Montana, Ready or Not, Voting-By Mail

This editorial claims Montana is ready to vote entirely by mail, well only if they want more of this, I guess:

https://novbm.wordpress.com/2006/11/16/many-races-around-the-country-still-too-close-to-call/

In the State of Montana, a local race with just under 4000 votes ended in a tie today. 10 days after the election was held.

Vote by mail and it can take 2 weeks to count 4000 votes.

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An Interesting Voting Integrity Editorial

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0805/S00179.htm

Vote by Mail systems use proprietary voting machines

Vote-by mail proponents continually site the idea that vote-by mail systems cure the “Touchscreen problem.” Well that’s just a blatant falsehood. Vote-by mail systems typically use optical scan machines that utilize the very same software base from companies like Diebold, Sequioa, ES & S. The Diebold Optical Scanners that were famously hacked for the HBO Documentary, “Hacking Democracy” are the same used in many Vote-By Mail systems.

Anyway, if you want to read a truly confused editorial, try this… it summarizes the very falsehoods that almost every Vote-By Mail proponent utilizes to peddle liberalized absentee voting.

89 Articles About Why Voting By Mail is a Very Bad Idea

Are you wondering why voting by mail or absentee is a bad idea? Are you looking for information about the problems encountered by all absentee voting systems? Well then, welcome to The No Vote By Mail Project’s Website. There’s hundreds of articles now in the archives, so I thought I’d put together a giant list of the best articles I’ve written so far about voting by mail and the problems I’ve found. It might take a few days to put together, but here’s what I have so far:

1.  What’s Wrong With Voting by Mail or Absentee Ballot
2. The Death of the Polling Place
3. Absentee Ballot Fraud Hits Texas, Grannyfarming a longterm problem
4. Milwaukee Police Find Numerous Cases of Absentee Vote Fraud
5. Vladimir Putin Prefers Voting By Mail
6. Don’t Forget to Sign Your Ballot
7. Absentee voting on the rise, who’s pushing this agenda?
8. Vote-By Mail disenfranchises 1/3rd of Kitsap County Primary Voters
9. New Jersey Voters Vote Again?
10. MIT Study says “Abolish on-demand absentee voting”
11. Vote-By Mail and Electronic Poll Books
12. More Vote By Mail Problems in California
13. Oklahoma State Auditor and wife charged with Mail Fraud
14. California’s televised primary debates miss many voters
15. California Primary Slowed By Vote-By Mail, Absentee Ballot Count
16. Another Case of Vote-By Mail Fraud
17. Democrats say,”An easier way to vote fraudulently is by mail”
18. How VBM is Screwing Up California’s Primary
19. Postmasters Lobby for Vote-By Mail
20. Absentee Ballot Fraud Alleged in Putin’s Election
21. Just where or where has my mail ballot gone?
22. Colorado Voter Group Opposes Vote-By Mail Switch
23. 4204 Passing, King County Gets the Blame
24. Absentees and Optical Scans, a Combination that Doesn’t Work
25. Day 6 of vote counting in King County
26. Poll Votes much faster to count then Absentee Ballots
27. Did you already vote by mail? Well it’s too late to change your mind now…
28. More Absentee Ballot Fraud
29. Expanding and Improving Opportunities to Commit Vote By Mail Fraud
30. Vote by Mail Fraud, You Don’t Say
31. Absentee Ballot Problems in Akron, Ohio
32. More research shows vote by mail systems do NOT increase turnout
33. King County Executive, Ron Sims, Contracts to Buy Ballot Tracking Vaporware
34. Hanky Panky In Union Vote-By Mail Scheme
35. The Election is in the Mail… Day 14
36. Some Democrats Reject Forced Vote-By Mail
37. Vote by mail increases turnout?
38. My mail from June 13, 2006
39. Vote Buying (You don’t say)
40. Voter turnout – higher or lower or the same?
41. VBM turns out about 1/3rd of Washington Voter’s
42. King County Adds 27,114 Votes in 3rd Day of Counting
43. 4th Day of Vote Counting brought to you by Vote-by Mail
44. 1 Week Later… Votes still coming in to King County Elections
45. 798 More Ballots Arrive One Week After the Election…
46. US Postal Service Unions Pushing Vote-By Mail
47. King County wraps up seventh day of vote counting
48. Diebold Dazzles (King County) Democrats
49. Colorado Editorial: Ripe for Fraud
50. Montana’s Secret Ballot Increasingly Endangered Species
51. Postmaster General Adresses National Association of Secretaries of State
52. Let’s all vote by mail, just like…Texas
53. Hand Counted Paper Ballots for 2008?
54. Barack Obama Targets Vote Banking through Vote By Mail in California
55. Pierce County Sacrifices Polling Places for Forced Vote By Mail Absentee Voting
56. Granny Farming of Absentee Ballots in NJ
57. More on Kentucky Absentee Ballot Fraud
58. Take the Last Train to Clarksville, and Don’t forget to Vote
59. More Absentee Votes Might Not Count Due to County Errors
60. King County’s Wreckless Plan to Switch To Vote-By Mail
61. Harvard’s Ben Adida on Vote By Mail and the Secret Ballot
62. Saving Money At The Price Of Democracy
63. Vote-By Mail Lobbyist Targets Colorado
64. King County, WA, 13 Days of Vote Counting, Seattle Special Election, 2007
65. Why Mail Ballots Are a Bad Idea
66. New Report on Vote By Mail, VBM Does Not Really Increase Turnout
67. George Galloway Blasts UK’s Postal Voting System
68. Oregon and Other States Mail Service Outsourced?
69. Vote Buying, Bath County, KY
70. New Group to Push VBM Nationally
71. Taiwanese Mull Absentee Voting, and China’s Potential Influence On Voters
72. The “Myth” of Vote Fraud
73. The Death of the Polling Place, Island County, WA
74. “Granny Farming” Allegations in Michigan, Virginia, and California moves towards VBM
75. Vote By Mail a Growing National Attack on Democracy
76. More Postal Vote Fraud in the UK
77. Vote Buying in Kentucky
78. When a Secret Ballot Isn’t Really A Secret Ballot
79. Prosecuting Honest Voters Does Not Restore My Confidence In Forced Mail Voting
80. Vote By Mail, Not Cheaper, No Suprise
81. Absentee Ballot Fraud Allegations and other News, 1/24/2007
82. California Declares Mail Ballot Only Precincts 
83. NJ Absentee Ballot Stuffing
84. Oregon We Have a Problem
85. The Ongoing Drama of Absentee Voting Problems
86. Mayor Uses Absentee Ballots to Rig Election, Dateline Nov. 30th, 2006
87. One Month After the Election… Votes Still Being Counted
88. Vote By Mail-A Great Example of Voting Badly
89. More Electoral Fraud By Mail – Dec. 12, 2006

