"Obama will take away right to vote by secret ballot" meme -- WTF???

My grandmother broke her pelvis and wrist on Wednesday, and so she's been in the hospital. There's not much for her to do but watch TV.

When I spoke with her today, I talked about the election -- she knows I was a Hillary supporter originally but that I am now firmly behind Obama, and had previously been very happy about me doing phone banks, etc, to help the campaign. She's been proud of me being a member of the League of Women Voters, etc. She generally keeps silent about her political views, saying that talking about politics is impolite, and never discloses to us who she votes for. (I honestly think she decided not to tell who she has voted for originally because her and my grandfather often differed on politics and she didn't want to get into an argument about it, but what I remember hearing all of my life from her when voting was discussed was "How I vote is my own business, it's secret for a reason".)

She's all up in arms about hearing on TV (not sure if it was a campaign commercial or if she was watching Faux News or something) that "Obama will take away our right to vote by secret ballot". She didn't say exactly what context this was said, and I don't watch TV much (I watch Journal, a German news broadcast that's translated to English, Mosaic: News From The Middle East, and South Park -- that's about it).

So WTF is this BS? Is this about the verified voting initiatives to make sure that there is a paper record of ballots cast, like making sure machines print out a paper receipt that is put aside for recounts or something? If so, how in the hell are they coming up with the idea that it would make ballots not secret? I mean, they're able to keep from putting a person's full account number on an ATM receipt, surely they can make sure that only the votes cast and no identifiable information is on the paper receipt.... And with the Repukes so concerned this year about voter fraud (it's really damn funny actually seeing them suddenly decide that voter fraud is a problem, they didn't care in 2004....) you would think that they would SUPPORT the idea of verified voting.

I guess either they weren't specific or she didn't catch that, but she was pretty agitated.

I was actually kind of worried that it was a sign that either the Demerol they have her on is affecting her mind, or if she was a bit worse off mentally than her doctors believe she is -- they recently did a psych exam and determined she has very mild dementia, but haven't yet been able to tell if it's just the aftereffects of her strokes or if she may be developing Alzheimer's. She's 86 years old, though, and they said for her age and all that she's been through (several moderately severe strokes, epilepsy, and an unknown count of ministrokes, and she had a very bad case of malaria as a child causing fever scarring) that she's reasonably sharp.

She is actually very supportive of unions, she worked in garment and drapery factories under some pretty bad working conditions until people started organizing and making sure they had heat/AC/reasonable breaks, etc.

it's union preference votes (I know that's not the correct term - someone will explain it better than I).

I see it as a way to tell WalMart to stick it and give their employees a chance to vote to have a union if they want one. I might be a bit off base, but that's how I read it.

going to open balloting to establish if a location will go union or not, I'd imagine due to a belief in some funny business going on with counts.

This has nothing to do with citizens voting at all. This is a stunt to protect companies from being unionized and of course to create confusion with people like your mom. Tell her to rest assured that no one wants to open up her voting to the public, though with all the election theft, I'd just assume it be public so people can call them on their lies.

... at the VERY least there should be a paper record, but having a way to trace back to make sure votes were counted properly might not be an entirely bad idea either, if they can use it to fix things like the people tricked into voting for Buchanan.

When I voted in our primary they gave us a choice of the machine or of the optically scanned ballot -- I chose the optical scan one, they saw my tshirt (I work for HP and dress code had been relaxed for the day of voting so I was in jeans and an HP shirt), and said "I'm surprised at you, most of the techies in here choose the machine, it's usually the older folks who want paper."

My response:

"If computers didn't malfunction occasionally I wouldn't have a job."

Since Granny is very much in favor of unions it may make her more likely to support Obama, she didn't say who she is voting for but did indicate that she had watched MTP and that she really respects Powell. (I bit my tongue, I'm glad he did the spot on there but I'm still not all that happy with him, it's going to take a bit more than just an interview to make up for the "mobile laboratories" BS.)

They're hoping to have a spot open for her at the rehabilitation place she's been in before (twice, when she broke her hip and when she broke her ankle) by the end of this week -- she wasn't thrilled to go the first time but admitted that she enjoyed having a beauty shop onsite, and it was so cute when one of the male patients there told her he wanted to marry her. It was adorable to see her blush talking about her gentleman.