OREGON STATISTICS DON'T MAKE SENSE
We hear that Oregon has a stellar vote-by-mail system and high turnout. But nationwide turnout statistics collected by the U.S. Election Assistence Commission (EAC) don't support this. In 2006, Oregon's turnout was squarely in the middle of the pack. Here's the data:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/EAC2006stats.xls.
Out of 2.5 million ballots mailed in the 2006 general election, Oregon reported to the EAC that ZERO ballots returned undeliverable, and Oregon reports that out of 2.5 million ballots, only 54 came in after the deadline.
VOTE BY MAIL DOES NOT IMPROVE TURNOUT
In Washington State when forced vote-by-mail was introduced, turnout dropped.
SHOULD YOU VOTE BY MAIL?
You should vote. If you are forced to vote by mail (Washington, Oregon), just do it. Deciding not to vote is voluntary disenfranchisement; if you might be disenfranchised, at least make it involuntary and then kick and scream about it.
If you are not forced to vote by mail, don't. Vote at the polling place. Allow plenty of time. Assert your right to vote and if you are registered to vote but are told you cannot, assert your right to a provisional ballot and report the problem. Give yourself enough time to wait in line if needed. Voting at the polling place on Election Day has more checks and balances than voting early, so choose the old fashioned route.
MEANINGFUL ACTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS FOR VOTE BY MAIL
I have not yet seen public controls to help with the problem areas of concealing who did vote and chain of custody. As for the fourth essential step, the counting of the vote, here are three good approaches:
1) The New Hampshire Protect the Count project - working on parallel public counting of the votes in all locations with voting machines. Also, New Hampshire does need-only absentee voting and the post office delivers absentee ballots to the polling place for hand counting on Election Night, which lowers risk for vote by mail.
2) The Mitch Trachtenberg system, a public, FREE, open source software which utilizes a publicly purchased non-proprietary document scanner to capture images of every ballot (the ballots are anonymous and cannot be connected to the voter); the public can then examine every ballot and/or run them through the open source software.
3) The Whatcom County method: Citizens can watch as batches of absentee ballots are scanned, and can call out any batch for a prompt hand count authentication.
Note that all of the above methods only help with crucial process #4, authentication of the count, and they do not help at all with #2 (who did vote) or #3 (chain of custody).
We hear that Oregon has a stellar vote-by-mail system and high turnout. But nationwide turnout statistics collected by the U.S. Election Assistence Commission (EAC) don't support this. In 2006, Oregon's turnout was squarely in the middle of the pack. Here's the data:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/EAC2006stats.xls.
Out of 2.5 million ballots mailed in the 2006 general election, Oregon reported to the EAC that ZERO ballots returned undeliverable, and Oregon reports that out of 2.5 million ballots, only 54 came in after the deadline.
VOTE BY MAIL DOES NOT IMPROVE TURNOUT
SHOULD YOU VOTE BY MAIL?
You should vote. If you are forced to vote by mail (Washington, Oregon), just do it. Deciding not to vote is voluntary disenfranchisement; if you might be disenfranchised, at least make it involuntary and then kick and scream about it.
If you are not forced to vote by mail, don't. Vote at the polling place. Allow plenty of time. Assert your right to vote and if you are registered to vote but are told you cannot, assert your right to a provisional ballot and report the problem. Give yourself enough time to wait in line if needed. Voting at the polling place on Election Day has more checks and balances than voting early, so choose the old fashioned route.
MEANINGFUL ACTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS FOR VOTE BY MAIL
I have not yet seen public controls to help with the problem areas of concealing who did vote and chain of custody. As for the fourth essential step, the counting of the vote, here are three good approaches:
1) The New Hampshire Protect the Count project - working on parallel public counting of the votes in all locations with voting machines. Also, New Hampshire does need-only absentee voting and the post office delivers absentee ballots to the polling place for hand counting on Election Night, which lowers risk for vote by mail.
2) The Mitch Trachtenberg system, a public, FREE, open source software which utilizes a publicly purchased non-proprietary document scanner to capture images of every ballot (the ballots are anonymous and cannot be connected to the voter); the public can then examine every ballot and/or run them through the open source software.
3) The Whatcom County method: Citizens can watch as batches of absentee ballots are scanned, and can call out any batch for a prompt hand count authentication.
Note that all of the above methods only help with crucial process #4, authentication of the count, and they do not help at all with #2 (who did vote) or #3 (chain of custody).
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