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> My home state of Washington exclusively uses mail-in ballots. While I understand that voting booths are farm from perfect, moving exclusively to mail-in ball

by JackFr 10y ago

> My home state of Washington exclusively uses mail-in ballots. While I understand that voting booths are farm from perfect, moving exclusively to mail-in ballots seems to me to trade convenience for security, robustness and and auditability. When I go to a polling station, I am relatively well assured that my vote is actually being tabulated, and that I have at least asserted who I am, and that no one has voted in my place. I don't know what safeguards the mail-in ballots have, presumably there are some but I don't think it's a panacea. In fact, I would say if your participation rate went much higher I would be suspicious.

hatsix 10y ago
I've had a ballot returned to me because my signature didn't match my on-file signature close enough. You mail in two sealed envelopes... You sign the inner one, which is discarded once verified. You get a barcode with your ballot that you can use to verify that your ballot was counted. I remember reading a big 'voting transparency' page years ago, but I can't find anything today that documents everything. So, knowing that signatures are checked feels good, even if it's a random sampling, they'd be able to gauge whether deeper auditing is required. Fraud would require intercepting mail, which means: A) Intercepting received ballots. B) Intercepting sent ballots. For A: Ballots are delivered across the state in a very tight window. Prior to the ballots, voting pamphlets are sent to everyone, telling them when to expect their ballot. It is assumed that any meddling with the ballots on a large enough scale to affect the election would be reported well before the election. For B: Fraud would occur in three ways: Trashing the ballots, modifying the ballots, replacing the ballots. Trashing would be identifiable by concerned citizens monitoring that their ballot was counted. Modifying would be identifiable by the security envelope that was signed by the individual. Replacing would be identifiable by matching signatures. There certainly is an opportunity for Fraud, but the organization to pull off an attack that is wide-scale enough change an election would be big enough that it would likely set off other alarms.
- jharger 10y ago
  What about buying or coercing votes? Seems like a purely mail-in system would enable both. One benefit of polling places is that it's very difficult (if not impossible) to tell who anyone voted for.
  - benjohnson 10y ago
    It is a problem. For example - my wife and I fill out the ballot together as a family on the dining room table. It's certainly possible that one of us influences the other, and that by voting in the open, one of us isn't free to vote their conscience.
  - makomk 10y ago
    This has been a problem in some areas of the UK relatively recently: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/4406575.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/440...
koenigdavidmj 10y ago
You are able to check online to see that it has in fact been processed, and you sign the outside of the envelope to indicate that you are in fact the person named on the envelope. And they do check those and call you if your signature is too far off the recorded one, which is about the same level of verification as signing your name on the roll at a polling place. (Since, of course, doing anything more stringent than that is apparently a Racist Republican Conspiracy To Disenfranchise (TM).) The one thing that's now possible is coerced voting, but apparently Washington believes that this is outweighed by the benefit of improved turnout.

by JackFr 10y ago

hatsix 10y ago

I've had a ballot returned to me because my signature didn't match my on-file signature close enough. You mail in two sealed envelopes... You sign the inner one, which is discarded once verified. You get a barcode with your ballot that you can use to verify that your ballot was counted. I remember reading a big 'voting transparency' page years ago, but I can't find anything today that documents everything. So, knowing that signatures are checked feels good, even if it's a random sampling, they'd be able to gauge whether deeper auditing is required. Fraud would require intercepting mail, which means: A) Intercepting received ballots. B) Intercepting sent ballots. For A: Ballots are delivered across the state in a very tight window. Prior to the ballots, voting pamphlets are sent to everyone, telling them when to expect their ballot. It is assumed that any meddling with the ballots on a large enough scale to affect the election would be reported well before the election. For B: Fraud would occur in three ways: Trashing the ballots, modifying the ballots, replacing the ballots. Trashing would be identifiable by concerned citizens monitoring that their ballot was counted. Modifying would be identifiable by the security envelope that was signed by the individual. Replacing would be identifiable by matching signatures. There certainly is an opportunity for Fraud, but the organization to pull off an attack that is wide-scale enough change an election would be big enough that it would likely set off other alarms.

jharger 10y ago
What about buying or coercing votes? Seems like a purely mail-in system would enable both. One benefit of polling places is that it's very difficult (if not impossible) to tell who anyone voted for.
- benjohnson 10y ago
  It is a problem. For example - my wife and I fill out the ballot together as a family on the dining room table. It's certainly possible that one of us influences the other, and that by voting in the open, one of us isn't free to vote their conscience.
- makomk 10y ago
  This has been a problem in some areas of the UK relatively recently: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/4406575.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/440...

koenigdavidmj 10y ago

You are able to check online to see that it has in fact been processed, and you sign the outside of the envelope to indicate that you are in fact the person named on the envelope. And they do check those and call you if your signature is too far off the recorded one, which is about the same level of verification as signing your name on the roll at a polling place. (Since, of course, doing anything more stringent than that is apparently a Racist Republican Conspiracy To Disenfranchise (TM).) The one thing that's now possible is coerced voting, but apparently Washington believes that this is outweighed by the benefit of improved turnout.