6 ms·

California turns to vote-by-mail to keep residents safe come November

42 points by MLEnthusiast 6y ago

NDizzle 6y ago
Voter fraud ahoy!
- filoleg 6y ago
  Washington state has been using that system since forever ago, and the world didn’t end. Why do you foresee it going any differently in CA? And i am saying that as someone who is opposed to electronic voting.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    Because, as Trump himself said, when people vote, Republicans lose. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-voting-republicans/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-vot...
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      Trump referenced proposals from Democrats in the coronavirus stimulus negotiations that would have vastly increased funding for absentee and vote-by-mail options. The final package included $400 million for the effort, which was far less than what Democrats had sought. “The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump said. “They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
  - ojbyrne 6y ago
    I think the previous commenter is just advocating the well known strategy of one party in the US - better phrased as "We can't suppress voters as easily!"
  - daenz 6y ago
    >Washington state has been using that system since forever ago, and the world didn’t end. I don't think you're fully considering the implications of what the outcome would look like if voter fraud was used effectively. The world wouldn't "end" because nobody would be the wiser. The whole point of cheating is to do so undetectably, so nobody realizes it and everyone agrees that the outcome is fair. So it's our moral obligation to ensure that undetectable cheating is as difficult as humanly possible to ensure the integrity of elections. Not just say "oh, well nobody has detected anything bad so far, so it must be fine" because things would also appear fine in a severely compromised voting system.
    - sfj 6y ago
      Also the people who stand to benefit from cheating, then are elected and tasked with preventing it. How is that incentive structure going to work?
    - wpietri 6y ago
      No election system is totally proof against voter fraud. Our current election system isn't perfect either. If you'd like to make the case that this is worse, feel free to make it. But I know some serious voting nerds that are not just fine with vote-by-mail; they think it's way better. Personally, I would rather vote the traditional way. But that's more because I enjoy the collective civic duty feeling, and not because I think it's actually better at getting a more accurate representation of the will of the people.
      - daenz 6y ago
        >If you'd like to make the case that this is worse, feel free to make it. Better or worse depends on what your goals are. It's "better" if your goal is making it easier to vote. It's "worse" if your goal is making it harder to cheat. My point is that it is easier to cheat undetectably the more indirection you introduce into the process.
        wpietri 6y ago
        Both are sub-goals, with the primary goal being that the outcome reflect the democratic will of the people. For example, if we turn up the "impossible to cheat" knob high enough that, say, only 10% of people bother to vote, then that's definitely worse. Anybody who wants to argue against vote-by-mail needs to make the case that the overall outcome is worse, not just that vote-by-mail has some flaws that are different that the ones in-person voting has.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Here is a well written resource with plenty of references as to why what you say is untrue: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-latest-voter-fraud-misinformation/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-latest-voter-fraud-...
  - narrator 6y ago
    Trump is replacing the post master general with his crony. What if the Republicans suddenly win California? Please don't claim voter fraud, if you do, the irony will be so so deep because you're saying these changes that the Governor is making won't make voter fraud any easier. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-republican-fundraiser-and-trump-ally-to-be-named-postmaster-general-giving-president-new-influence-over-postal-service-officials-say/2020/05/06/25cde93c-8fd4-11ea-8df0-ee33c3f5b0d6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-republican-fundr...
    - jedberg 6y ago
      Well that would be election fraud, not voter fraud. So I would never claim voter fraud if that happened. But also, the system doesn't actually use the postal service exclusively to deliver the ballots. There are dedicated ballot boxes all over the county/state to collect completed ballots. Also, when you vote you get a code that you can put into the Secretary of State's website which will tell you when your ballot was revived and counted. So you can bet that if the results aren't close to the polling, the Democrats will ask everyone to check their code and make sure their ballot was received.
