And editorial in today’s Seattle Times endorses the inevitable: moving to all mail-in voting. Mail-in ballots are unquestionably popular with voters, accounting for about 70 percent of ballots cast statewide in last November’s election, and one by one, counties are eliminating polling places in an effort to save money and streamline the process.
The mushrooming popularity of absentee voting has made elections a cumbersome, two-tier process. It only makes sense to embrace the method endorsed by voters.
It might make sense, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the editorial prompted a pissy response from our friends at (un)Sound Politics, who seem to view any effort to increase voter convenience and participation as a threat to democracy. Truth is, I’m not a huge fan of mail-in voting myself; I love going to the polls, and I’m not entirely comfortable with the electoral implications of extending voting day over a period of several weeks. I also share some legitimate concerns over the integrity of mail-in ballots. But despite my misgivings, a move to an all mail-in election would have some huge advantages, not the least of which being the elimination of electronic voting machines, and the opportunity for massive, untraceable fraud that they represent.
Regardless of the pros and cons, the move is inevitable; once WA extended mail-in voting to all comers, there was no turning back, and voters are quickly making polling places obsolete. WA will eventually follow Oregon and become an all mail-in state, so rather than whine about change I don’t like, I’ll just have to accept the “will of the people” and focus on making mail-in voting as secure, accurate and accessible as possible. I’d suggest critics of mail-in voting from the other side of the ideological spectrum do the same.
UPDATE:
Surprise! Yet another prediction comes true: Stefan posts a pissy response to the Times!
Today’s Seattle Times editorial endorsing all-mail balloting is so intellectually dishonest and detached from reality it makes me wonder who these people are that write this nonsense and why the Seattle Times keeps them on the payroll…
He tries to make some kind of point or another about King County’s problems reconciling absentee ballots, but in so doing, purposefully avoids the Times main argument: we have a “cumbersome, two-tier process” that needs to be streamlined. By eliminating the labor intensive polling places, the counties can focus their resources on mail-in ballots.
Goldy: “opportunity for massive, untraceable fraud that they represent”
You mean the mail-in ballots, right?
“making mail-in voting as secure, accurate and accessible as possible”
I may be remembering wrong, but don’t mail-in ballots require a postage stamp? If the envelopes aren’t switched to postage-paid, I could see someone arguing that it is a 37 cent (or higher if they screw up the envelopes) poll tax. Or is some Far Left group going to set up “assistance stations” for the homeless, mentally ill, etc. where the Lefties will “help them vote” and pay the postage on their behalf?
Voting isn’t supposed to be comvenient you dope – that’s the whole point. It is not only a right but a responsibility. It should be a serious deliberate EFFORT undertaken by those willing to put forth that effort.
Fastfood elections we don’t need.
Mark @1,
Let’s be clear about this for the last time. Absentee ballots leave a paper trail. If Rossi’s lawyers really believed that absentee ballots were stuffed in King County, they could have recounted the envelopes. They didn’t.
And personally, I wouldn’t mind testing to see if making absentee envelopes postage paid might significantly increase turnout.
Goldy; this is built for voting fraud. Think of all the old folks who can vote beyond death? Dogs that can register, ballots that can be stolen and then voted…
Laughing out loud at the attempt to say this is pro-people. Tell you what, give us back the initiative process (state supreme case yesterday trashed us) and I’ll swap you vote by mail.
Just another bit of the foundation of our democracy being eroded. But afer all, when it comes to election fraud, the Democrats are the experts at committing it as exemplified by the CONVICTION (note for the libs: That means they were indicted, tried and then sentenced ) of the official Democrat party of St Louis:
“All five defendants in the vote fraud trial in East St. Louis were convicted by a jury today after five and a half hours of deliberations.
The defendants showed little response when the verdicts were displayed on an overhead projector in federal court. Defendant Sheila Thomas dabbed her eyes, but the other four stared straight ahead.
Charles Powell Jr., the head of the city’s Democratic Party, three precinct committeemen and an election worker had been accused of buying votes to get prominent Democrats elected in the Nov. 2 election.
Also convicted were Democratic precinct committee members Thomas, 31, and Jesse Lewis, 56, and City Hall worker Yvette Johnson, 46. Kelvin Ellis, the city’s former director of regulatory affairs, along with Thomas, Lewis and Johnson also were convicted of one count apiece of election fraud for allegedly paying at least one person to vote — or offering to do so. Powell was never charged with that count.”
for the rest of the story:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltod.....enDocument
righton et al…
You righties of all people should accept the fact that the popularity of the mail-in voting is an example of the market at work. Voters have the option of one or the other, and while “elitists” like me choose the polls, 86 percent of Kitsap county voters chose mail-in ballots. This is clearly what the people want…. the market has spoken.
Goldy – As long as we can still vote provisional at the local county office we can still avoid those pesky ID requirements. We now know that my “extra” ballots will be counted even if illegal.
Vote by Mail does not mean that voters won’t be able to drop off their ballot on election day. It just gives the voter plenty of time to view the ballot and determine their vote beforehand. Those who are pressed for time on election day, will be able to find time to drop off a finished ballot. And anyone can still go wherever ballots will be dropped off, (library, post office, schools), on vote day and get that old fashioned civic duty feeling.
