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Scenario: I'm living in a household with three roommates, unrelated to me. Maybe they're not granted the right to vote. The mail-in ballot arrives and is comp

Scenario: I'm living in a household with three roommates, unrelated to me. Maybe they're not granted the right to vote. The mail-in ballot arrives and is completed by one other than myself, without my knowledge. How do you prevent this? Signing the envelope that you return the ballot in would further de-anonymize the vote. I'm asking not out of snarkiness but because I don't know.

12xo 6y ago
What? Signatures are and remain the best way to verify a ballot. It seems you are stuck in digital, the real world is analog, always will be.
- kfrzcode 6y ago
  If I go to a voting location I can sign a voter roll and establish my presence as a voter, I sign the roll and I get a ballot in exchange (in my jurisdiction). This ballot is then filled in and anonymously submitted into whatever box or diebold machine. With mail-in, a signature is attached to the ballot, which is a different situation. I'm missing something.
  - 12xo 6y ago
    No, not at all the case. All provisional ballots are verified. They are not anonymous, they are always tied to a registered voter or in some cases where they allow same day registration, a verified voter.
  - irrational 6y ago
    You are missing something. The envelope comes in. A person checks that the signature on the envelope matches that of the person the ballot belongs to. If they match, the envelope is opened and the interior sealed envelope is removed. This interior sealed envelope contains no identifying information. That interior sealed envelope is mixed in with all the rest of the interior sealed envelopes (hundreds of thousands to millions of envelopes) so there is no way to identify which ballot belongs to whom. Then the interior sealed envelopes are opened, the ballots are extracted and scanned. All of this is overseen by observers and you can go and watch it if you want.
rovolo 6y ago
Details for Washington: - The signature on on the envelope, not the ballot. You put your ballot into a privacy sleeve and then into an envelope. You seal the envelope, sign the envelope, and then mail it. -- The signature has to match (as judged by a human). If it doesn't, they contact you for additional verification. -- The ballots are separated from the signed envelopes and put in a separate bin before they are counted. The counting process has election observers (just like all states do) so I'm sure this procedure is properly followed. - Ballots are supposed to arrive 2 weeks before the election. If you don't get your ballot, you fill out a "vote cancellation form" and they invalidate your missing ballot: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/ https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/ -- This prevents other people from voting for you, but it does require attention on your part. - Additionally, ballots are assigned a random ID with a detachable QR code. The ID is specific to the individual paper ballot, not the voter. Once ballots are opened and counted, this ID will published online so that you can make sure the paper ballot you filled out was counted. -- This doesn't prevent anything, but it does let us know if someone is dumping/replacing ballots. It builds confidence that your vote is actually counted.
- irrational 6y ago
  I don’t know if this is unique to Oregon, but weeks before we receive our ballots we receive a voting booklet that goes through all of the people and issues that you will be voting on. Ideally this helps so people can study it ahead of time and use it while filling out their ballots so they are knowledgeable voters.

12xo 6y ago

What? Signatures are and remain the best way to verify a ballot. It seems you are stuck in digital, the real world is analog, always will be.

kfrzcode 6y ago
If I go to a voting location I can sign a voter roll and establish my presence as a voter, I sign the roll and I get a ballot in exchange (in my jurisdiction). This ballot is then filled in and anonymously submitted into whatever box or diebold machine. With mail-in, a signature is attached to the ballot, which is a different situation. I'm missing something.
- 12xo 6y ago
  No, not at all the case. All provisional ballots are verified. They are not anonymous, they are always tied to a registered voter or in some cases where they allow same day registration, a verified voter.
- irrational 6y ago
  You are missing something. The envelope comes in. A person checks that the signature on the envelope matches that of the person the ballot belongs to. If they match, the envelope is opened and the interior sealed envelope is removed. This interior sealed envelope contains no identifying information. That interior sealed envelope is mixed in with all the rest of the interior sealed envelopes (hundreds of thousands to millions of envelopes) so there is no way to identify which ballot belongs to whom. Then the interior sealed envelopes are opened, the ballots are extracted and scanned. All of this is overseen by observers and you can go and watch it if you want.

rovolo 6y ago

Details for Washington: - The signature on on the envelope, not the ballot. You put your ballot into a privacy sleeve and then into an envelope. You seal the envelope, sign the envelope, and then mail it. -- The signature has to match (as judged by a human). If it doesn't, they contact you for additional verification. -- The ballots are separated from the signed envelopes and put in a separate bin before they are counted. The counting process has election observers (just like all states do) so I'm sure this procedure is properly followed. - Ballots are supposed to arrive 2 weeks before the election. If you don't get your ballot, you fill out a "vote cancellation form" and they invalidate your missing ballot: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/ https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/ -- This prevents other people from voting for you, but it does require attention on your part. - Additionally, ballots are assigned a random ID with a detachable QR code. The ID is specific to the individual paper ballot, not the voter. Once ballots are opened and counted, this ID will published online so that you can make sure the paper ballot you filled out was counted. -- This doesn't prevent anything, but it does let us know if someone is dumping/replacing ballots. It builds confidence that your vote is actually counted.

irrational 6y ago
I don’t know if this is unique to Oregon, but weeks before we receive our ballots we receive a voting booklet that goes through all of the people and issues that you will be voting on. Ideally this helps so people can study it ahead of time and use it while filling out their ballots so they are knowledgeable voters.