      - vinay427 6y ago
        At least in California I have only been able to check the status through county offices, which makes sense as elections are also handled at the local level. In my county, I have never seen a code but am asked to input some biographical information to lookup my ballot status.
      - narrator 6y ago
        The way the fraud works from what I've read is the people who don't ever vote, including dead people, have their ballots made out for them and sent in by the fraudsters and they are none the wiser. A criminal inside the post office could take all those undeliverable mail in ballots mailed out to dead people and send them in himself. Forcing people to show up and show an ID to vote would prevent dead people from voting.
- brm 6y ago
  Please elaborate on how the fraud would work in this case...
  - Uhhrrr 6y ago
    In one case, "They all involve a pair of women coming to their doors, asking to see their ballots and either filling them out for them or simply taking the ballots away. The women either say the residents should vote for Peskin or simply vote for Peskin on the ballots themselves." The DA dropped the case, but they also know where their bread is buttered. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Allegations-of-voter-fraud-in-Chinatown-surface-6594323.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Allegations-of-voter...
  - rpiguy 6y ago
    You only need to open enough envelopes to get the result you want and then throw the rest in the trash. Some mail in ballots have party identification on them, so you can ignore envelopes from the opposing party. Identification is based on signature matching (that your signature matches the one when you registered). According to the ACLU thousands of mail-in ballots get thrown out in California just because of a perceived signature mismatch. https://www.courthousenews.com/california-trashes-thousands-mail-ballots-aclu-says/ https://www.courthousenews.com/california-trashes-thousands-... You can mail in a ballot and then go vote in person on Election Day, or have another ballot "harvested" from you by a canvaser. Anyone (spouse, significant other, parent) could take your ballot, fill it out, sign it, and mail it in. Human beings are terrible, and the idea that somehow that a partisan board of elections would be above this stuff is laughable. Everything in politics is corrupt, the corruption isn't suspended on Election Day. People should only be allowed to vote in-person with an ID, unless they have a disability that otherwise prevents them from doing so.
    - wpietri 6y ago
      You do realize that other people have already thought about these concerns, right? And have taken specific action to address them? Many of these are a problem with in-person voting as well. None of us actually see our ballots getting added to the global total, so in theory somebody could just throw out the votes they don't like. Somebody could easily impersonate voters. Somebody could go vote in multiple places. Somebody could just threaten people with a gun and say they'll shoot them if they don't vote the right way. But in practice these are not a big problem. That's partly because election officials and election nerds are not dummies. And it's partly because that all is illegal, and shifting vote totals enough to win an election with the safeguards in place is at best very difficult.
- andrewclunn 6y ago
  Quick! Vote this comment down! The media in favor of the party that benefits from voter fraud always tells me that voter fraud is a myth, and they're right because voting by mail makes voter fraud so easy, it's almost impossible to prove. And if you can't prove voter fraud, there is no voter fraud. Yeah democracy!
JoshTriplett 6y ago
Oregon has been doing this for decades, and it works wonderfully.
- holler 6y ago
  1987: "Vote-by-mail becomes permanent, with the majority of Oregon's counties making use of it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon 1987: The last time a Republican was Governor of Oregon (33 years).
  - rpiguy 6y ago
    Washington State also started on leftward trajectory in the 90s after mail in voting. Of course, correlation is not causation...
  - whyenot 6y ago
    1987: The #1 song in the US was Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles. 1987: West German Mathias Rust lands his small plane in Red Square 1987: Square releases the first Final Fantasy video game. I'm sure it was all due to vote by mail.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- phnofive 6y ago
