Doug Jones: Are Absentee Ballots Really The Answer?

[Wilms]

Are Absentee Ballots Really The Answer?

By Douglas W. Jones, the University of Iowa

June 23, 2006

The recently released Common Cause report (Malfunction and Malfeasance: A Report on the Electronic Voting Machine Debacle) recommends that voters vote by absentee ballots in order to avoid the use of direct record electronic machines. All the studies I've seen show that absentee ballot processing is itself worthy of a similar report. Furthermore, where DRE machines are used on a one-per-precinct basis but mark-sense ballots are also available in the precinct (as is common here in my home state of Iowa) the recommendation should be to vote on paper at the precinct, not to vote by absentee ballot.

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There are too many jurisdictions where the mark-sense scanner is the only and final judge of the markings on the ballot. Empirical data from Florida 2000 and from Arlington Virginia shows that such jurisdictions routinely ignore around 4 percent of all votes cast. My research in Maricopa County Arizona (on the District 20 recount in 2004) illustrates some of the problems that can go unnoticed under these rules.

It is irresponsible to recommend absentee voting in such a jurisdiction!

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