ambivalent evening
Sep. 14th, 2008 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfb1. I really like biking, and in theory I like public transit, but I didn't like the bus driver being grumpy at me when I wanted to bring my bike on the bus. But I did like being able to anyway.
2. Saw Stealing America: Vote by Vote, a documentary about, you know. Election irregularities. I'm glad they made it, but it made me feel kind of sick. Mostly the sequences about the 2004 election - I remember what it was like, watching all those swing states with pro-Kerry exit polls fall to Bush as the night went on. And then watching the stories come out over the next few days about voters that weren't allowed to vote, machines that registered Kerry votes as Bush votes right on the screen, mysteriously missing and just uncounted votes... and watching as Kerry, Congress, and the media just did nothing. Reliving that wasn't so great.
3. At the Q&A afterward, someone asked if, as a permanent absentee voter in Santa Clara County, his vote was safe. (In California, any voter can register as "permanent absentee," no reason required, and basically vote by mail.) The answer from the activists on hand was, not very. I didn't get all the details, but they felt that there were too many people with too many opportunities to tamper with the ballots between mailing and election. They recommend taking your ballot to the polling place and dropping it off in person (which kind of defeats the purpose). And they urged us to "use your polling places, because if we don't use them, we'll lose them." They're concerned that the state might go entirely vote-by-mail, like Oregon.
When I registered voters in 2004, the Democratic Party told us to encourage people to register as permanent absentees, because their statistics show permanent absentee voters are more likely to actually vote. It makes sense - not everybody has the time and ability to get to a specific place during specific hours on one Tuesday in November, but most people can get to a mailbox sometime in October. So I'm a little troubled that absentee voting, which helps more people vote, is regarded as pernicious by people who are trying to help our votes get counted.
They're big fans, as am I, of making Election Day a holiday. Or just moving it to Saturday. Write your representatives. Oh, and if you'd like to see the movie, let me know, I can get you a DVD.
4. Biked home from the movie. 7 miles, my longest ride without a break. It was a leisurely ride, and pretty nice once I got out of the creepy industrial section and past noticing the chill.
2. Saw Stealing America: Vote by Vote, a documentary about, you know. Election irregularities. I'm glad they made it, but it made me feel kind of sick. Mostly the sequences about the 2004 election - I remember what it was like, watching all those swing states with pro-Kerry exit polls fall to Bush as the night went on. And then watching the stories come out over the next few days about voters that weren't allowed to vote, machines that registered Kerry votes as Bush votes right on the screen, mysteriously missing and just uncounted votes... and watching as Kerry, Congress, and the media just did nothing. Reliving that wasn't so great.
3. At the Q&A afterward, someone asked if, as a permanent absentee voter in Santa Clara County, his vote was safe. (In California, any voter can register as "permanent absentee," no reason required, and basically vote by mail.) The answer from the activists on hand was, not very. I didn't get all the details, but they felt that there were too many people with too many opportunities to tamper with the ballots between mailing and election. They recommend taking your ballot to the polling place and dropping it off in person (which kind of defeats the purpose). And they urged us to "use your polling places, because if we don't use them, we'll lose them." They're concerned that the state might go entirely vote-by-mail, like Oregon.
When I registered voters in 2004, the Democratic Party told us to encourage people to register as permanent absentees, because their statistics show permanent absentee voters are more likely to actually vote. It makes sense - not everybody has the time and ability to get to a specific place during specific hours on one Tuesday in November, but most people can get to a mailbox sometime in October. So I'm a little troubled that absentee voting, which helps more people vote, is regarded as pernicious by people who are trying to help our votes get counted.
They're big fans, as am I, of making Election Day a holiday. Or just moving it to Saturday. Write your representatives. Oh, and if you'd like to see the movie, let me know, I can get you a DVD.
4. Biked home from the movie. 7 miles, my longest ride without a break. It was a leisurely ride, and pretty nice once I got out of the creepy industrial section and past noticing the chill.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 08:28 am (UTC)I don't think I've ever mailed back a ballot -- I've always dropped it off in an official place -- usually a library. I like libraries.
Mostly this is because of procrastination rather than concern about security. Mostly.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 04:28 pm (UTC)After McCain got the nomination, I felt a little happy that at least, whichever candidate won, we wouldn't have a global warming denier in the White House anymore. Well.
Not in the Oval Office, I guess.
At first.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 04:15 pm (UTC)I feel like in MN, at least, absentee voting is fairly secure, at long as the candidate of your choice doesn't die after you send in your ballot. Granted, there's no accounting for the post office, but I can account for how we tally the ballots. Also, I'm glad that, although we use electronic counting machines, we do still have paper ballots.
In MN, at least, it goes like this: Absentee ballot is put inside a series of envelopes - at least one has voter name, address, signature, etc., like they were signing in at the polling place. They can include a registration card if they're not registered already, since MN has same-day registration. Not sure about the number of envelopes, but anyway. All absentee ballot activities are done with pairs of judges from different parties checking each other's work.
Election judges get batches of absentee ballots 2-3 times per day. They use the outer envelope to see if the voter's ballot got directed to the correct ward/precinct - if not, it goes in a pile to be delivered to the correct place (hence the multiple batches per day). If the person's name is on the voting roster, the judges stamp "AB" (absentee) in the place where the voter's signature would be. If not and there's a registration card, they put the person's name at the end of the roster like they would do with any new registree, and mark AB. Then the ballots get put aside till the end of the day - that way if someone comes in because they absentee voted but changed their mind, they can vote and the absentee ballot will go with the other spoiled ballots.
After regular voting has closed, all ballots are opened up and judges fill out official (scannable) ballots for the voters, since the absentee ballots are not scannable - one judge reads the names of the votees, the other marks the ballot. (It might be that the original ballot is supposed to be scannable, but sometimes folds and such make it not work, and only then is the manual balloting done by the judges - I can't remember.) Then the ballots are put into the counting machine, before the end-of-day summaries are done.
All that said, I'd like to see the movie.
I've signed up for all day judging for November 4. Usually I do a half-day, but I forgot to send in my sign-up sheet this year, and they sent out a "we need all-day judges!" plea, so there I go. Sent in my sign-up this morning.
4. I haven't biked in a while, but it's getting nice again this week (70s), so I'll try to bike to work again, plus I'm doing the Urban Assault Ride with Jenny on Sunday.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 04:26 pm (UTC)I signed up to be an, ah, election officer, they call it here, but I haven't heard any details about when and where.
It's kind of funny to think of you and Jenny taking part in something called Urban Assault. Sounds like a fun event, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 02:41 am (UTC)