  With the exception that voters should not be paying for postage individually, but collectively; is there any reason not to provide this?
  - McGlockenshire 6y ago
    No, there's no reason not to pay for postage up front. In fact, starting this year, that's what's happening! https://www.wweek.com/culture/2020/02/12/oregon-voters-no-longer-have-to-pay-for-postage-when-mailing-in-their-ballots/ https://www.wweek.com/culture/2020/02/12/oregon-voters-no-lo... I'll still likely make the short trip to the nearest dropoff location and drop it off in person. It's not that I don't trust the mail, it's just a paranoia thing.
PureParadigm 6y ago
One criticism I see often of many electronic voting systems also applies to vote by mail: it does not protect against external pressure or buying votes. Someone could easily offer to buy blank ballots (especially from poor voters who may need the money), or otherwise coerce/pressure people to reveal their ballots and break anonymity. I realize actions like these are already a crime, but one of the main reasons for the secret ballot is to protect against situations like these by making it impossible to do. Perhaps this compromise in the integrity of the voting system is one we want to make in these unusual times, but I think it is important to point out that there is indeed a compromise here. Mail voting doesn't come without its own issues.
- jedberg 6y ago
  > it does not protect against external pressure or buying votes. It does though. If your vote was coerced you can always request another ballot, which invalidates the first. If you're getting paid to vote a certain way, then nothing here really changes. California already had vote by mail as an option.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    And most states have the concept of "absentee ballots", as well, which are effectively voting by mail.
    - war1025 6y ago
      My (poorly informed) understanding is that the difference between "absentee ballot" and "vote by mail" is with absentee voting you must first request a ballot, whereas with vote by mail, they send a ballot to every registered voter. Seems pretty well the same to me, but I guess the having to request the ballot makes some people feel better about it.
    - PureParadigm 6y ago
      Right. I'm not arguing for or against voting by mail or absentee ballots. I'm only pointing out that these voting methods come with risks, and it's better to be aware of the risks when deciding whether we want mail/absentee voting. There very well may be situations where absentee/mail voting is the best option (and possibly during this pandemic), but it would be disingenuous to pretend that they don't carry any risks. Like all public policy decisions, this is a cost-benefit analysis, and an informed decision needs to be aware of both costs and benefits.
jedberg 6y ago
I live in Santa Clara county, which had a vote-by-mail-only policy for the primary in March. It was supposed to be part of an experiment in mail-only voting, as California was planning to be mail-only statewide by 2022 anyway. FWIW, it was the easiest voting ever. I've been permanent vote-by-mail for many years, but usually I had to fight the crowds on election day to drop off my ballot at a polling place. This time they had drop boxes all over the county that were open 24 hours, so I was able to drop my ballot off at 10 Monday night, after I filled it out. So this isn't actually a huge change. They're just accelerating the timeline.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  Confused, why couldn't you just drop it off in the mail? You don't have to drop it off at the polling place right?
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Until recently it required a stamp, and I was too cheap to put $1.20 in postage on it (it was heavy so it cost extra). Also I wanted the sticker, and the only way to get that was to drop it off at a polling place.
    - mehrdadn 6y ago
      I see haha. I guess that's why some counties mail the sticker lol. Interestingly I seem to recall hearing if your stamps are too low they'll just charge the county instead of discarding the mail (though it'd be nice to verify somehow). I can only imagine the time and/or gas you spent on it was worth more than $1.20 but at least I can understand the sentiment now =P thanks!
  - greglindahl 6y ago
    I tend to drop mine off at City Hall because I think that's more reliable than the mail. I also use the feature my county has to verify that my vote was tallied.
    - 6y ago
TechBro8615 6y ago
California is one of the only states where “ballot harvesting” is legal. [0] Party officials can submit batches of votes collected from people who are not their family members. As you can imagine, accusations of impropriety abound. Putting partisan politics aside, I’m not sure how a rational person can look at this and conclude that it leads to fair elections. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_harvesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_harvesting
