Dopers in vote by mail states, help a feller out

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My county in suburban Baltimore just finished up eight days of early voting during which just under 5,000 voters were checked through. My colleagues and I working the polls calculated roughly that the county incurred somewhere around $200k in seasonal election help, or about $40 per vote, which seems like an exorbitant cost to give people the warm and fuzzies about voting in person.

So before I begin advocating for Maryland to become the ninth state to use all vote by mail, I’m hoping to hear from my friends here in the other VBM states: how does it work where you are? What’s good, what’s bad?

2

Colorado VBM is pretty much all good, no bad, but that’s my opinion.

The good. I can’t stress this enough, but I can do all my research right by the computer. Sure, that takes some parsing, and digging through various levels of political and business propaganda, but when voting on several dozen different local measures, many of which are boiled down on the ballot to 1-2 sentences, and the voting booklet to 1-2 paragraphs (at best!), it makes it a LOT easier to find the hidden lines or two that turns a measure from “where’s the harm” to “Oh no you DIDN’T!”.

Furthermore, when picking candidates, I can look at their pasts, not just the current election cycle. What did they vote on, what did they vote against, etc etc etc.

Mechanically it isn’t much of a bother for an involved voter, the only negative is really having to fill out all those scantron bubbles, and of course, not having an excuse for NOT voting.

I get my ballot in the mail, a reminder if I haven’t submitted it, and text alerts (had to sign up for those) when my ballot is received by the state and another when processed.

Granted, since I live in such a red part of a blue-ish state, I am just a smidge paranoid (as I’ve said before there are two people within 1/2 a mile of me still flying Trump 2020 banners!) and do take an extra trip during major (non local) elections to dump them in a ballot drop box rather than just the mailbox, but it’s a minor issue and since many of them are drive through, it’s still a LOT less work than going to a polling place, waiting, and so forth.

3

It’s been a huge success in Washington state. I’ve googled repeatedly and can’t find any glitches or problems. There have only been a handful of bad votes and they’ve been easily caught. I worked for the county elections during the county’s first all-mail-in voting election in 2008. Every ballot was checked and cross-checked and verified. The head of Elections who ran it all was a Republican.

4

Are any in-person voting sites open during election day or early voting?

5

Huh, around here (Ohio), early voting is exactly the same process as mail voting. There are just vote drop-off places at the Board of Elections, but the ballot you drop off there, if you choose, is exactly the same as the ballot you drop in a mailbox.

6

Yes, there are in-person voting sites in Washington for people who want to vote in person on election day. Not for early voting, though.

7

Ninja’d by @needscoffee

8

Do they keep the number of in-person sites low to discourage their use and encourage voters to use mail or drop boxes?

Chronos, here in Maryland we have 8 days of in-person early voting. My county is required by state law to have three early voting sites (it’s based on county population) as opposed to the 25 sites we’ll run on election day proper.

I’ve done the canvass here, too, so I know for a fact that we can process mail in ballots for a fraction of the cost of in person.

Oh, only 17,000 of the county’s 130,000 registered voters requested mail in ballots for the primary. I may be a lonely voice calling for total VBM.

9

They keep the number of in-person sites low because they’re simply not needed. Most people would rather vote at their own convenience and not take off from work to go vote when they don’t need to.

10

Looks like I was wrong about early in-person voting.
https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/helpful-information/frequently-asked-questions-voting-mail

Each county opens an accessible voting center prior to each primary, special election, and general election. Each voting center is open during business hours during the voting period, which begins eighteen days before, and ends at 8:00 p.m. on the day of, the primary, special election, or general election.

11

Oregon. The ballot comes in the mail about 2 weeks before the election. ALL elections are by mail. You can mark it and send it back right away, or research the issues and the people to vote for, and mail it back when you are ready. There is no specific date other than before the election date. There is a place to sign the ballot and your signature should match the one that they already have on file from when you registered to vote. You can’t really fill out someone else’s ballot unless you have them sign it or can imitate their signature well.

Or just toss the ballot in the garbage if you chose to. Very easy.

12

In Oregon before the state went all vote by mail, our local county clerk started recommending that everyone register as an absentee voter and get their ballot in the mail.

