In Oregon, every election is done under the vote by mail system. This system was adopted several years ago.
I think vote by mail is superior to the polling places for several reasons:
(1) It gives people more time to reflect upon their decisions, and read the ballot
(2) Nobody needs to miss work to vote. No longer does the excuse “I had work that day” hold water. If you don’t vote, you’re simply too apathetic to participate in the political process, nothing else is holding you back.
I’ve voted by mail in CA for years. You need to sign up for an absentee ballot, but that’s very easy to do. The funny thing, though, is that where I live we’ve used a very crude version of the punch card ballot. It’s actually the same ballot, but since you don’t have the machine frame with which to support the ballot, you end up punching out the chad in your hand with the end of what looks like a bent paper clip. 100% of the time, the chad is still there and you have to flip over the ballot and pull it off with your fingers.
Anyway, it’s not really difficult to do, but does require the voter to be patient and careful.
Well, everyone knows that OR is superion to CA, right?
Hey, we could squash you with our little fingers if we wanted to. And if Arnold gets elected, we just might smaaash your puny girrrrrly bodies veez our mahsive biceps.
I also live in Oregon and I have never voted any other way besides by mail. At first I voted as absentee, and then the law was passed making everything vote by mail. I voted against that measure. I enjoy voting by mail because I care about the issues but I am lazy and would rather stay home and vote than go to a polling place if I had the choice. However, I believe we should have the choice whether to vote by mail or polling place. And it makes it easier for voting fruad. I knew a kid back in high school that filled out his parents ballots and had them sign it. He basically got to vote 3 times, although his parents would probably voted the same way. Also, vote by mail makes it easier to vote, which I don’t necessarily think is a good thing. Only people who are interested and informed should vote. If everyone was mailed a ballot and voted because it was easy, then we would have uninformed voters and we’d pass stupid ballot measures and elect bozos to office. Oh wait, that happens anyway.
In summary, I don’t think vote by mail is any more advantages or disadvantages than traditional polling places.
The polling place is a method to guarantee the anonymity and non-purchase of votes. Since the absentee ballots are so heavily regulated to ensure that they aren’t abused, it is easy to trace each vote the voter. Additionally, if one is offered compensation to vote for question X, with the ballot box there is no way to enforce the contract. The same is not true of mail-in/absentee voting.
