Many Reasons To Oppose All Vote-By Mail Absentee Ballot Systems

So here’s a quick summary of the various reasons that Vote-By Mail systems are problematic:

1. Absentee ballots are not “secret ballots.”

2. Absentee ballots are still counted by the same privately owned voting machines that have been in the news, including Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and all the rest.

3. In many cases, like King County, WA, the Post Office no longer controls the incoming mail, instead a private company sorts incoming absentee ballots into precincts before giving them back to county for counting. This breaks down any chain of custody rules that may have been in place, and privatizes another link in the chain.

4. From beginning to end, the whole system of Absentee Ballots is insecure, as ballots are no longer strictly controlled by the County and citizen poll workers in the individual Precincts.

5. The cost of running an all mail voting system can actually be greater than a poll based voting system.

6. The Signature Verification Process is error prone and routinely disenfranchises thousands of voters when it is used. Ballots rejected for having invalid signatures are treated as “Guilty before proven innocent.”

7. Voter Suppression, Vote  Buying, Vote Stuffing become far easier in this system.

8. Accidental double voting can and does happen.

9. Some studies show a short term spike, but long term decline in voter participation, in 100% absentee systems. Claims that Vote-By Mail will increase turnout have no real evidence supporting this assertion.

10. The post office loses mail or just misplaces it for years, the county loses ballots, and people lose their own ballots.

11. The Absentee System greatly alters the Precinct System.

12. Vote-By Mail systems vastly increase the time it takes to count elections.

13. Vote-By Mail systems eliminate “Election Day” and replace it with “Election Month,” thereby greatly increasing the costs campaigns must spend on GOTV (Get-Out the Vote) efforts.

14. Many, many people have gone to jail already for rigging elections using absentees, throughout the country and around the world. This is occurring in the here and now, not some distant past. These are not “isolated incidents.”

15. Vote-By Mail systems alter the time-table of the election cycle. The change to Vote-By Mail means many voters will vote before all the information has been presented by candidates, civic institutions are forced then to either adjust their calendars, or as is currently the case, they don’t change there forum dates, rather fewer voters have a chance to see candidates in person at these forums.

 I’ll keep adding links as I have time.

 

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