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That probably works better for smaller countries. Here in the US mail in voting kind of works that way in that the ballots are sealed until they're 'accepted' a
by rtkwe 6y ago
That probably works better for smaller countries. Here in the US mail in voting kind of works that way in that the ballots are sealed until they're 'accepted' and then the ballots are removed and the identifying shell envelope is discarded. The big slow down is actually going through all the submitted votes and validating then counting, most in person votes here in the US are counted via machine immediately at the polling place.
Somewhere between 25-50% of votes depending on state are cast through some early mechanism and under this none of those could be counted until election day which is a large increase in the number of votes that need to be counted and makes them more difficult to count.
One other benefit of being able to count everything in person on the day it's cast is the votes don't have to move outside the polling place for initial counting which makes monitoring easier.
It's a nice and convenient idea but I don't see the small benefit of being able to change votes (how many people honestly want to change their vote?) vs the large increase in complexity.
- runarberg 6y agoLike previously stated being able to change the vote is crucial to limit the effectiveness of voter intimidation. You simply vote however your intimidator orders you, and then you change your vote afterwards. It also has the benefits of allowing voters who in absentee vote early for a candidate that later drops out (i.e. Washington State voters who voted for Elizabeth Warren) to correct their vote based on this new information. Regarding monitoring. Mail in ballots are sent to the polling place on election night for counting. They are counted just like any other ballots and can be monitored as easily as in-person ballots. I suppose e-votes could as easily be printed out and counted in the same place.
- rtkwe 6y agoThe voter intimidation problem only really comes out of adopting a new system where you can check your vote to begin with though.. Our current system only really suffers from that even being a possibility with mail in votes. > It also has the benefits of allowing voters who in absentee vote early for a candidate that later drops out (i.e. Washington State voters who voted for Elizabeth Warren) to correct their vote based on this new information. Maybe for a primary it's a useful feature but there are simpler options like ranked choice that could be used to do that. Though there are still uses for votes to people who are out of the race because it gives them voting power at the convention if there's not a decisive winner. Also if we're letting things change that much primaries are never really over in a state. One of the reason for sequential primaries is that it lets smaller campaigns have a chance because they don't have to compete everywhere at once.