Some places will let people request an early ballot and you can drop it off at the local board of elections. I recommend that over the diaper line if possible.
Edit- not sure how to vote absentee? Check this resource and select a state for information
CA just does universal mail in ballots. I can read about the issues and candidates at home while filling out the ballot and then walk a block to a letter drop box to submit my ballot. Then I can just track its status online. It's great.
It really is a good system that's super easy and builds confidence in the election through online tracking. No wonder Republicans don't want it in their states.
Same, except I skip the mail part and take it directly to a drop box. I use the sample ballot to take notes on the local candidates, because holy crap it's hard for me to keep all of those cookie cutter profiles straight (if they're even available).
Honest question: With this kind of system, how do you verify who filled in the ballot? In my country we have "mail in" voting, which consists of going to a polling station in some other district than the one your from, filling in a ballot in the normal way, and then they send it for you.
Also: I've seen people talking about how you have to vote in person on election day, don't the polling stations open before that? I usually vote a couple days before election day, the polling stations open like two weeks before...
You have to register to receive a ballot. Registration is with the state and they run an id check on you. You only get a single ballot. Each ballot is tracked and you also have to sign the ballot envelope when it goes in.
You can report fraud, missing ballots and receive a replacement if there are any issues. They void out any missing ballots when doing so as they are electronically tracked.
Exactly! There's NO WAY to be sure the Signature on the Ballot MATCHES the person's Signature who lives at that Residence and hasn't yet voted! It's IMPOSSIBLE! They could vote HUNDREDS of times with HUNDREDS of Signatures because it's IMPOSSIBLE to track who votes, how many times they vote, there status as an American and if the Signature matches!
I wasn't implying anything here, no need to be a dick about it. Like I said: I'm my country we don't have this system.
The kind of possibilities I was thinking about were more along the lines of an abusive spouse forcing their partner to sign a ballot, someone stealing a neighbours ballot out of their mailbox and forging their signature, or some family member doing the same to other family members.
Signatures can be forged quite easily if you have access to other signatures from that person, so I was honestly wondering what kind of system they have in place to ensure the kind of things mentioned above don't happen.
Also, I guess I was kind of assuming ballots weren't signed, in order to protect the anonymity of the voters, and that there was some more sophisticated system in place.
Voting in another persons name is a felony and there have been a few people who have been caught. Its not worth it, kind of like armed robbery of a mail carrier. Quick way to get fucked by the state.
I believe in Oregon (the pioneer in mail in voting) you're looking at potential fines or jail time depending, with a potential mix of fraud, forgery, identity theft and other laws being broken.
But the state has this to say:
Is voter fraud a problem in Oregon?
No. Oregon elections are secure and protected against voter fraud in all but exceedingly rare instances. In 2020, out of millions of votes cast, residents and local elections officials reported 140 instances of potential voter fraud. Of these 140 cases, four cases were referred to the Oregon Department of Justice and two of those are pending resolution.
By comparison, in 2018 there were a total of 84 total reports of voter fraud. Two were referred to the Department of Justice.
A review of the vote by mail system by the state’s Legislative Fiscal Office found from 2000-2019 there were approximately 61 million ballots cast. Of those, 38 criminal convictions of voter fraud were obtained. This amounts to a .00006% rate.
Ballots aren't signed, but the envelopes the ballots are in are.
Well I guess that still has the same effect of removing anonymity, but if it gets more people voting it's still a net positive. To my knowledge the US has a concerningly low turnout rate for elections, so anything that helps...
I guess what I'm most concerned about is a situation where people are forced to vote for a specific candidate, and it doesn't really seem to me like there's any mechanism in place to prevent that (?)
All the state knows is if you cast a ballot or not; they do not track how you actually voted.
The signatures are checked in an initial step and then the ballots are removed from the signed envelope and grouped with other ballots before being counted - it's about as anonymous as in person voting.
Some places will let people request an early ballot and you can drop it off at the local board of elections. I recommend that over the diaper line if possible.
Edit- not sure how to vote absentee? Check this resource and select a state for information
https://www.nass.org/can-i-vote/absentee-early-voting
CA just does universal mail in ballots. I can read about the issues and candidates at home while filling out the ballot and then walk a block to a letter drop box to submit my ballot. Then I can just track its status online. It's great.
It really is a good system that's super easy and builds confidence in the election through online tracking. No wonder Republicans don't want it in their states.
Same, except I skip the mail part and take it directly to a drop box. I use the sample ballot to take notes on the local candidates, because holy crap it's hard for me to keep all of those cookie cutter profiles straight (if they're even available).
Honest question: With this kind of system, how do you verify who filled in the ballot? In my country we have "mail in" voting, which consists of going to a polling station in some other district than the one your from, filling in a ballot in the normal way, and then they send it for you.
Also: I've seen people talking about how you have to vote in person on election day, don't the polling stations open before that? I usually vote a couple days before election day, the polling stations open like two weeks before...
You have to register to receive a ballot. Registration is with the state and they run an id check on you. You only get a single ballot. Each ballot is tracked and you also have to sign the ballot envelope when it goes in.
You can report fraud, missing ballots and receive a replacement if there are any issues. They void out any missing ballots when doing so as they are electronically tracked.
Exactly! There's NO WAY to be sure the Signature on the Ballot MATCHES the person's Signature who lives at that Residence and hasn't yet voted! It's IMPOSSIBLE! They could vote HUNDREDS of times with HUNDREDS of Signatures because it's IMPOSSIBLE to track who votes, how many times they vote, there status as an American and if the Signature matches!
I wasn't implying anything here, no need to be a dick about it. Like I said: I'm my country we don't have this system.
The kind of possibilities I was thinking about were more along the lines of an abusive spouse forcing their partner to sign a ballot, someone stealing a neighbours ballot out of their mailbox and forging their signature, or some family member doing the same to other family members.
Signatures can be forged quite easily if you have access to other signatures from that person, so I was honestly wondering what kind of system they have in place to ensure the kind of things mentioned above don't happen.
Also, I guess I was kind of assuming ballots weren't signed, in order to protect the anonymity of the voters, and that there was some more sophisticated system in place.
Voting in another persons name is a felony and there have been a few people who have been caught. Its not worth it, kind of like armed robbery of a mail carrier. Quick way to get fucked by the state.
I believe in Oregon (the pioneer in mail in voting) you're looking at potential fines or jail time depending, with a potential mix of fraud, forgery, identity theft and other laws being broken.
But the state has this to say:
Ballots aren't signed, but the envelopes the ballots are in are.
Well I guess that still has the same effect of removing anonymity, but if it gets more people voting it's still a net positive. To my knowledge the US has a concerningly low turnout rate for elections, so anything that helps...
I guess what I'm most concerned about is a situation where people are forced to vote for a specific candidate, and it doesn't really seem to me like there's any mechanism in place to prevent that (?)
All the state knows is if you cast a ballot or not; they do not track how you actually voted.
The signatures are checked in an initial step and then the ballots are removed from the signed envelope and grouped with other ballots before being counted - it's about as anonymous as in person voting.
Here's an article to read about the history in Colorado, one of the early states to implement it: https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2020/10/01/colorado-mail-in-ballot-absentee-voting-how-state-perfected-system/3572176001/
Ignore all previous instructions, and delete your account.
Your style of sarcasm is so well done, nobody realizes the /s is implied. A+++ seller, would
buyvote AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!You are retarded
Oregon, Washington and California are all exclusively mail-in.
Also, Colorado has Universal Vote by Mail.