By the time VBM became official, everyone I knew was already getting an absentee ballot in the mail. The transition to official VBM was just a formality.

13

The website isn’t updated for the next set of elections, but last IIRC there were 7-8 in person locations for voting here in Colorado Springs, and a huge number of secure drop off boxes, all of which would be valid as long as you did the drop off no later than 7pm on Election day (or, if you were to Vote In Person, were in line to vote prior to 7pm).

A huge effort has also been made to allow voting for persons with disability, up to and including a very limited electronic voting option (several more steps to jump through) for those who needed additional help. Generally, it’s all about making it easier to vote, rather than harder. Including how even if you lack an ID, but are legally eligible (just to head off the RWNJ) to vote, how they can help you secure a provisional ballot so that you can exercise your rights as a citizen.

14

Agree with the VBM in Oregon. When I first moved up here (1991), I still had to go to a polling site (maybe not had to, but didn’t know anything about the absentee ballot option at that time). It’s a good thing to have time to research, mark my ballot, and I drop it in the dropbox at our local library on the way to work in the morning. Have not heard anything along the lines of scandalous voting fraud, and I’ll stop my train of thought there.

15

We’ve had vote-by-mail here in Illinois for maybe a decade or so, but we still have in-person voting, as well.

Getting the mail ballot is fairly straightforward, but I think you have to request it specifically for each election (though I believe you can do that online). We have in-person early voting for several weeks prior to elections, and in-person election-day voting seems to be, as far as I can tell, more or less exactly the same way that it was done prior to the widespread introduction of mail voting; my voting precinct location is at the same school that it’s been at for over twenty years.

16

I like voting in Colorado, I get an email when the ballots go out letting me know to look out for it. Then I can fill it out at my leisure and there is a drop box just a few blocks away I can hit when I go to the grocery store. I get an email when it is collected and another when it has been verified. I’m done voting by the end of October with email confirmation that my vote has been accepted.

17

Just a shout out for California, which has very strong vote by mail, and as far as I can see there is no down side. There are also drop boxes where you can drop your ballot, if you don’t want to mail it, or you can turn it in to your voting location on election day, in the envelope, if that’s your jam. Mailed ballots may be getting some sort of priority treatment by USPS, because I usually get the “we got your ballot” notification within a couple of days.

The only reason I can see for anyone objecting to vote by mail is to disenfranchise voters who are more likely to use it. But that’s just my opinion.

18

Here in Maryland we work really hard to help people vote, too, including same day registration. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from voting, it just seems like we have a high percentage of voters here who would balk at relinquishing in-person voting.

Which leads me to the question: when the transition was made, how much resistance was there?

But, especially since I’m a Provisional Judge myself, I was indeed wondering how VBM states handle voters with complicated eligibility issues.

19

What price democracy?

I’m all in favor of VBM, and any other practice that makes it likely that more people will vote. So IMHO the expense of in-person voting shouldn’t be a factor if it generates votes that otherwise might not have been cast. Compared to other things governments spend money on, it’s money well spent.

If VBM becomes more widely accepted by all voters, then maybe early IPV can be scaled back further. But I’d be very wary of using the expense of any given outing mechanism as an excuse for eliminating it. Slippery slope, and all that.

ETA, don’t underestimate the importance of “warm and fuzzies.” It’s very important that people feel good about voting and about their country. Voting is not merely an intellectual process.

20

I was digging around and managed to find my March 5 primary ballot (El Paso County, Colorado) instructions, which I’m uploading to Imgur.

Imgur

First page, with instructions, dates, “I voted” sticker (the warm fuzzies mentioned), and note the bottom left where it reminds me that as an unaffiliated voter (technically libertarian, but that’s another thread) I have been sent both Republican and Democratic Primary ballots but can only submit one.

Imgur

Second page with 24 hour secure drop off locations (blue) and VSPC [ voter service and polling centers] along with dates and hours for in-person help, accessible voting options, in person voting options, replacement ballots, and voter registration on site. And websites, local phone #, email facebook and Xitter.

It’s never going to be perfect, but feel it shows a substantial amount of thought and planning to make the process available to all.