There are specific provisions for voters that require assistance due to disability that is already covered by the law. That is a different matter entirely.
This has nothing to do with the disabled, but only to do with those too lazy to fill in their own bubbles.
ETA:http://www.nonprofitvote.org/voting-in-your-state/special-circumstances/voting-with-a-disability/
You give two examples:
… and …
If I take my neighbor’s driver’s license and tell the polling place officials I’m that person … I am committing the crime of fraud. If my neighbor takes a print out to the polling place and casts their vote that way … it is not fraud. My neighbor has taken the proactive step to cast their ballot the way I told them to.
If I fill out my neighbor’s ballot and sign their name to it … again, that is fraud. If I fill out the ballot and my neighbor signs it themselves … it is not fraud. My neighbor has taken the proactive step to vote the way I told them to.
Remember, the neighbor still has to sign the ballot … or it won’t count … how they come to their decisions is nobody else’s business.
Just looking at the rulesfor voting for disabled people, it seem you have taken more liberties than you would be allowed if they were actually disabled and physically unable to mark their ballot.
How they come to their decision is no one’s business, but I think that actually marking the actual ballot should be done by the voter (unless they are disabled, in which case there are specific rules for how to assist). Like I said, I don’t know that it is illegal, but I would strongly suspect that it is, and if it is not, I think that it should be.
If your neighbor says that they don’t want to bother to vote on election day, and they “give you the right” to go vote in their stead, they’ll even sign you in at the registration table, and tell the poll workers “No, it’s alright, I am giving him the right to vote for me,” do you think that would be legal? Do you think that would be ethical?
You said “that’s gotta violate some laws”, and I just named them for you.
If the neighbor is there at the polling place, why doesn’t he go in and vote himself?
If the neighbor has the absentee ballot, why doesn’t he go and fill it out himself?
Like I said, I don’t know for sure whether or not your practice is illegal, but I can’t see how it is legal. There are specific provisions on what you are and are not allowed to do with the ballot of someone who is physically unable to mark it themselves, and you are going beyond what is allowed in that situation. As those provisions are put in as an exception specifically for those with disabilities, it would seem that those with no disabilities would have even fewer allowances.
Perhaps if you could explain why this seems unethical to you, then maybe we could better understand why you think it should be illegal.
Because you are filling out someone else’s ballot. You are voting for people that they may not necessarily have voted for. You are voting when they may not have necessarily (and by your statement, likely) have voted at all.
The ballot is supposed to be secret. You are violating that secrecy. The ballot is supposed to be up to the voter to decide, you are deciding for them.
As far as reasons to have such activities be illegal, I can think of several ways to use what you are doing for nefarious purpose.
I am sure that you are highly ethical, and would never do anything like this, but if I knew that you were voting for a dozen or so others, I might ask you to go ahead and mark all those ballots for my candidate or issue, and I’ll give you a bit of money, or some other compensation for that.
You don’t know that your neighbors actually appreciate your help. They may just let you fill in their ballot because they don’t want you to be upset with them.
If you were like “Hey, come on over on Thursday, I’ll fill out your ballot for you, then you can sign it and send it off.” Then refusing that offer may be more rude than they are comfortable with. You may be imposing without even knowing it.
If you neighbor says “Hey, fill out my ballot for me, but I do want to vote for ‘x’” then not only do they have to check to make sure that you voted for “x” rather than your preferred candidate, but you know that they voted for “x”, rather than your preferred candidate, and that may have an effect on whether or not they disagree with you on their own ballot.
I can think of a few more reasons why I think it is a terrible idea to be voting on someone else’s ballot, but that would take even longer to try to explain.
Let me know if you do not consider these reasons to be good enough to protect the integrity and secrecy of our ballot process, and I will try to explain more in depth. I have spent some time looking into seeing if your activity is legal or not, and while I think it leans toward illegal, based on the rules that you have to follow when assisting someone with a disability (which you are breaking), but if someone who actually knows or can cite the answer, it would be appreciated.