- daenz 6y ago
  What's the argument for it?
  - TechBro8615 6y ago
    I'm sure you can imagine the cynical answers to that. Non cynically, I guess the idea is it increases voter turnout? I say "guess" because I've just googled "pros of ballot harvesting," "arguments for ballot harvesting," and other varieties of the phrase, and have yet to find a real argument for it. And if the argument is increasing voter turnout, I'm not sure why it's necessary if the cost of voting is no more than dropping a ballot in your mailbox.
  - jimbob45 6y ago
    From his link: "Arizona banned the practice except for family members and caregivers.". So I guess for those who can't make it to the mailbox?
  - wahern 6y ago
    Dropping off your elderly parents' or neighbors' belated vote-by-mail ballot at your local polling site. Previously it was illegal to do something that simple, which with shelter-in-place has a pretty decent cost+benefit even if you disbelieve the evidence on voter fraud.
    - sio8ohPi 6y ago
      If we're still talking about California, it was legal to drop off a family member's ballot prior to AB 1921. Is there a state that allows vote-by-mail and doesn't allow family members to drop off ballots?
OrgNet 6y ago
My problem with vote-by-mail is that they have to confirm that your signature is the same... and mine is not. I have been voting by mail but I don't know if they count my vote.
- vinay427 6y ago
  At least in my county, although I expect most have something similar, you can check the status of your ballot online. If that's not available, my local officials have always been more than helpful over the phone.
- mey 6y ago
  I've actually been notified by Oregon when my signature has been different enough from what's on file with them. Happened once out of like 10 times I've voted out here. The mailing confirmed my prior vote counted and asked me to sign a piece of paper with a new signature so they could have an updated signature on file. Was pretty seamless.
djsumdog 6y ago
We've always had absentee ballots. I've filed one once when I was overseas. If you want to vote, but not show up to a polling station, you can request a absentee. They do get counted after traditional ballots on election day results, but they do get counted. Why not just promote the existing system? Did California not have absentee ballots before now?
- blackguardx 6y ago
  If you voted absentee in California, you had to vote in every single election or you lost your absentee status. Colorado’s model makes the most sense. Everyone gets a mail-in ballot and you can either mail it or drop it off to a polling center day-of. If you lose your ballot, I think you can also go in person to get it worked out. Also, you can look up online to see of they counted your ballot.
  - greglindahl 6y ago
    I've been a vote-by-mail voter in California since 2002. Perhaps you're describing a particular county? The only difference in my county from the Colorado system is that only a subset of elections are all vote-by-mail. And our next election, now, is one of them.
- nwallin 6y ago
  The difference here is that everyone is going to get an absentee ballot in the mail, not just the people who requested one.
Simulacra 6y ago
I think we should all consider this: Do you know someone who is likely to go out there, harvest the ballots, and then dump them? If the answer to that is yes, then you should not want all mail in voting.
- wpietri 6y ago
  At least here in SF, that's not a worry. People voting by mail get a receipt that lets them track the arrival of their ballot. Here's the voter portal: https://sfelections.org/tools/portal/ https://sfelections.org/tools/portal/ Just searching a bit, I see Santa Clara county does the same: https://eservices.sccgov.org/rov?tab=ab https://eservices.sccgov.org/rov?tab=ab I suspect that's widespread in CA.
Cyclone_ 6y ago
Absentee ballots were a disaster in WI. Many people did not get their ballots that they were supposed to by mail. Hard to believe that this could possibly be considered a legitimate election. https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northshore/news/fox-point/2020/04/08/wisconsin-election-fox-point-absentee-ballots-never-made-voters/5119812002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northshore/news/f...
- _jal 6y ago
  That was purposeful, political warfare. A taste of what's to come in November.
- war1025 6y ago
  Presumably a state that plans more than a couple weeks out for it would have better luck.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rpiguy 6y ago
By the way there was an election in Wisconsin I think some 400,000 people came out to vote, and there was no surge in Covid patients afterword.

