3. Absentee voting has its downsides, as well. Granted, this was (with any luck) a fluke occurrence, but when Wellstone died a couple of weeks before the election, anyone who had sent in an absentee ballot didn't get a vote in that race unless they were able to make it to the polls and replace their absentee ballot with an in-person ballot.
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.
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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.