Because of travel and uncertainty with my schedule I’m going to vote absentee in this election. There seem to be two good sites with wizards that walk you through everything: Go Vote Absentee and Long Distance Voter. Going into polls and waiting in lines seems like an anachronism. Someday I hope I can vote online.
Yeah, but you don’t get an “I Voted” sticker to wear all day. I feel like walking in ups the chances of my vote actually counting and not lost off the end of a pier like the absentee ballots a few years ago.
Actually, there’s a pretty good reason not to do online voting; quite apart from the fraud problem, it enables the buying and selling of votes.
With an anonymous ballot in a closed room, you have no proof of having voted one way or another, so there’s no way for your vote to be purchased. Online, someone can look over your shoulder and pay you $10 for voting the right way in a battleground state. (Of course, there are ways to disguise the incentives so it doesn’t look quite so sleazy, but that’s the end effect.)
Absentee voting is a great way to vote, regardless of whether you’re in town or not.
My mother does it because she’s in a wheelchair so she can’t go to the voting booth, so that really just trained my entire family to do it that way.
So, needless to say, I still do it, even though I live in NY now.
Good call on doing it absentee.
I also completely agree with voting online, I am actually shocked that this year it’s still voting booths and not online. I hope the next election will be online. (I imagine this would also cause a lot more people to actually vote too)
See, THIS is a valid reason for early/absentee voting. It bugs me to hell and back when people vote early or by absentee just out of convenience to them.
Why not create a plugin, you guys will figure out online voting several decades before the .gov
Voting online… now there is a scary thought. 😉 Not that scary, but nonetheless, while likely inevitable, will be under sure scrutiny.
I was thinking the same thing recently about voting online, but I have to admit that voting at an elementary school a few blocks from my house is fun in a quaint, nostalgic sort of way…
I completely agree about voting online; however, I can’t imagine how many times the losing party will accuse others of “hacking into the voting database” and “falsifying votes.” Politics are complicated. Technology is so much simpler. 🙂
Oregon has vote-by-mail, which I think is awesome – you never have to leave your house! It’s the next best thing to voting online.
When the wizard asked for social security number, date of birth, and address I saw visions of identity theft and closed the browser.
Yeah, we’re fully vote-by-mail here in Oregon. It’s incredibly awesome and I’m surprised more states don’t do it.
Viper007Bond, how do you know if your vote is actually delivered to the proper elections officials? Do you get a receipt?
The internet is nowhere near secure enough for online voting.
You have a very good point – everyone assumes that internet voting means more Diebold and ‘hanging chads’. Properly set up, an internet voting system will be more secure and less vulnerable to fraud than the current one. I mean come on people, at the moment you vote by putting a cross on a piece of paper, which then goes into a metal box. That metal box can be lost, destroyed, or tampered with (‘oops, I dropped my mineral water right on the slot’) a lot more easily than a properly setup online voting system.
Nearly every real life situation, concerning e-voting, have a meaningful solution:
* Looking over your shoulder? Putting a gun at your favourite inet cafe to vote? Never mind, if you have a week, for example, to change your mind, Online or in the voting booth. Then if above happens, you call the police and then vote as you like.
* Fraud? This one is too mathis… but still – there is blind signature algorithm, digital signatures and so on; *IF* implementation is opensource, guaranteed by third party and, of course, simple – it can be trusted. Still, there is phishing problem, mainly connected to “Yes, I voted, but no, my vote was invalid” situation”.
Nevertheless, online voting is still a utopia.
Carson: If you’re worried about that, you can drop off your ballot in person. They even have it set up like a drive-through so you don’t have to get out of your car.
Voting is not the big issue, But What BOZO
you are voting for, Just get out and vote for the criminal of your party. Any way you can!!!
I don’t like easy ways to register and/or vote. There’s too much corruption as it is (with all the dead people and felons voting).
I think it actually should be harder to vote. MUCH harder. I want the process of voting to be entirely unappealing to lazy and unmotivated folks. That way… on the whole less laziness-enabling candidates are elected and more candidates that appeal to hard-working and motivated folks are elected. 🙂
I wish I could vote online too. I’ve actually decided not to vote, in part because my documents would never get back and forth from the US on time (registration, ballot, filed out ballot, etc) without me sending everything FedEx, which is really expensive. It would be much easier to just register online, even if I had to vote on paper!
I have been voting absentee for years and will do so this year also. I can either mail it in or just drop it off at a voting location. For the cost of a stamp I get to avoid standing in line for hours and can fill out the long ballots from the comfort of my kitchen table while sipping a beer. You can’t beat voting by mail.
Yeh, going in to a polling place, perhaps having to *shudder* wait in line, actually spend some minimal effort to do something as mundane as vote: oh, the degradation of it all! Why, one might think that exercising ones voting privileges would be made as simple as possible in order to appeal to simpletons… No, wait. That’s already been done buying the votes of lackwits, drunkards and addicts with their fav poison.
*feh*
I agree with Steve that voting should be made more difficult. In fact, were I “emperor of the USA” for a bit, I’d make voting open ONLY to those who could pass a basic civics and current events exam. Everyone else to be told, “Sorry, but you’re too stupid and/or lazy to have the franchise. Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a.”
Of course, requiring people to actually KNOW anything before voting would probably cut the voter rolls by at least 90%.
I voted via absentee ballot several weeks ago. Because I was concerned about all of the “irregularities” surrounding the 2008 voting, I sent my ballot USPS via registered / certified mail.
Alarmingly I have 100% confirmed via the USPS that in fact my ballot never left the USPS building. ie@ my vote did not count…
Because I sent it registered / certified and never received the confirmation I knew to go to the Georgia Secretary of State web site to find 1) confirmation that my ballot was never received. 2) 100% CONFIRMED IT NEVER LEFT THE USPS BUILDING.
How many people do you assume sent their ballot certified MAIL??
How many people do you think sent in absentee ballots that also never left the post office?
How many people do you think, “Think their ballot was counted”, but was actually never received??
This is a disgrace AND I FOR ONE DO NOT THINK MY ABSENTEE BALLOT WAS THE ONLY ONE THAT NEVER MADE IT OUT OF THE POST OFFICE BUILDING…..…