42 points by MLEnthusiast 6y ago

NDizzle 6y ago

Voter fraud ahoy!

filoleg 6y ago
Washington state has been using that system since forever ago, and the world didn’t end. Why do you foresee it going any differently in CA? And i am saying that as someone who is opposed to electronic voting.
- TylerE 6y ago
  Because, as Trump himself said, when people vote, Republicans lose. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-voting-republicans/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-vot...
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    Trump referenced proposals from Democrats in the coronavirus stimulus negotiations that would have vastly increased funding for absentee and vote-by-mail options. The final package included $400 million for the effort, which was far less than what Democrats had sought. “The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump said. “They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
- ojbyrne 6y ago
  I think the previous commenter is just advocating the well known strategy of one party in the US - better phrased as "We can't suppress voters as easily!"
- daenz 6y ago
  >Washington state has been using that system since forever ago, and the world didn’t end. I don't think you're fully considering the implications of what the outcome would look like if voter fraud was used effectively. The world wouldn't "end" because nobody would be the wiser. The whole point of cheating is to do so undetectably, so nobody realizes it and everyone agrees that the outcome is fair. So it's our moral obligation to ensure that undetectable cheating is as difficult as humanly possible to ensure the integrity of elections. Not just say "oh, well nobody has detected anything bad so far, so it must be fine" because things would also appear fine in a severely compromised voting system.
  - sfj 6y ago
    Also the people who stand to benefit from cheating, then are elected and tasked with preventing it. How is that incentive structure going to work?
  - wpietri 6y ago
    No election system is totally proof against voter fraud. Our current election system isn't perfect either. If you'd like to make the case that this is worse, feel free to make it. But I know some serious voting nerds that are not just fine with vote-by-mail; they think it's way better. Personally, I would rather vote the traditional way. But that's more because I enjoy the collective civic duty feeling, and not because I think it's actually better at getting a more accurate representation of the will of the people.
    - daenz 6y ago
      >If you'd like to make the case that this is worse, feel free to make it. Better or worse depends on what your goals are. It's "better" if your goal is making it easier to vote. It's "worse" if your goal is making it harder to cheat. My point is that it is easier to cheat undetectably the more indirection you introduce into the process.
      - wpietri 6y ago
        Both are sub-goals, with the primary goal being that the outcome reflect the democratic will of the people. For example, if we turn up the "impossible to cheat" knob high enough that, say, only 10% of people bother to vote, then that's definitely worse. Anybody who wants to argue against vote-by-mail needs to make the case that the overall outcome is worse, not just that vote-by-mail has some flaws that are different that the ones in-person voting has.
jedberg 6y ago
Here is a well written resource with plenty of references as to why what you say is untrue: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-latest-voter-fraud-misinformation/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-latest-voter-fraud-...
- narrator 6y ago
  Trump is replacing the post master general with his crony. What if the Republicans suddenly win California? Please don't claim voter fraud, if you do, the irony will be so so deep because you're saying these changes that the Governor is making won't make voter fraud any easier. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-republican-fundraiser-and-trump-ally-to-be-named-postmaster-general-giving-president-new-influence-over-postal-service-officials-say/2020/05/06/25cde93c-8fd4-11ea-8df0-ee33c3f5b0d6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-republican-fundr...
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Well that would be election fraud, not voter fraud. So I would never claim voter fraud if that happened. But also, the system doesn't actually use the postal service exclusively to deliver the ballots. There are dedicated ballot boxes all over the county/state to collect completed ballots. Also, when you vote you get a code that you can put into the Secretary of State's website which will tell you when your ballot was revived and counted. So you can bet that if the results aren't close to the polling, the Democrats will ask everyone to check their code and make sure their ballot was received.
    - vinay427 6y ago
      At least in California I have only been able to check the status through county offices, which makes sense as elections are also handled at the local level. In my county, I have never seen a code but am asked to input some biographical information to lookup my ballot status.
    - narrator 6y ago
      The way the fraud works from what I've read is the people who don't ever vote, including dead people, have their ballots made out for them and sent in by the fraudsters and they are none the wiser. A criminal inside the post office could take all those undeliverable mail in ballots mailed out to dead people and send them in himself. Forcing people to show up and show an ID to vote would prevent dead people from voting.
brm 6y ago
Please elaborate on how the fraud would work in this case...
- Uhhrrr 6y ago
  In one case, "They all involve a pair of women coming to their doors, asking to see their ballots and either filling them out for them or simply taking the ballots away. The women either say the residents should vote for Peskin or simply vote for Peskin on the ballots themselves." The DA dropped the case, but they also know where their bread is buttered. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Allegations-of-voter-fraud-in-Chinatown-surface-6594323.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Allegations-of-voter...
- rpiguy 6y ago
  You only need to open enough envelopes to get the result you want and then throw the rest in the trash. Some mail in ballots have party identification on them, so you can ignore envelopes from the opposing party. Identification is based on signature matching (that your signature matches the one when you registered). According to the ACLU thousands of mail-in ballots get thrown out in California just because of a perceived signature mismatch. https://www.courthousenews.com/california-trashes-thousands-mail-ballots-aclu-says/ https://www.courthousenews.com/california-trashes-thousands-... You can mail in a ballot and then go vote in person on Election Day, or have another ballot "harvested" from you by a canvaser. Anyone (spouse, significant other, parent) could take your ballot, fill it out, sign it, and mail it in. Human beings are terrible, and the idea that somehow that a partisan board of elections would be above this stuff is laughable. Everything in politics is corrupt, the corruption isn't suspended on Election Day. People should only be allowed to vote in-person with an ID, unless they have a disability that otherwise prevents them from doing so.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    You do realize that other people have already thought about these concerns, right? And have taken specific action to address them? Many of these are a problem with in-person voting as well. None of us actually see our ballots getting added to the global total, so in theory somebody could just throw out the votes they don't like. Somebody could easily impersonate voters. Somebody could go vote in multiple places. Somebody could just threaten people with a gun and say they'll shoot them if they don't vote the right way. But in practice these are not a big problem. That's partly because election officials and election nerds are not dummies. And it's partly because that all is illegal, and shifting vote totals enough to win an election with the safeguards in place is at best very difficult.
andrewclunn 6y ago
Quick! Vote this comment down! The media in favor of the party that benefits from voter fraud always tells me that voter fraud is a myth, and they're right because voting by mail makes voter fraud so easy, it's almost impossible to prove. And if you can't prove voter fraud, there is no voter fraud. Yeah democracy!

