[EL] Line Standers --not just heroic but Hiatoric

[Salvador Peralta]

Tom describes exactly the process that exists with respect to vote by mail as it is presently conducted in Oregon.  


Starting in 2012, the USPS is obliged by its own policies to deliver ballots regardless of whether the ballots have sufficient postage.  

Ballots may be returned via the mail or in person to ballot drop sites located in the counties in which voters reside.  

Voters who lose their ballots may request a provisional ballot at their local county clerk's office.

On the question of fraud or potential fraud, I would hope that some of the academics on the list will consider conducting a serious study on the strengths and weaknesses of VBM as it is conducted in Oregon and Washington.  A study recently posted to the list that touched on VBM versus in-precinct voting struck me and several of the folks I shared it with as being remarkably short on actual data.

After reading about the various problems around the country -- long lines; faulty touchscreen machines; poorly trained poll workers; potential voter initimidation; voters missing from the rolls in their precinct; ad hoc policies with respect to the handling of provisional and absentee ballots, etc. -- I imagine that more states will look toward vote by mail as an alternative, particularly since the cost of VBM is substantially less than in-precinct polling.




________________________________
 From: Thomas J. Cares <Tom at TomCares.com>
To: Election Law <law-election at uci.edu> 
Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2012 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [EL] Line Standers --not just heroic but Hiatoric
 

I have doubts that any of the five ideas in the WaPo article Rick linked to would dramatically improve wait times.

I wonder if we could do something bigger, like just mail everyone a vote-by-mail ballot, and have the federal government fully subsidize return postage for all VBM ballots. Voters could discard the ballots and vote at the polls as if they'd never received them, or mail them, or return them to any polling place in their county.

With this, I'd bet less (maybe a great deal less) than one-third of ballots would actually be filled out at polling places, and that the overwhelming majority would either mail their ballot or simply drop it off at a polling place on election day (with the convenience of being able to go to one near their job, or favorite grocery store, and not necessarily the one in their home precinct - and not having to wait!).

I suspect the argument against this would be the potential for fraud (I'm not sure that's meritorious though; diligent implementation could probably prevent fraud).

There's a good argument for better early voting policies, but a disadvantage to early voting is that something may happen in the last days of the campaigns that could cause an (objective) voter to change their mind on at least one thing on their ballot (I'm a permanent vote by mail voter, but whenever I'm certain I'm going to be in LA County on election day, I hold my ballot until the election to allow for that contingency). It would certainly seem helpful if all voters had the automatic option to fill out their ballot at home and quickly drop it off on election day.


Thomas Cares


On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 8:01 AM, Roy Schotland <schotlan at law.georgetown.edu> wrote:

We haven’t sung enough about the Line Standers, who stand among the all-time proof of how much people –as grass-roots as can be-- care about the Right to Vote.  
> 
>Roy A. Schotland
>Professor Emeritus
>Georgetown Law Center
> 
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