In MD, they (Party X) are mailing out absentee ballots like candy. So, is this an invite to vote twice? Any MD Dopers know what safeguards are in place? Have SDopers in other states seen this activity, too? And if so, what safeguards are in your state?
I used to vote by absentee ballot in Delaware and I’m considering signing up for a ballot in Maryland, too. They sent a very complicated set of colored envelopes and a pretty simple ballot to me. From what I remember, the safeguard is that they have a list of who is allowed to vote, and when they send you an absentee ballot, they make a note of it on the voter rolls. If you show up to vote in person, I believe you have to hand in your absentee ballot (which has a serial number on the envelope or somesuch). I remember the instructions I received were pretty clear about this – once I asked for the absentee ballot, it was the only way I would be permitted to vote, and if I showed up at the polls, I’d have to bring it with me and still use that ballot to cast my vote.
Not sure if the rules are the same here in Maryland, but both parties are encouraging the use of absentee ballots, so I imagine they both have a stake in ensuring every a.v. gets counted.
In Florida anyone can vote by absentee ballot, but as Jurph said, they keep track of who they’ve sent one to and if you show up to vote at the polls you have to do so with your absentee ballot. From the Florida Division of Elections page:
When you mail your ballot back in, you have to place it in an outer sleeve that contains a bar code that can track that you’ve sent it back. The ballot itself is completely anonymous but they will still know that you have been sent one and whether they’ve received it back.
What I failed to mention explicitly is that some voting law must have recently changed. You used to have to REQUEST an absentee ballot and have a reason. Now, they’re mailing these things out in bulk. Not only do I wonder how this can be legal, but HOW can it be legal to represent only one party? Shouldn’t an absentee ballot be omni-partisan? 
The Maryland Republican Party is mailing out applications for absentee ballots, not absentee ballots. The board of elections is the entity that mails out absentee ballots.
Isn’t it difficult enough getting Americans to vote once? 
Apparently only limited regions of the state are getting these applications for absentee ballots. Perhaps the Republican party is only sending them to areas where the majority of the voters are Republicans. (My apartment complex, which is probably majority black and definitely only has a minority of its residents being non-Hispanic whites, is not such an area.) Where do you live? Incidentally, you should read your mail more closely. Being sent applications for absentee ballots may tell us something about party electoral strategy but not much else. Being sent actual absentee ballots without requesting them is a much bigger issue. It would mean someone is committing fraud.
I’m hoping that someone will scare up something for this thread about Republican strategies from the last few elections, since I know I read someplace about their use of absentee ballots. There was a connection, and I have received some e-mails from Democratic sites informing me that they, too, were going to employ some of these tactics for upcoming elections. There is some sort of connection here, but I can’t quite dredge it up. I’ll be watching this thread closely for the political aspect of this issue. xo, C.
hmmm, I didn’t write and post fast enough. Wendell Wagner has raised that issue already. I’ll stay tuned. xo, C.
I received the mailing, and an automated phone call, probably because I’m registered as a Republican. It certainly isn’t because I live in a hotbed of Republican activity. It seems like I always end up living in places where the Democratic primary is the “real election”.
At least it isn’t the People’s Republic of Takoma Park.
The dems are sending them out as well. My wife got one from them last week, and she thought the same thing until she read it. We’re in Montgomery county.
In Minnesota, you can request an absentee ballot, fill it out, and mail it back. Then on election day it is sent to the precinct where you are registered to vote, and voted & counted there.
But you can still show up at the precinct on election day, and vote in person. In that case, your absentee ballot is discarded. The election judges at the precinct keep track to make sure people don’t vote twice.
Hey, vote early, vote often … that’s my motto
Here in Oregon, we don’t have a choice, eveyone has to vote by mail. Or at least the ballots are all mailed out. You can turn you ballot in personally instead of mailing it back in if you want.
Interesting history of vote-by-mail here. At one time (this would be the 90s), the Republicans used to send out absentee ballot applications only to registered Republicans. This tended to give them an advantage, or at least equal things out, since there are more registered Dems in this state. (Why the Dems didn’t counter by mailing out their own absentee apps is something I never understood.)
