Elections in the Era of COVID-19 How we can vote without killing ourselves -- and ensure every vote
counts!
https://www.gregpalast.com/elections-in-the-era-of-covid-19/
April 2, 2020
Greg Palast and Nicole Powers for Igniting Change
COVID-19 has caused eleven states to reschedule their elections. Several more are still scheduled to be held this month. As states attempt to figure out how to safely run elections in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, many see voting by mail as the solution, but there are pitfalls.
In this interview with civil rights leader and Igniting Change host Barbara Arnwine, first broadcast on NewsTalk 1450 FM on March 31, investigative journalist Greg Palast says that rather than creating a precedent for cancelling elections, we should embrace mail-in ballots so we can vote without the risk of dying. However, he also explains that we need to make urgent changes to our voting system to make sure every mail-in ballot counts — and breaks down what those essential changes are.
SNIP
Arnwine: What should people be doing? What should people in the legislators in their states be doing to remove barriers that are created by vote by mail? What are some of the things that we should all be advocating for right now?
Palast: We have to get rid of any requirement by those six or eight states that you have a witness or that you actually have to have the ballot notarized. If 40 states in America can do without witnesses and notarization, why can’t this handful who make it ridiculously difficult to vote and even force people to break the quarantine to be able to vote. Those requirements are simply to stop voter impersonation fraud and there’s literally been four cases in the past decade out of a billion votes cast — and they were not mail-in ballots. So it’s ridiculous, it’s to stop a fraud that doesn’t happen.
In addition, some states like Wisconsin and others, require voters to mail in a photocopy of their ID. Understand, Kinko’s is closed, so if you don’t have access to a printer, it’s impossible to comply. And you have to right ID. Going back to the key swing state of Wisconsin, they have 182,000 students in the University of Wisconsin system. You have to have a state photo ID to vote in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin photo ID does not qualify for voting. They said, students can simply go into their Dean’s office to get the voter ID. But, guess what? The schools are closed. So voter ID is obviously a new Jim Crow tactic, because we don’t have people impersonating others. There should be no requirements in any state to mail in an ID or a copy of an ID. If people sign a ballot under penalty of perjury and they lie about it, that’s five years in prison. That’s one of the reasons people don’t do it,
The third thing is that no one should be denied a ballot because they are on the so-called inactive list. According to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, you can’t lose your vote for not voting. It’s called the failure to vote clause. They are deliberately violating this law in Ohio and a lot of other states — Georgia’s announced they’re going to do the same thing — by saying that if you’re on the inactive list, you don’t get a ballot even if you requested it.
No one should be denied a ballot because they’re on an active list. No one who’s been supposedly purged in the last two years should be denied a ballot. Those are the things that we should put in the law to begin with.
The other thing is eliminate things like exact signature match. We have this crazy business in about half the states were when you send in your mail-in ballot, they check your signature against your registration signature, and some partisan official says, oh, that matches or that doesn’t match.
SNIP
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audio interview at same link
= new reply since forum marked as read
handled with kid gloves..
and the extra cherry on top, is that it messes with their numbers 
Altho. your idea is appreciated 
, it's a no for me -- 
