http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40032-2004Dec31.html
Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury has written an op-ed in the Washington Post promoting voting by mail. He makes a convincing case that this reform will reduce the possibility of fraud and increase voter participation to record levels. Over 87% of Oregon's registered voters voted on November 2nd. This will completely eliminate the long lines which were so prevalent in Ohio and other places.
Voting by mail in Oregon has resulted in significantly fewer problems in Oregon than in many other Western states. Verified Voting's database has 51 recorded problems for Oregon, 442 for Nevada, 321 for Washington, 1142 for Colorado, and 1526 for Arizona.
Below are some of Bradbury's comments in italics.
With two weeks to conduct public education and get-out-the-vote efforts, Oregonians were surrounded by civic engagement reminders. Oregonians have also started a new communal experience: voting at home, showing their children the ballot and talking to them about how important it is to vote.
This creates a self-perpetuating process which ensures high voter participation in any given election.
Oregonians receive ballots in the mail two weeks before Election Day, allowing ample time to research issues, review and mark the ballot, and eliminating the need to stand in long lines waiting for a polling booth.
This reduces the phenomena of impulse voting, where people don't make up their minds until the last minute. Many people voted for Bush out of fear. This helps people make rational decisions instead of fearful decisions.
Voters are busy, but voting fits their schedule if they may return their ballot at any time during those two weeks and up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Voters may mail their ballots or save a stamp by dropping them off in person at any of the official sites located throughout the state. The earlier that ballots come in, the more time election officials have to check for any problems and to process the ballots to ensure that every vote counts. With a large number of ballots received before Election Day, the first tally released on election night contained nearly 50 percent of the vote and proved to be an accurate predictor of the final numbers.
This saves the long lines that were so prevalent in Ohio and Des Moines, IA. Also, the easy job the Oregon officials is in big contrast to the Albuquerque County Clerk. I saw TV footage of her and she was completely overwhelmed by the task.
Vote-by-mail provides an automatic paper trail. Every vote-by-mail ballot is read by reliable optical scan machines, and the paper is available should a hand recount become necessary.
This is not foolproof. If someone like Blackwell ever comes to power, we could see a repeat of 2004.
Mailed ballots are not forwarded by the post office, and the constant updating of voter rolls provided by returned ballots allows Oregon to have accurate and updated voter rolls without the risk of partisan purges.
Many of the complaints in the Verified Voting database involved this issue. Whether through sloppy recordkeeping or partisan purges, hundreds of thousands of people didn't get to vote on November 2nd.
Without polling places, vote-by-mail eliminates the expensive and time-consuming recruitment and training of poll workers. As a result, the cost of a vote-by-mail election is nearly 30 percent less than the cost of a polling place election.
This is an excellent way to bring anti-tax conservatives on board. They will jump at anything that will keep them from paying more taxes.
Centralized supervision and control of ballot processing by elections officials in county elections offices, instead of dispersed polling places, maintains uniformity and strict compliance with law throughout the state.
This also eliminates the practice of jamming several precincts into one building like Blackwell did. This contributed to the long lines due to thousands of people waiting to get in. This also reduces the problem of poll workers who don't have a clue when a problem breaks out and eliminates intimidating people waiting like hawks to pounce on victims.
We cannot curse the darkness if we don't come up with a better plan. Kerry tried to be ABB, but failed. In the same way, we must offer alternatives to the present broken system. Only then will every vote count throughout the land.