Then it was proposed (by the Sec of State, IIRC) to have all elections be vote-by-mail. The Democrats were opposed to this, since they thought that this would favor the Republicans based on the history of them with high numbers of absentee voters. I think the legislature was controlled by the Ds at the time, so it didn’t get passed.
Then came a special election (I believe this was to fill Bob Packwood’s senate seat after he resigned) where the Sec of State ruled that it was to be vote-by-mail. IIRC, this was mainly to save money, since it costs the state less to vote that way than traditional polling places. I think he didn’t have enough money in his budget to run the special election in the traditional manner.
Well, the Democrats were apparently expecting to lose that election, but (surprise, surprise) they won. Now, things were reversed. Republicans opposed vote-by-mail while Democrats wanted it. I think by this time, the Rs controlled the legislature, so we had to have an initiative to make vote-by-mail be the standard voting method. I believe the first presidential election with this was 2004, but it may have been 2000.
I think you’ll find that every state has measures to prevent absentee voters from voting twice. So, why are parties encouraging people to vote absentee? Two reasons (that I can see.)
The first is that absentee voters are more likely to vote. Besides that, every AV is somebody the party doesn’t have to call and/or transport on election day.
The other part is the widespread suspicion that the new computer voting machines can be rigged or hacked by somebody. The AV bypasses the machines, and the paper votes must be counted by hand.
Not in Minnesota! The Absentee Ballots go right thru the same machines as all the other votes at that precinct.
But of course, we use paper ballots with optical scan counters for all votes.
I am not a republican, but I have given money to a Republican candidate–which is how I think I got on the mailing list that sent me something similar. It was an alarmist thing about how the liberals would take over if good folks like me failied to vote. Attached was an absentee voter application, but let’s be clear here: It was NOT an absentee ballot.
In Michigan you are only allowed to vote absentee under certain circumstance, and affirming that at least one of the conditions applied to be was part of this application. My state is like others mentioned–the clerks keep track of who was sent an actual absentee ballot. THose names are highlighted on the voter rolls and election workers at the voter’s precinctr can see this. Those voters, should they choose to vote in person, would be turned away unless they surrendered their absentee ballot. Absentee ballots are tallied either by the clerk, an absentee ballot board, or by the precinct workers in the voter’s precinct. (In any election, it will be decided well ahead of time which of these parties will do it).
When the absentees are processed, they are checked against a list, too (the mailing envelope keeps the actual voting choices hidden, and workers record the ID before ripping it off and anonymizing the ballot and allowing it to be counted). So… technically no one should be able to vote twice, although it’s possible that if the precinct doesn’t catch it on check in, no one would know the person voted twice until after the fact. There is no way to recall the ballot submitted, so no way to cancel out the vote, but the voter could be in hot water.
Thank you for clarifying that. I couldn’t believe that it would be the responsibility of the political parties themselves to post out absentee ballot papers.
Seeing AskNott’s comment, I wanted to clarify that when I said “Tallied” I meant the AV ballots are run through the exact same machines used for ballots voted in person.
Heck, sometimes the parties can’t even get more than one county application form. I had someone ring my bell who was going around passing out stuff for Richardson and asking if people were interested in absentee voting. I said sure, if you can get me an application that I can send up to Bernalillo County (I’m currently in Dona Ana county, about three hours away.) She didn’t have any of those, so I had to get in touch with the Bernalillo County Clerk for an application in the district I’ll be voting in, although I’m sure that the forms are exactly the same except for maybe the preprinted Clerk offices address.
Absentee voting drives by parties have become quite the ‘strategy of choice’ during the last several election cycles. And a good deal of the reason is because it allows parties to ‘lock in’ votes. This can be especially useful if a party believes that, for whatever reason, they’re at a peak in popularity. If a voter places a vote then for the party’s candidate that candidate could pull a Foley yet still get that voter’s ballot.