JoshTriplett 6y ago

Oregon has been doing this for decades, and it works wonderfully.

holler 6y ago
1987: "Vote-by-mail becomes permanent, with the majority of Oregon's counties making use of it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon 1987: The last time a Republican was Governor of Oregon (33 years).
- rpiguy 6y ago
  Washington State also started on leftward trajectory in the 90s after mail in voting. Of course, correlation is not causation...
- whyenot 6y ago
  1987: The #1 song in the US was Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles. 1987: West German Mathias Rust lands his small plane in Red Square 1987: Square releases the first Final Fantasy video game. I'm sure it was all due to vote by mail.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
phnofive 6y ago
With the exception that voters should not be paying for postage individually, but collectively; is there any reason not to provide this?
- McGlockenshire 6y ago
  No, there's no reason not to pay for postage up front. In fact, starting this year, that's what's happening! https://www.wweek.com/culture/2020/02/12/oregon-voters-no-longer-have-to-pay-for-postage-when-mailing-in-their-ballots/ https://www.wweek.com/culture/2020/02/12/oregon-voters-no-lo... I'll still likely make the short trip to the nearest dropoff location and drop it off in person. It's not that I don't trust the mail, it's just a paranoia thing.

PureParadigm 6y ago

One criticism I see often of many electronic voting systems also applies to vote by mail: it does not protect against external pressure or buying votes. Someone could easily offer to buy blank ballots (especially from poor voters who may need the money), or otherwise coerce/pressure people to reveal their ballots and break anonymity. I realize actions like these are already a crime, but one of the main reasons for the secret ballot is to protect against situations like these by making it impossible to do. Perhaps this compromise in the integrity of the voting system is one we want to make in these unusual times, but I think it is important to point out that there is indeed a compromise here. Mail voting doesn't come without its own issues.

jedberg 6y ago
> it does not protect against external pressure or buying votes. It does though. If your vote was coerced you can always request another ballot, which invalidates the first. If you're getting paid to vote a certain way, then nothing here really changes. California already had vote by mail as an option.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  And most states have the concept of "absentee ballots", as well, which are effectively voting by mail.
  - war1025 6y ago
    My (poorly informed) understanding is that the difference between "absentee ballot" and "vote by mail" is with absentee voting you must first request a ballot, whereas with vote by mail, they send a ballot to every registered voter. Seems pretty well the same to me, but I guess the having to request the ballot makes some people feel better about it.
  - PureParadigm 6y ago
    Right. I'm not arguing for or against voting by mail or absentee ballots. I'm only pointing out that these voting methods come with risks, and it's better to be aware of the risks when deciding whether we want mail/absentee voting. There very well may be situations where absentee/mail voting is the best option (and possibly during this pandemic), but it would be disingenuous to pretend that they don't carry any risks. Like all public policy decisions, this is a cost-benefit analysis, and an informed decision needs to be aware of both costs and benefits.

jedberg 6y ago

I live in Santa Clara county, which had a vote-by-mail-only policy for the primary in March. It was supposed to be part of an experiment in mail-only voting, as California was planning to be mail-only statewide by 2022 anyway. FWIW, it was the easiest voting ever. I've been permanent vote-by-mail for many years, but usually I had to fight the crowds on election day to drop off my ballot at a polling place. This time they had drop boxes all over the county that were open 24 hours, so I was able to drop my ballot off at 10 Monday night, after I filled it out. So this isn't actually a huge change. They're just accelerating the timeline.

mehrdadn 6y ago
Confused, why couldn't you just drop it off in the mail? You don't have to drop it off at the polling place right?
- jedberg 6y ago
  Until recently it required a stamp, and I was too cheap to put $1.20 in postage on it (it was heavy so it cost extra). Also I wanted the sticker, and the only way to get that was to drop it off at a polling place.
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    I see haha. I guess that's why some counties mail the sticker lol. Interestingly I seem to recall hearing if your stamps are too low they'll just charge the county instead of discarding the mail (though it'd be nice to verify somehow). I can only imagine the time and/or gas you spent on it was worth more than $1.20 but at least I can understand the sentiment now =P thanks!
- greglindahl 6y ago
  I tend to drop mine off at City Hall because I think that's more reliable than the mail. I also use the feature my county has to verify that my vote was tallied.
  - 6y ago

