What? Your Vote Is Not A Total Secret?!?!

[BeFree]

Not if you vote absentee. And that means early voters, too. And of course, only on machines, not paper. (Thanks, demdonkey...#3)

Now hold on. This is what I heard from an election official in North Carolina. Not a lawyer, just a Elections Board Member. A Republican.

He said that a court can order the records to be opened from an absentee/early voter, and the vote can be traced back to you, because of the way the absentee ballot records are kept.

Any lawyers in the house? Or at least any body who can quote the law on this?

In NC, Dem's had a very favorable result from the early/absentee vote, but on the night of Nov. 2, the results had swung almost 16 points into the pubs... in some races. Not all.

Here's where I'm going with this: If we can get a Judge to let a qualified statistician pick a sound percentage of the absentee vote to help figure out why the swing was so large, we may have a case to prove something malfunctioned <grin>.

Any lawyers in the house?

[Goldmund]

1. No use in this fight. We should just give up. It's pointless.

KIDDING!

:)

[DebJ]

2. I watched absentee ballots being counted in York, Pa. This is

not true here...not with the way it was done. The ballots were removed from the envelopes and placed in separate piles. The envelopes were kept and sent with the rest of the paperwork. The ballots were then counted.
Now, it would be possible for the person removing the ballots from the envelopes to see, but I really don't think she even tried.
We have great poll workers here, though.

[demodonkey]

3. In Pennsylvania... (from a poll worker)

Your ballot is enclosed in an inner "secrecy" envelope. When we open the outer envelopes we check that the name is valid in our district register, then we put the secrecy envelopes in a pile. After validating all the outer envelopes, we mix the secrecy envelopes up, and THEN open. Once the secrecy envelopes are opened there is NO way to tell which ballot is yours (unless you used some sort of a weird pen on both the ballot and your outer envelope or something....)

The outer envelope COULD identify you, and yes IF it were opened in conjunction with the inner one your vote could be tracked. I don't know if a court order could force that or not.

That said, in the event your absentee ballot is the only one we receive in the precinct (which happens sometimes), obviously we know who it is and thus how you voted.

[BeFree]

4. I'm talking machine votes

There has to be a record kept of machine votes, because the machine only counts ballots one at a time and you must sign in one at a time.

Machine votes, not paper, I know paper, I'm talking machine votes. Thanks.

[happyslug]

5. The Secret Ballot is only a post-Civil War Development

In the United States, prior to the Civil War ALL votes were open and review-able by anyone. In the 1860 election Lincoln was chastise at the Poll for voting for himself, so instead of voting for himself, he took his ballot torn his name of the top of the Ticket and voted the Straight Republican Ticket.

Given that the Secret Ballot was developed long AFTER the adoption of not only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights but also the Civil War Amendments, there is NO constitutional requirement that your vote be secret.

Now every state has the Secret Ballot, but all of them it is by State law only. Which means what state can and do have their own rules and as long as those rules are being followed it is legal.

[HEAVYHEART]

6. I don't think it's a secret either.. as with provisional ballots.

I would think that the same goes for provisional ballots. I filled out a provisional ballot in NC and I had to put it in an envelope with my name, info, etc. So someone has to open the damn thing.