I desperately hope this won't get lost in the election diaries, particularly as so many diaries pushing vote by mail are getting recommended up (or even front pages).
BTW - huge fan of Markos so not taking a shot.
But... Vote by mail would be a disaster of unspeakable proportions for this country and worse for our side in particular.
Vote by mail fundamentally removes one of the most important principles of democracy. A safe, secure place to vote in privacy free from intimidation or influence.
In the UK they tried a move to vote by mail and experienced widespread fraud for the first time in generations. In some hihgly religious communities (far less common in the UK than the US) there was a well documented problem of heads-of-household voting for entire families whether the family members wanted them to or not. And the participation increase was a blip.
Oregon is not South Carolina, or Texas, or Georgia, or .... the rest of the South
Do people on here not realise how many people live in relationships where they are not able to speak freely about dissenting political views - the wife who votes D but whose husband votes R and believes she does too, suddenly either lets the cat out of the bag or quitely shifts her vote. You think this won't happen?
Have you learned nothing from the last six years of Republican attempts to subvert democracy? Isn't it just possible that Oregon represents a small part of the country but that if vote-by-mail went nationwide the Republicans would turn their attention to vote-by-mail fraud?
As I have posted in comments elsewhere you think the following won't happen?
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at a megachurch near you...
PASTOR: Now all remember to bring your ballots in next week...
next week
PASTOR: Now let's turn to the election. In race one, Jesus wants you to vote Rick Santorum (R). In race two, it's... oh - be a good Christian and help your neighbour - make sure they don't make a mistake.
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Vote by mail doesn't eliminate the other vote count rigging problems that are potentially there with a vote on paper in a ballot box system. But it adds the potential for mass fraud and intimidation on an unprecedented scale. I am glad Oregonions feel it works for them. Nationwide it would be a disaster.
There are SERIOUS problems with voting right now but the answer is not to abandon a fundamental principle of democracy but to spend the money on making a system work. (We can give up the vote altogether and the Republicans may stop bullying us - but noone on here backs that idea do they?)
I am not talking about removing the necessary absentee ballots... but DO NOT MOVE all the way there to vote by mail. Voting outside of the voting booth will benefit their side more than ours as they are naturally authoritarian like that.
Sure do the following:
1) Open polls longer - have polling on a weekend - both days - a full 48 hour opening - heck make it a national holiday with long voting hours and make it illegal to make someone work a shift that spans the entire voting period
2) Have more polling stations
3) All paper ballots
4) All hand counting in public with large viewing areas
5) National standards
6) Cut the national and local elections off from one another to make the ballots simpler - solve low local turnout another way don't just hamstring national elections for the benefit of local (heck if i had my way we'd stop voting on some of the things we vote on that should NOT be elected positions)
...ah you guys will have more good ideas
...but VOTE BY MAIL is not one of them....
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UPDATE: By the way - Yes I have been to Oregon and I love the place. But I also know it ain't the South. And the comment I left about the rain - not a bad thing - I originate from England (before moving to the US) - rain is our national pastime like baseball is yours. But I also thought Oregonions (sp?) were proud of their exceptionalism - which makes their example a little dodgy to apply nationwide.
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UPDATE II: Just for interest's sake i added a poll on this - it is late in the cycle - many who will read have already done so - but thought i'd give it a go to see what kind of lean there is one way or another on here
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UPDATE III: Just noticed i made recommended - thank you everyone who recommended me. This community should be called many-times-dailykos for me as i am an addict so, I am very happy you are all reading about a topic so close to my heart, as you all give me so much to think about so often.
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UPDATE IV: More a brief point than an update - but I hail from the UK originally, and back home it is NOT unusual for spouses not to know what party the other votes for. We take privacy of vote very seriously. Perhaps the forced declaration system - party registration (and I know about independent option) - has the effect of undermining the value of privacy of vote to our detriment.
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FINAL UPDATE: I promise. Look, I don't believe in a panacea. But the VBM pros need to remember that the problems at voting stations we are experiencing are not inherent to paper ballot democracy. They are the result of the systematic and deliberate corrupting of the system we have allowed to happen over decades. Until we remove that systematic corruption any new system will be corrupted by those same forces - and VBM is particularly susceptible to the kinds of corruption they are good at. And once we remove the corruption the poll-going experience won't be so bad - and if you still hate it, vote absentee.
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SORRY CANNOT HOLD BACK:
I keep hearing below that it is only a tiny minority that could be prevented from voting under paranoid assumptions about VBM. Well, even if it is only tiny they still deserve to vote. And current harassment is only a tiny minority - but it is visible and we can/should do something about it. We cannot if they are behind closed doors. Tiny minorities move elections too.