You have not answered whether or not you think it would or should be legal for your neighbor to give you the right to vote for him at the polling place on election day. Do you think that would be legal, if not, why would filling in the mail-in-ballot be any different? If you agree that it is illegal, do you think it should be?
Yes and no. I agree with your concerns, but they are designed to prevent someone who is only a physical assistant from taking the choice out of someone’s hands, effectively “stealing” their vote.
If the person freely and willingly allows someone to fill their in their ballot, and sees and does not disagree with that choice afterwards, then I don’t see a problem - other than a dozen or more people who pay a whack of taxes (I assume) but let someone else decide how to pick the people who decide how to spend those taxes - which to me is the best argument for a moderate amount of civic participation.
First, IANAL.
A cursory reading of Oregon law (ORS § 254.445) seems that it might be a problem to actually mark a ballot for another in the way you describe. Not sure it is fraud, per se, but it seems to run afoul of the language of the law for assisting others to mark their ballots.
If your neighbor is not physically capable of marking the ballot or is unable to read or write then they can choose you to mark their ballot for them, subject to the limitations in section (2) above. But if they just don’t want to bother to mark the official ballot… no.
You CAN show them a sample ballot that you have marked and encourage them to mark their ballot just like that.
I am registered to vote and do vote in both Canada and the US. I voted in the national election a year ago and have voted already in this election. I don’t think I have violated any laws.
Getting back to the OP, note how little voter ID requirements would have affected dual voting.
Here in Minnesota, in my training as an Election Judge, they actually trained us in how to do just that – fill out a ballot for a voter who asks. (It’s usually elderly or disabled people who do so, but anyone could ask, and we are prohibited from asking them why they can’t do it themself.)
Yes, here in Minnesota, it is. Any voter can bring a helper with them to the polls, and that person can even go into the voting booth with them. Doesn’t even have to be a legally registered voter – fairly common to have teenage children translating the ballot for their adult parents/grandparents who don’t speak or read English.
But presumably the training required you to fill out the ballot as the voter directed, and not as you yourself thought best in the absence of any direction from the voter.
Do you ask them how they want it filled out, making sure that each of their choices is represented on the ballot, or do you just fill it in the way you would like?
Can those parents/grandparents just send their children/grandchildren into the booth to vote for them, or would it be required for them to enter the booth and make their own choices on the ballot?
Yes, what watchwolf is doing is highly unethical. It’s exactly what the “associations” of the mid-1800s were about, and what formed the backbones of the political machines. Local individuals who could “command” a certain number of votes - not only make sure that votes were going in a certain direction but also ensuring that the voters made it to the polls.
At 15 guaranteed votes, watchwolf would be a relatively small fry, but he’s just getting started. Now that he commands 15 votes, he can go to his other neighbors and get them on with the “Watchwolf49 Association.” At around a hundred loyal voters, the local political machine will come calling to make offers and, if he plays his cards right, he can parlay that into a (totally legitimate because he’s only acting in the interest of his neighbors, believe him when he tells you) career of public service.
I don’t know about recent developments, but back about 15-16 years ago, the Texas registered voter rolls were kept at the county level.
How do I know? I originally registered in Houston when I was in high school (turned 18 my senior year), and stayed registered in that precinct until 1999, when I moved to Plano, TX and registered to vote there.
Fast forward to that November, and I went and voted where I lived (for school board, I think), and I got a call from my dad where he says “Hey- have you registered to vote up there yet?” I replied that I had, and had even voted already. He said “Hmmm… well they don’t know that down here. I noticed your name just below mine on the signature list, and the woman seemed baffled when I pointed out to her that you live in Plano now.”
I went and duly filled out and mailed the appropriate form to Harris county, but it took at least another election before they took me off the list and stopped sending me jury duty notices.
So I suppose if I’d been of a fraudulent mindset, I could have voted in both places without anyone being the wiser.
I think this makes the case k9bfriender has been trying to put forward. My behavior is as unethical as any political party’s behavior. However unethical, these are protected rights under the Free Association portion of the 1st Amendment.
