daswig

As I'm sure you all know, there has been a move to extend voting to well before the elections, along with a dramatic surge in absentee voting. Does anybody have a problem with this?

Here's my problem: I think that the extended voting and absentee ballot system leads to an increased chance of voter fraud. I'm not being partisan here, but we all know that both the Democrats and Republicans have committed voter fraud in the past. Is it REALLY necessary for us to keep the polls open for over a week? Doesn't this increase the likeliness of shenanigans on both sides? As for absentee ballots, I can see it for people who are overseas, but for people who are in school in another state? Shouldn't they register where they go to school only? Because if they can register "either/or", doesnt that increase the opportunity for fraud?

We now apparently have states that have more registered voters than people living in those states, even if you include children that are not eligible to vote. (I heard in passing while flipping channels that Colorado was such a state, no offense to Coloradoans).

Are we reaching the point that voter fraud is completely undermining our faith in the electoral process? It is for me....

cthulu23

How long has this trend been going on? I have to admit that I don't know much about the arguments for or against it. Can you provide some links to the "more registered voters than people living in those states" information?

Like all things dealing with voting, if it is done "right" than there is no reason to worry. Of course, when you factor in 250 million citizens, "right" becomes a lot more difficult.

JaySpencer

Having them open one day lets it get targetted too. I find it disturbing on some level, but it is legal I believe, as the states have a LOT of latitude in how they do it, as long as it can be shown to be "fair" and "equitable."

daswig

There's no doubt that it's legal, but lots of things that can be abused are legal.

I hope that at some point in the future we don't get to the point that we go the way Afghanistan did, with the indelible ink, but if the trend keeps going the way it appears to be going, it could possibly happen.

BTW, I think the idea of "provisional" ballots is really, really bad.

daswig

Like I said, I just heard it while flipping channels, so I don't have a link. However, some voter registration drives have apparently been paying $2 per card submitted, along with that one story where the busted "volunteer" was paid in crack cocaine by an agent of the NAACP after submitting voter registrations for Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, George Foreman, and other similar names.

cthulu23

Voter registration is a seperate issue than extended voting. While we're on the subject, there was the company in Nevada that was hired by the Republican party to register voters and was found to be throwing out the registration cards of Democrats.

daswig

cthulu, as I said above, it's definitely a two-way street, and neither major party has clean hands. I'd postulate that the minor parties have clean hands simply because they don't have any real opportunity to do it since they have no real power in the first place.

It was NOT NOT NOT my intent to intimate that this was strictly a Democratic problem. I'm absolutely POSITIVE that Republicans are guilty of it too. I just mentioned the NAACP case because....I mean, come on...JESUS!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!

cthulu23

I know, I know, but when you come out with a "crack/NAACP" connection, you're damn right that I'm shooting back with the shredded card story

Mephisto2

Provisional voting sounds like complete nonesense to me.

You should also have to vote where you are resident; that is, your "home" and not where you are currently staying temporarily.

Just my opinion.


Mr Mephisto

daswig

Dude, didn't you laugh at least a little bit when you first heard about the crack/NAACP thing? I mean, come on...it WAS funny in a keystone cops/Pink Panther kind of way....

Hey, Cthulu, didja hear about the Republican voter registration scandal where they were shredding people's cards who wanted to register Democrat? Wasn't that a HOOT?

/hoping for a response of "Dude, didja hear about the crack for votes thing???" from Cthulu

daswig

mephisto, this came up when I was in Law School, because of car registration. I wanted to keep my car registered at my domicile/permanent residence (property taxes were lower there) but the county that I was living in during the school year wanted their pound of flesh.

If you live someplace 9 out of 12 months, I'd say you're a resident, even if you're not permanently domiciled there.

trickyy

i always vote absentee because i don't feel like going to the polls and i get more time to decide. there are some issues that receive no media attention, so i am able to make an informed decision after a bit of independent research.

to get the ballot, i needed to show my ID and fill out a form.

the system could be defrauded, though, as there is the option of someone else picking up your ballot. they would have to forge your signature to do this. to make any real impact, the crook would have to forge/collect many signatures. the election officials may get suspicious if one person picks up numerous ballots.

you can also have it mailed to you, which again requires your signature. then the crook needs an array of addresses for the ballots or it will again look suspicious.

so it's possible if you can someone forge/collect many signatures (of individuals who are certainly not voting on their own) and have a range of mailing addresses at your disposal. this seems pretty difficult to me, but maybe some evil genius has a better idea. then again, i have no idea how closely the election officials monitor irregularities.

i think early voting increases participation through convenience. so far i haven't heard about any absentee fraud, but it is something to keep in mind.

daswig

I think I'd feel a lot better about absentee ballots if the signatures had to be notarized on the ballot itself, and if notaries were not allowed to accompany the voting recruiters, and if "get out the vote" people were prohibited by law from actually touching the ballots at any point.

There are lots of ways to scam stuff through the mails. It gets done a LOT, which is why the US Post Office has it's own police force, the Postal Inspectors. Some ways tried in the past include adding numbers onto the address. For example, if a criminal lives at a single family dwelling on 123 smith street, the criminal would fill out one form "so and so, 123 smith street Apt #1", the next one a different name at "123 Smith Street Apt. #2", et cetera. They'd all get dropped in the same mailbox, and the criminal could get a lot. Multiply that times 50 people doing it per county, and it can make a BIG difference. Of course, it's still criminal and is easy to catch, SO DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

Journeyman

Raised in California and going to university of Hawaii, I asked around and apparently (as in, I dunno for sure) I have to live in Hawaii for a full year without going to school before I can register myself as a resident of Hawaii (ie Hawaiian drivers license and registering to vote in the state of HI).

daswig

journeyman, that's just silly.

cthulu23

Look, I only smoked the crack...I didn't actually register Democrat.

trickyy

(just to clarify my earlier post, i meant that individuals have to option of selecting someone to pick up their ballot for them.)

i agree, the mail aspect can be exploited. a richer operation could even set up a series of PO boxes. hopefully the officials look for these types of patterns..."consistent" voting tied to a common element of the ballots (part of the address, pickup person, etc.) it's a good thing to have built into the software. county elections can be quite close, and then we all remember florida.

and i know that you can register to vote in CA by simply having a CA address (and US citizenship).