On the Road to Montana, then I’ll be back next week, so here’s some lite reading

Here’s your assignment, while I’m on a vacation for the next week 😉 

I should try to meet the guy that interviewed me for radio over in Idaho while I’m passing through. Somewhere in this blog I’ll find his name. That’s what this blog is… it’s a useful index card system of info and failures I’ve found so far with forced mail voting systems. Which, coincidentally, is a system that will be coming to a state near you  soon.

If you like the new look of the website, check-out the calendar on the right…. it’s interesting to see how many posts I’ve made on this subject so far. The calendar links you to all my posts by the day I wrote them. It also makes me feel sorta lazy some times. What I only published one rant on Vote-by Mail this week? Gosh, someone might have read my blog lately and thought, jesus this guy isn’t serious about disliking voting by mail, he hasn’t posted a new rant on absentee voting in like 10 whole days now.

Actually, this blog started when I began writing a book on vote-by mail. But somewhere along the way the blog became more important to me than the book.  It’s easier to share. And if you use the search function, or the calendar, or the archive links in the left column of the site, you’ll find that this blog is growing deeper day by day, data point by date point. But, if you want to publish my writing as a book I’d be more than happy to talk!

So thanks for reading. Set a bookmark for The No Vote By Mail Project’s blogsite… http://www.novbm.com. And I’ll be back next week to continue my ongoing monologue about Democracy in the age of Convenience and Technology.

While in the spirit of being on vacation for a week, here’s an another article worth linking to again, put it on your reading list for this week. There will be a quiz when I return.

Another Election Expert Questions Florida Do-over by Mail

Over on Alternet, Dan Tokaji, of Ohio’s Moritz College of Law, issued a pretty good essay on Florida’s possible “do-over” primary election. I’ve followed Mr. Tokaji’s writing and blog somewhat regularly, and believe there’s a link over in the right-side column to Moritz College of Law, but it’s always refreshing to know that the experts agree, Vote-By Mail is not trusted by the experts. But Dan says it better than I…

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/79544/?page=2

Even if one believes that all-mail voting works well in a smaller and relatively homogeneous state like Oregon, there’s reason to be very cautious about exporting it to larger, more heterogeneous states. These concerns are especially acute in states such as Florida and Michigan, parts of which are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That means that any change to their election rules — including an all-mail primary election — would have to be precleared by the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. If the use of all-mail voting would have a retrogressive effect, making racial minorities worse off than they were before, then the change couldn’t be made.