The ultimate question here is whether the Government can regulate how a voter makes their decisions; be it coin flipping, studious evaluation or just having your neighbor fill out the ballot. Seems to me a greater restriction to an individual’s Liberty to make such regulations. This is akin to setting the vote counting machine to reject all ballots that vote a straight Democrat ticket, or ballots that vote “no” on all the propositions.
These ballots will be arriving any day now … I’ll read through the literature when they do and let everyone know if it specifically says I can’t fill out anothers ballot.
I would say that it is more akin to not allowing another voter to take your place at the polls. The government doesn’t care how you make your decision, but they do have an interest in ensuring that it is in fact YOUR decision.
You could very well be correct in that it is legal. I have not found any specific laws against what you are doing (but my legal fu sucks.) The closest I found to laws were restrictions on how much help you may give a voter with a disability, and you are exceeding those restrictions by a very large margin.
I personally feel it to be very unethical, and I am very surprised that I have not come across a law specifically forbidding your practice. I consider the secrecy of the ballot to be extremely important. I will tell people who I support, who I will likely vote for, who I think they should vote for, but I will never say how I voted, as I feel that that information is between me and the ballot, and is not, nor should it be, anyone else’s business. By voting for them, you completely eliminate that aspect of privacy. In fact, if you are helping a disabled person with their ballot, you are specifically not allowed to say how they voted on any issues. You have told us how all of your neighbors have voted, violating their right to a secret ballot.
When I help people with their ballots, many of them do not live in the same city or county as I do. (Same state, but I live right on a county line, with a bunch of municipalities around) They have different issues to vote for, different candidates for local offices. In that case, would you still just go ahead and vote those ballots? You talk about how you vote to keep your taxes down. Does that mean you vote against school levies? Do any of your friends have kids? Is voting against the levy actually in their best interest? I always talk to my friends about such issues, and explain about what they should expect to pay in taxes if a measure passes, and what sorts of benefits the community may receive from passing said levy. Some of my friends don’t care about community, and just don’t want their taxes to go up, some don’t care as much about a few dollars a month if it means that the local park gets maintained. Do you do any of that, or do you just fill in their votes for them?
There is no law against someone filling out another person’s ballot, per se. In New York, while they still had voting machines, a blind voter could ask the help of an election official to pull the levers for them, for instance. They could also have a friend in the voting booth to make the choices.
I would go into a voting booth with my mother to watch her vote. It would have been perfectly fine if she let me pull a lever.
There is also no reason you can’t show your vote or ballot to others. You can’t be compelled to but if you want to tell people who you voted for, that’s your right.
Now the voter has to be present when voting in person, and has to sign any absentee ballot (the signature is then compared to the BOE records). But another person can mark the ballot without penalty.
Although all this is something of a diversion from my OP’s main focus, I agree with k9bfriender and Johnny Bravo that watchwolf49’s behavior, as he has described it, is improper, unethical, and possibly illegal. For me, the real issue that watchwolf49 hasn’t really answered is the agency of the people whose ballots he’s filling out.
Do you know who and what they want to vote for? Here’s what you originally wrote:
Okay, so they’re bringing you the forms. That much is their choice. But how well do you know how they feel about the candidates and the issues? Do you fill out all the forms exactly the same way? If so, that would raise some red flags in my mind, since it seems unlikely to me that any group of 16 people would vote precisely the same way (assuming there are more than a few candidates and propositions on the ballot).
How closely do they examine the ballot? Do they ask you about the issues? Do they ever ask you to change the ballot, and if so, do you? If these are relatively apathetic voters who don’t care much about the election, maybe they shouldn’t vote. If they are just letting you fill out the ballot with your preferences because they don’t care one way or another, then I think what you are doing is highly unethical, and should be illegal if it is not.
What does this mean? Is there undocumented coercion?
This last bit makes it obvious that you know very well that you are getting away with something improper.
I think what you’re doing is wrong, unethical, and probably should be illegal. If we were neighbors, I’d be inclined to report you to the local election board.