TechBro8615 6y ago

California is one of the only states where “ballot harvesting” is legal. [0] Party officials can submit batches of votes collected from people who are not their family members. As you can imagine, accusations of impropriety abound. Putting partisan politics aside, I’m not sure how a rational person can look at this and conclude that it leads to fair elections. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_harvesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_harvesting

daenz 6y ago
What's the argument for it?
- TechBro8615 6y ago
  I'm sure you can imagine the cynical answers to that. Non cynically, I guess the idea is it increases voter turnout? I say "guess" because I've just googled "pros of ballot harvesting," "arguments for ballot harvesting," and other varieties of the phrase, and have yet to find a real argument for it. And if the argument is increasing voter turnout, I'm not sure why it's necessary if the cost of voting is no more than dropping a ballot in your mailbox.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  From his link: "Arizona banned the practice except for family members and caregivers.". So I guess for those who can't make it to the mailbox?
- wahern 6y ago
  Dropping off your elderly parents' or neighbors' belated vote-by-mail ballot at your local polling site. Previously it was illegal to do something that simple, which with shelter-in-place has a pretty decent cost+benefit even if you disbelieve the evidence on voter fraud.
  - sio8ohPi 6y ago
    If we're still talking about California, it was legal to drop off a family member's ballot prior to AB 1921. Is there a state that allows vote-by-mail and doesn't allow family members to drop off ballots?

OrgNet 6y ago

My problem with vote-by-mail is that they have to confirm that your signature is the same... and mine is not. I have been voting by mail but I don't know if they count my vote.

vinay427 6y ago
At least in my county, although I expect most have something similar, you can check the status of your ballot online. If that's not available, my local officials have always been more than helpful over the phone.
mey 6y ago
I've actually been notified by Oregon when my signature has been different enough from what's on file with them. Happened once out of like 10 times I've voted out here. The mailing confirmed my prior vote counted and asked me to sign a piece of paper with a new signature so they could have an updated signature on file. Was pretty seamless.

djsumdog 6y ago

We've always had absentee ballots. I've filed one once when I was overseas. If you want to vote, but not show up to a polling station, you can request a absentee. They do get counted after traditional ballots on election day results, but they do get counted. Why not just promote the existing system? Did California not have absentee ballots before now?

blackguardx 6y ago
If you voted absentee in California, you had to vote in every single election or you lost your absentee status. Colorado’s model makes the most sense. Everyone gets a mail-in ballot and you can either mail it or drop it off to a polling center day-of. If you lose your ballot, I think you can also go in person to get it worked out. Also, you can look up online to see of they counted your ballot.
- greglindahl 6y ago
  I've been a vote-by-mail voter in California since 2002. Perhaps you're describing a particular county? The only difference in my county from the Colorado system is that only a subset of elections are all vote-by-mail. And our next election, now, is one of them.
nwallin 6y ago
The difference here is that everyone is going to get an absentee ballot in the mail, not just the people who requested one.

Simulacra 6y ago

I think we should all consider this: Do you know someone who is likely to go out there, harvest the ballots, and then dump them? If the answer to that is yes, then you should not want all mail in voting.

wpietri 6y ago
At least here in SF, that's not a worry. People voting by mail get a receipt that lets them track the arrival of their ballot. Here's the voter portal: https://sfelections.org/tools/portal/ https://sfelections.org/tools/portal/ Just searching a bit, I see Santa Clara county does the same: https://eservices.sccgov.org/rov?tab=ab https://eservices.sccgov.org/rov?tab=ab I suspect that's widespread in CA.

Cyclone_ 6y ago

Absentee ballots were a disaster in WI. Many people did not get their ballots that they were supposed to by mail. Hard to believe that this could possibly be considered a legitimate election. https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northshore/news/fox-point/2020/04/08/wisconsin-election-fox-point-absentee-ballots-never-made-voters/5119812002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northshore/news/f...

_jal 6y ago
That was purposeful, political warfare. A taste of what's to come in November.
war1025 6y ago
Presumably a state that plans more than a couple weeks out for it would have better luck.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rpiguy 6y ago

By the way there was an election in Wisconsin I think some 400,000 people came out to vote, and there was no surge in Covid patients afterword.