. You said you do that. I said I do that. How much time either of us take to do the research has nothing to do with how the ballot is executed. I think it should be done on election day only, if at all possible. You believe that mailing the ballot in is the better way. Time has nothing to do with the research. I think it should take a little effort to go to the polls on election day. In Minnesota where I live there is a state law thanI mployers have to allow employees time off to go vote. That might be why we always lead the nation if voter participation. Oregon was ranked 14th.

By the way, go back and read post #32. I never said I was opposed to absentee ballots.

like you. Time has EVERYTHING to do with research and getting to the polls. People have to take time out of their day to get to the polls and to do research. Frankly, I don't understand why you think people "should should take a little effort to go to the polls on election day." Doesn't it matter more that they vote and not where or how they vote? The end result should be that they voted not where they voted.

It's awesome that Minnesota has a state law that allows workers to take time off to go vote. Again, not every state is like that. BTW, Minnesota had the #1 voter turnout rate in 2012 while Oregon was #6.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/1106/Voter-turnout-the-6-states-that-rank-highest-and-why/Oregon

Why is it okay for some to vote absentee while not allowing everyone to do that? That's basically what vote by mail is. I don't see the problem with that nor do I understand your opposition to vote by mail.

research the issues and the candidates before they vote, whether at home or in the voting booth.

There are a lot of people I know who should not be voting. They don't put any effort into it. I believe voting at the polling place is the way elections should be conducted, using a paper ballot.

You obviously have a different opinion. I think voting should take some effort. I remember seeing a news story about how some people, I can't recall which country, walked for days to get to a polling place. I'm not suggesting we make it difficult to vote, but going to the polling place is not too much to ask. If there is a legitimate reason (Minnesota has this law on the books but does not enforce it) a voter cannot get to the polling place on election day, then they can vote absentee.

The absentee ballots were the biggest problem in the recount in the election of Senator Franken.

some people should be able to vote while others shouldn't?

"There are a lot of people I know who should not be voting. They don't put any effort into it." How do you know they don't put any effort into it and why are you judging them that way?

Works fine and I highly recommend it. Go Colorado! The first place I voted, BTW, back in the day when one had to be 21 to vote.

Big

If every state did their voting like Oregon, we'd have much more sane and verifiable elections. Way to go, Colorado.

When I lived in WA state I thought the whole system was wonderful. In advance of the ballot, which I automatically received as part of my registering when I got my license, I got a pamphlet showing each item on the ballot, who/what the issue was from the SofS's understanding, pro-con from the interested parties, etc.

It was great! Voting took my wife and me a few days. We'd read the issue...research it a bit...mull it...then vote. Drop it in the mail. There was even a tracking number on the ballot.

The signature was verified when the ballot was received...electronically. And if there's ever a question of the numbers? Hand count.

Now I'm in Indiana...go stand in the rain. Walk thru a hall with people I've never seen before (and for good reason). Faced with a ballot with stuff on it I had never seen or heard of.

And the argument from the people who like the idea of local precinct voting (BTW, the location changes regularly)...makes them feel patriotic.

TeaParty district. The snooze orgs declare for the republican before the polls open.

</rant>

paper? Mine has pages of explanations about the candidates, never mind what they call "articles" and "news" about the issues.

I'm gerrymandered. I live in Indianapolis. The local paper that has these issues on it comes from a rural (that's spelled with TP) town 40 miles outside the city.

Oh, and that paper turned into an advert flyer for TSC around 40 years ago.

You must live in one o' them librul, sochulist states.

precincts somehow never got counted.

Put in someone else. Problem solved.

Gessler has to be the worst SoS we've ever had since Vikki Buckley.

el paso county.

by the way, welcome to DU

Appreciate the welcome.... living in Denver for 37 years...with a brief break in between for college and job reasons before coming back to my state of birth....

I must confess I don't know the name.. and I hope that's good...

remember hearing about him when you start reading.

All states should be able to do this.

on edit: it looks like I got beat to that joke. In my zeal to get it in, I neglected to read carefully.

As a veteran of the whole Diebold/BBV war, with proper safeguards, I approve and endorse such a move, as it makes sense on SO many levels. Stupid jokes aside, the USPS has a FAR more reliable track record of handling important documents (like ballots) than most other groups in the process.

Universal mail-in ballots can make elections, cheaper, more accurate, better documented far more inclusive than current systems.

Now before people get out the tar, I have caveats:

1) No voter-purges before elections, like 1 YEAR prior to an election.

2) Ballots are delivered to a central counting house which allows independent observers at all times. In fact, web cams watching the facility should be up 24x7.

3) How some one voted may NEVER be recorded.

4) OpScan machines are used for tallying votes, but random audits must be conducted to compare digital counts to manual counts (this is the law in NC). Discrepancies in the count must be resolved/explained. In all cases of discrepancy, unless hard evidence of fraud is presented (for example, counterfeit ballots), paper beats digital (again, the law in NC).

5) All programming code used to tally ballots must be open for inspection by security specialists representing all parties concerned. Actually, I would argue the software should be open source, and posted for public review.

6) Remove political parties from drawing voting districts.

I probably could come up with a few more safeguards if I got the band back together, but that is all I have off the top of my head.

Our participation rates are high. In Oregon the SoS sends out a voter's pamphlet with info on all the candidates and any ballot measures. You can sit down at your computer with the pamphlet and ballot and do any kind of research to help you make an informed decision about placing your vote. If there is some ballot measure or candidate you were unaware of you don't have to stand in the voting booth and guess or not vote on that particular race/measure.

It's a great system and there is a paper trail. I have not heard any instances of significant fraud. I'm sure that, just as with absentee ballots, there must be some fraud going on. But it hasn't been found to be significant.

No lines to wait in. No machines to distribute to sites. No machines that break or malfunction during voting making lines longer and the wait worse.

On Edit: The voter's pamphlet explains the effect of either a yes or no vote on a ballot measure in non-lawyer terms. It uses regular every-day English to explain what happens if the measure passes or fails.

Yes, I do live in a fairly progressive state. Until you get east of the Cascades.

One of the issues that came up was people in apartment buildings would discard the ballots unopened in the recycling bin by the mailboxes. While there was no indication that it actually happened, there was a worry that someone would grab these ballots and fill them out with their own choices to skew the result. I would hate to see any democratic process perverted that way.

Of course, currently that means telling a white lie about not planning to be in town on election day in order to get an absentee ballot, but I love mailing my vote a few days in advance and then smugly reading the reports about long lines at the polling places.

I live in Colorado.
In 3 elections in a row my vote was not tabulated because my signature did not match my signature card. I appreciate that they informed me (months later) and each time I filled out a new signature card.
And then the same thing happened 2 years later. 3 in a row. Finally in 2012 I switched back to in-person voting.
I believe that the % of discarded ballots for mail-in is significantly higher (around 10%) than for in-person voting.
In theory I LOVE the idea of mail-in (or electronic) voting. But they have significant issues.

has been tabulated in CO

Volunteers from both parties stop calling and knocking on your door because they already know - you've voted.

Everyone, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, all seem to be quite happy with voting in Oregon..

Well, except maybe some Republicans. They don't like to make it easy and convenient for poorer working people to be able to vote.

Or they are attempting to.