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>There are some real concerns with vote by mail. Any others apart from the voter roll problem? In my state (RI), I have to affirmatively send in a mailed requ

>There are some real concerns with vote by mail. Any others apart from the voter roll problem? In my state (RI), I have to affirmatively send in a mailed request for a ballot, so the voter roll thing doesn't really enter into the picture.

taude 6y ago
I just got mine today in MA, and I didn't know what this was for, since I've never voted by mail. Question: if I register to vote by mail, am I taking away the ability of this to be effective for someone else, i.e. using sacred resources or anything? I personally won't have a problem going to the polls on election day. Guess this is a long winded way of asking, is voting by Mail more/less reliable than going to the local station?
- andrewem 6y ago
  The state of Massachusetts seems very likely to be able to process ballots by mail for essentially all voters in the primary (September 1!) and general elections. You will be doing your civic duty best by voting by mail rather than going to a polling place in person.
  - taude 6y ago
    i'm actually now more worried (after reading comments below) about my mail-in vote being rejected for mismatched signature or something. Looks like I'll send this in anyway and at least have the option.
    - andrewem 6y ago
      https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleev/early-voting-faq.htm https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleev/early-voting-faq.htm has the official FAQs from the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth and says you can look up whether your ballot was accepted. It's not totally clear what reasons they might use to reject a ballot though.
pedrocr 6y ago
The fact that it's not secret and thus easy to buy/coerce is by far the biggest problem with it. It's a risky bet to hang your democracy on mail-in voting. Just run your elections with paper ballots cast into metal boxes. Run them on a Sunday in schools all over the country staffed by representatives of the candidates. That's done in many places and never has any issues. It's very cheap, you get results in just a few hours, and since plenty of representatives of the candidates are involved the whole way everyone trusts the results. The US in November is going yo get dicey with all the voter suppression, mail-in shenanigans and candidates claiming the vote is wrong.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Just run your elections with paper ballots cast into metal boxes The difficulty here is that elections in many places are organized so that it is very inconvenient for less desirable citizens to cast their vote. Find a way to make it equitable for everyone, and there may be truth to your assetion. Mail-in voting has no such problem. Unless artificially created, of course, by hamstringing the USPS. Fortunately in Oregon we have those metal boxes you mention and vote-by-mail. So I can vote from the comfort of my living room at a time convenient for me. Coercion is certainly a potential issue, but if it were a legitimate problem we'd probably have more evidence for that by now.
  - pedrocr 6y ago
    > The difficulty here is that elections in many places are organized so that it is very inconvenient for less desirable citizens to cast their vote. The parts about running it efficiently, on Sundays, with voting places everywhere with no queues also solves that. But I know there's no will in the US to have reasonably run elections. As an outside spectator to your elections for many years it's baffling how badly run they are. > Coercion is certainly a potential issue, but if it were a legitimate problem we'd probably have more evidence for that by now. Election systems aren't designed for the median election. They're designed to still be reliable when things are iffy and your democracy is at risk. The fact that you only know of a few cases of that very thing happening 2 years ago in your last big election shouldn't be of much comfort. Particularly with your shaky system being under active attack by external powers.

taude 6y ago

I just got mine today in MA, and I didn't know what this was for, since I've never voted by mail. Question: if I register to vote by mail, am I taking away the ability of this to be effective for someone else, i.e. using sacred resources or anything? I personally won't have a problem going to the polls on election day. Guess this is a long winded way of asking, is voting by Mail more/less reliable than going to the local station?

andrewem 6y ago
The state of Massachusetts seems very likely to be able to process ballots by mail for essentially all voters in the primary (September 1!) and general elections. You will be doing your civic duty best by voting by mail rather than going to a polling place in person.
- taude 6y ago
  i'm actually now more worried (after reading comments below) about my mail-in vote being rejected for mismatched signature or something. Looks like I'll send this in anyway and at least have the option.
  - andrewem 6y ago
    https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleev/early-voting-faq.htm https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleev/early-voting-faq.htm has the official FAQs from the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth and says you can look up whether your ballot was accepted. It's not totally clear what reasons they might use to reject a ballot though.

pedrocr 6y ago

The fact that it's not secret and thus easy to buy/coerce is by far the biggest problem with it. It's a risky bet to hang your democracy on mail-in voting. Just run your elections with paper ballots cast into metal boxes. Run them on a Sunday in schools all over the country staffed by representatives of the candidates. That's done in many places and never has any issues. It's very cheap, you get results in just a few hours, and since plenty of representatives of the candidates are involved the whole way everyone trusts the results. The US in November is going yo get dicey with all the voter suppression, mail-in shenanigans and candidates claiming the vote is wrong.

rootusrootus 6y ago
> Just run your elections with paper ballots cast into metal boxes The difficulty here is that elections in many places are organized so that it is very inconvenient for less desirable citizens to cast their vote. Find a way to make it equitable for everyone, and there may be truth to your assetion. Mail-in voting has no such problem. Unless artificially created, of course, by hamstringing the USPS. Fortunately in Oregon we have those metal boxes you mention and vote-by-mail. So I can vote from the comfort of my living room at a time convenient for me. Coercion is certainly a potential issue, but if it were a legitimate problem we'd probably have more evidence for that by now.
- pedrocr 6y ago
  > The difficulty here is that elections in many places are organized so that it is very inconvenient for less desirable citizens to cast their vote. The parts about running it efficiently, on Sundays, with voting places everywhere with no queues also solves that. But I know there's no will in the US to have reasonably run elections. As an outside spectator to your elections for many years it's baffling how badly run they are. > Coercion is certainly a potential issue, but if it were a legitimate problem we'd probably have more evidence for that by now. Election systems aren't designed for the median election. They're designed to still be reliable when things are iffy and your democracy is at risk. The fact that you only know of a few cases of that very thing happening 2 years ago in your last big election shouldn't be of much comfort. Particularly with your shaky system being under active attack by external powers.