There’s a reasonable argument that preclearance should be denied, on the ground that an all-mail election will have a negative impact on the participation of minority voters. But even if preclearance is granted, mail voting could still have a disproportionate impact on participation by some groups of voters. And that, of course, would cloud the legitimacy of Florida’s election — and perhaps the selection of our next President. As Yogi Berra (or John Fogerty) might put it, it’s like deja vu all over again. If there’s going to be a re-vote in Florida, it should be conducted at precincts rather than by mail.

Of course the rest of the article is great too, and he outlines 5 major reasons to oppose a Vote-By Mail re-do in Florida, so please read the whole essay when you have a chance. He concludes, it seems, just like I, that the right place to vote is at the precinct level.

Another Great Editorial on Vote-By Mail

Why is it that most the op-ed pieces of substance are opposed to Vote-By Mail? Maybe it is because Vote-By Mail is a very bad idea…

Eight million Californians are expected to vote in Tuesday’s election, the largest turnout for a presidential primary in the state’s history. But even if that total is accurate, it would be grossly incorrect to claim that 8 million voters actually went to the polls. Half mailed in their ballots, some nearly a month ago. And that’s the problem.

How many Republicans voted by mail for Rudy Giuliani? How many Democrats wasted their votes on John Edwards? Those ballots for the now-noncandidates could have determined the outcome of this election. But Edwards and Giuliani supporters can’t recast their votes.

This is only the most glaring example of the fallacy of early voting. The whole system stinks.[Read the whole editorial]
http://tracypress.com/content/view/13396/2244/

Bradblog covers Vote-By Mail problems in California

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5588

Nothing says secret ballot like, um, the lack of a secret ballot. There’s a cute little video that shows just what a great job Riverside County, California is doing at, well, screwing their own voters.

New Hampshire Primary Has Questionable Results

This image taken from:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71211.jpg

Blackboxvoting.org, and the Bradblog.com, both are following the New Hampshire Primary, and while I don’t usually cover issues not directly involving Vote-By Mail issues, well I got started down this path by meeting Bev Harris and Andy Stephenson at the old Independent Media Center in Seattle. So I’m posting it anyway.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71200.html?1199903981

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530

Anyway, take a look for yourself, I’m pretty sure the mainstream media isn’t going to touch this one.

The Death of the Polling Place

I took my girlfriend to vote today. The polling place was almost empty. Then I went to vote in another precinct. It too was almost empty. When I put my ballot into the machine, a Diebold Accuvote, the register counted only 118 votes by noon.

Of course many voters are choosing the convenience of voting by mail. It’s easier. It’s convenient. Who cares if it’s secure or accurate? Americans are more than willing to sacrifice Democracy on the altar of convenience. Heck, half the country doesn’t even vote anyway… so the death of the polling place and the end of the secret ballot is the all-too-predictable result. But it is sad to watch. The old folks that typically staff the polling sites are still there, the voters have simply disappeared. And soon the poll sites will disappear as well.

In King County, WA, the county executive Ron Sims has been pushing hard to move the entire region to Vote By Mail (VBM), or forced absentee voting. Our Secretary of State, Sam Reed, is also a staunch supporter of Vote By Mail systems. And the King County Council this spring voted 5 Democrats to 4 Republicans to close most of the polling places in the county. King County, one of very largest counties in the country, is a bell weather for what is to come. All around the country “no-excuse” absentee ballot use is on the rise, as those we elected to safeguard democracy are slowly and steadily dismanteling the traditional safeguards instead.

2006 is sure to be a watershed year for vote by mail problems around the country. Why just across the water from the City of Shoreline where I sit writing, the Eastside’s Congressional Race, Burner versus Reichert, is tied 49% to 49% going to the polls. So we may get a first hand example of just how long elections will drag out when absentee ballot use is high, and the race is too close to call. It wouldn’t be the first time King County’s Election Department  caught national attention. It probably will not be the last.

But the real scope of the problem forced vote by mail systems present didn’t quite strick me until today. I was standing around waiting for my girlfriend to finish voting when I saw King County’s official list of poll sites. The list is the size of a standard rock concert poster with a tiny type font listing a thousand or more poll sites. Browsing that list helped me understand the size and extent of the civic institution called the polling place. It’s a big part of our Democracy with tens of thousands of dedicated volunteers. But if the Ron Sims and Sam Reeds of the world have their way, next year those old people won’t have but one or two polling sites to staff, and in a few short years, the system by which we count votes in this country will have passed away.

Standing there today it was sad to watch, this death of the polling place. From touchscreen voting machines to vote by mail schemes, I can hear the death rattle in the lungs of Democracy. The fight now is is more like CPR, it’s too late for excercise and good diet.