absentee balloting, touchscreen votes and tabulation:

[faithnotgreed]

this is depending upon where you live and if touchscreen is involved.

according to bev harris and greg palast, if you live in an area that uses touchscreen it is not necessarily a good idea to cast absentee ballots.

i start this thread because i saw a couple people on cats against frist thread, where she asked if absentee ballots are a good idea. but since i came in on that thread late, here is a new one, fwiw.

the following are the 3 main points that i took away from reading greg and bev, so this is their information not mine. ie, they are the experts not me!

1) the first thing to do if youre unsure or if you have touchscreen, is check with your local elections board on how they handle vote tabulation

2) according to greg palast, absentee ballots can be discarded depending on where you live (his example was poor and african american areas in florida with a history of vote suppression and other highly illegal shenanigans)

even if this doesnt apply to you, please consider:

3) bev points out that depending on your jurisdiction, if you live in an area that uses touchscreen, your absentee ballot can be read by the same machine that tabulates your vote that you cast in person.

in other words, there arent people in the back room properly counting your absentee ballots while votes cast on a touchscreen are tabulated separately through that machine. they can both be tabulated through the same (sometimes faulty) machinery.

above all, if youre unsure, please check. check with your local elections supervisor or you can go to bbv.org. i know there are other voting organizations that are out there trying to ensure proper voting so you should be able to find something online.

[asjr]

1. Forgive me for not being the brightest bulb in the

chandelier, but how, if an absentee ballot is on paper, can it be run through the same machine? What is done with the paper ballots later? And since we can't be sure if our votes are recorded accurately on BBV and there can be no recount of same, wouldn't this be considered a flawed election where the votes would have to be recast? We are being snookered. If I can't be given a paper trail that shows me just how my vote was counted would I be able to sue? I know much of this has been dwelt on but I keep trying to ingest it and it turns sour on my stomach.

[FloridaPat]

2. A lot of votes were discarded here in Florida because they

were filled out wrong. They fixed the republican ones. The other side of the issue is that the repubs got a lot of voters to vote who wouldn't have because of their campaign for absentee ballots.

[ParanoidPat]

3. The first step is to inform yourself of your state's election laws.......

.......most of which can be found through your Secretary of State's web site or at either of the links below.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/state_statutes2.html (Scroll down to 'elections')

http://www.lawresearch.com/v2/statute/statstate.htm#elections

Never depend on your county officials to give you the information, they honestly may not know, or worse yet, they may give you purposely inaccurate information. It's always best to go in informed so you can hold them responsible for upholding the letter of the law.

When talking to them don't be afraid to ask how they track the number of ballots requested, how they log the number returned, whether they notify a voter if their ballot has been challenged and how and when are the absentee or mail ballots are counted. Also be sure to ask if the process and records are open to public scrutiny, and if not, why not.

Many states allow mail in and/or absentee ballots to be dropped off in person at the polls on election day, if so for your state, do it!

If at all possible GET INVOLVED in your elections! The more eyes watching how our elections are conducted the better. :)

:kick:Ballots are the currency of democracy, don't let anyone short change you!:kick:

[asjr]

4. Thanks, good info.

[faithnotgreed]

5. sounds good. get informed and involved. thanks for the links