Getting rid of computerized vote machines, nationwide, is critically important. They can never be trustworthy, whether they produce a paper trail or not. It’s not surprising that republicans want to keep computerized voting.
Goldy @ 3
You didn’t address my “poll tax” or “voter assistance” points. How can requiring postage NOT be viewed as a poll tax?
Are you saying you can’t even imagine a sceario with the wacko wings of either party pulling stunts like offering to help the homeless vote (the “right way”) and paying for their postage (+ all the free coffee and doughnuts you can consume)?
Goldy@6,
You righties of all people should accept the fact that the popularity of the mail-in voting is an example of the market at work. Voters have the option of one or the other, and while “elitists” like me choose the polls, 86 percent of Kitsap county voters chose mail-in ballots. This is clearly what the people want…. the market has spoken.
I don’t know who they asked in Kitsap. I live there and was never asked my preference.
Goldy, I will support “Vote By Mail’ if you commie libs support capital punishment for voter fraud. Interested? [hehe] JCH
pbj @10,
Yes, you were asked: did you vote at the polls or by mail? 86% of Kitsap voters stated a clear preference for vote-by-mail, by voting by mail.
The market chooses mail-in over polling places by a huge market. The market will win. What is so hard to understand here?
Goldy,
Too bad “market forces” aren’t at work on Link Light Rail North. Since you’re all into wanting apologies (Rossi, Jeb Bush, etc.), maybe you’ll call for a “sorry we pissed away your money” apology from Sound Transit? You want to know why people oppose the gas tax? Look at that, the grandiose plans for the Viaduct replacement and the history of misbudgeted road projects here and elsewhere. Can you say “Big Dig?” See: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/.....-ussc.html
“You righties of all people should accept the fact that the popularity of the mail-in voting is an example of the market at work. Voters have the option of one or the other, and while “elitists” like me choose the polls, 86 percent of Kitsap county voters chose mail-in ballots. This is clearly what the people want…. the market has spoken.”
But lefties often say that what the majority wants isn’t always “right” (no pun intended). Couldn’t this be one of those cases? I also choose to go to the polling place, primarily because I don’t trust the USPS to deliver my ballot.
The thing I like most about mail balloting is you have paper ballots and no touch screen voting machines, so our elections will be decided by voters instead of Sequoia Voting Systems or Diebold.
Since Goldy and others seem to be afraid to touch the poll tax question, I called the SoS office myself. They said that if a county goes all-mail, they will accept ballots by hand at the auditor’s office and “at least one other location in the county.”
I also asked how people with no address will get their ballots and was told that those people will have to pick up ballots at the place they were registered. In other words, someone at KingCo Admin (and any other public building) will have to play Postmaster for all of the people registered there. Will the homeless have to show ID to get their mail? Is it a federal offense to give someone another person’s mail?
Not everyone agrees that mail in is cheaper.
From Tacoma New Tribune, “But according to an analysis by Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy’s office, it would have cost an additional $263,000 to administer the 2004 general election if had been conducted entirely by mail.
The savings from closing polling places are more than offset by the increased cost of printing, mailing and sorting more absentee ballots, said McCarthy, a member of the task force who runs local elections and opposed the change.”
Voting is not a business. It is a function of government and thus not just a market enterprise. If voters understood that people make many more mistakes in ballot counting than most any of the mechanical/electronic methods and that it costs so much more, maybe if given a chance to chose, they might not go with mail in. I do know that bottom line for me is that mail in is much more succeptible to fraud. I think motor voter mentality goes with mail in. Bottom line for motor voter is better chance to get illegal votes with a propensity to vote democrat…
Roger @ 15: “so our elections will be decided by voters instead of Sequoia Voting Systems or Diebold”
It would be REALLY great if our elections were decided by voters instead of incompetent gov’t. drones, questionable elections officials and canvassing boards.
APB on Roger Rabbit,
Has anyone seen Roger Rabbit? I have a question for him.
Roger –
Please provide proof that anyone here ever accused Wilson of being a pedophile or child molester (the accusation you made in the “Rove Confirmed Plame Was CIA” thread @22). It should be quit easy to go back and copy the posts.
I am STILL waiting…
love voting by mail, the fraud not so much…….
Will Dean Logan still count the mail ballots? If so, I prefer to let Diebold do it…
All you on the right! You need to accept that fraud is part of the norm when running against democrats. There is no way around it. We just have to do a better job of overcoming it.
Comment on 23
I agree. We accept the fact that fraud is the norm when Republicans run against Democrats. That’s the only way Republicans can get “elected” because the voters sure as hell don’t want you guys.
Yet more insightful, rational and sane conspiracy theory from Roger. Time to increase yet once again your lithium, haldol and thorazine becuase the more you post, the more you reveal your serious mental illness! You have become nothing more than completely IRRELEVANT! Just like most democrats out in the land of the left.
23
Hey Roger… Dead people do not count as voters.
RR @ 23
“I agree. We accept the fact that fraud is the norm when Republicans run against Democrats. That’s the only way Republicans can get “elected” because the voters sure as hell don’t want you guys.” (my emphasis)
Wow! So the Republican majority in the House, the Senate, and a majority of governorships was all due to fraud? That seems to be the only way that this situation could have occurred based upon your statement. Do you really believe this to be true? Or are you just being hyperbolic?