On June 10, the U.S. House Administration Committee passed three bills by Congressmember Susan Davis, a Democrat from San Diego. All three of these bills only relate to federal elections.
HR 1604 would require states to let any eligible voter vote by mail. Currently, 22 states do not let any voter vote by mail unless that voter alleges that he or she will be away from home, or is physically unable to visit a polling place on election day. This bill has 50 co-sponsors and passed Committee by a vote of 4-2. It had been introduced on March 19 and is called the “Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act.”
HR 2510 grants money to states to establish systems to track absentee ballots, so that a voter who votes absentee can learn if the ballot is on the way to him or her, and also if it was received and counted afterwards. HR 2510 was introduced May 20, has 4 co-sponsors, and passed on a voice vote. It is called the “Absentee Ballot Track, Receive and Confirm Act.”
HR 512 makes it illegal for a state’s chief elections officer to engage in any partisan political activity on behalf of a candidate for federal office, much like the original Hatch Act of 1939 that forbade all federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. This bill was introduced on January 14, has 2 co-sponsors, and was passed on a voice vote. It is called the “Federal Election Integrity Act.”
HR 1604 should be called the “Couch Potato Democracy Act.” They want the dumbest, most ignorant, most apathetic people to participate in every election. The next step is having people go door-to-door, reading the ballot for each voter, and marking a candidate whenever you grunt. I call that the “Caveman’s Right to Vote Act.”
HR 2510 really offends me, because I always go in person to vote and I’ve never received any kind of confirmation or assurance that my vote was counted!
HR 512 is just a complete violation of the 1st amendment. In the spirit of integrity I would hope a Chief Elections Officer would refrain from participating in political activities, but if the Chief Elections Officer was supporting a specific candidate would it matter whether or not they did so publicly?
I have come around to being in favor of all-mail balloting. Having polling places is very expensive for taxpayers. All-mail balloting is cheaper than paying one-day employees to sit all day at a polling place, plus the government must often pay one-day rent for the location, plus polling place voting is frequently combined with very expensive vote-counting machines that people tend to distrust anyway. Oregon and almost every county in Washington seem to get along fine with all-mail balloting.
There is no reason 21st century elections should be limited to 18th century technology any more than one should be olbligated to read the news only in print.
As far as elections officers, elections absolutely should NOT be under the control of partisan officials. How can an election be perceived as fair (whether or not it actually is) when it is run by people with a vested interest in one side or the other winning? I would like to see elections run by non-partisan career professionals, as federal elections in Canada are. You’ll notice that Canadian elections seldom end up in court as virtually every US election seems to.
I would totally disagree with Martin @1 on all three bills.
I’ve voted by mail for 16 years, and I prefer it, and precinct polling places tend to be a haphazard and expensive operation. Plus allowing vote-by-mail gives voters more flexibility, and creating choices and options for the people is always a good thing. Labeling voters who vote by mail as dumb or stupid doesn’t follow, because as we see from how statists get elected, bad voting happens as much as, if not more, in the voting booth.
As for the tracking bill, the funds can be simply applied to make all mail ballots certified mail with return receipts in both directions. Problem solved.
As for the election officials, that one was inspired by the nefarious activities of one Ken Blackwell when he was SoS of OH and engaged in highly unethical and dubious activities on the Bush campaign in 2004, but it was roadblocked by the GOP until now. Frankly, the real solution, as Jerry Baker alludes to in #3, is to make the elections board hired nonpartisan or politically independent and get skill sets in there instead of political hacks.
Thank you Mister Seeback. Martin’s personal opinions are important, to him at least. But that does not mean that his opinion should automatically translate to public administration.
Like you, I disagreed with pretty much every thing he said. I do not know where my physical polling place is located. I have been a mail in voter for over a decade. I have visited the county office in person often. The Governor Gray Davis recall and other primary, special, and general elections have seen me as the first chronological voter in the most popular state in the present union.
Mail in voting is a god sent, and a progressive step in the right direction. California has numerous copies of my signature. If I can not sign my mail in envelope then a place for a witness’ signature is provided.
Taking Martin’s misguided logic to it illogical extreme, then let’s have tests of strength, feats of endurance, displays of torture, poll taxes ……
The vote-by-mail bill for federal elections, if passed, would pressure many states to also use vote-by-mail for lower offices, since many states hold state and local elections at the same time as federal elections.
Dick Morris predicts that we’ll all eventually be voting via the Internet.
Well, their are some legit reasons why citizens cannot make it to the polls; religion, disability, work, or military service.
My question for mail-in voting is how does one do proper oversight of this? Do you have to photocopy and mail in personal ID along with your mail-in ballot.
Also this may impact people who do not have a home.
Martin’s assumption that all absentee ballot users are lazy couch potatoes who should not be allowed to be told whether or not their votes were counted offends ME. I am an American citizen who votes in every election, and am currently living overseas. Sorry Martin that I’m not as good as you to pay a few thousand dollars to fly back to my home for a day to wait in a long line and use a machine made by a disreputable company that refuses to let the public see how its software works just so I can be smug and say that “I voted in person.”
Steve, it is quite possible that Internet voting may happen in the near future, but to make it happen it has to be much more secure from hacking and cyber attacks. Right now, that’s a problem.
But it could happen, and if it does, it does make direct democracy more possible. That can be awful scary.
In Chicago(and elsewhere) the completion of ballots will be supervised by precinct captains or social workers in halfway houses, homeless shelters, nursing homes and mental health residential facilities. Not that this isn’t already pretty much the norm. This would just make it easier with no presence of poll watchers.
This could also be the Illegal Alien Enfranchisement Act.
Does it also mean that ballots would be mailed out to fictitious characters registered by ACORN? The ballots could then-if delivered- be intercepted and used fraudulently.
#10: Will the same people also oversee the completion of ballots in the cemeteries?
In Mississippi’s recent municipal elections, 40% of the ballots cast in Noxubee County– home of the notorious Ike Brown– were absentee ballots.
She ought to propose something useful like eliminating all formal party nominating procedures for Congress; requiring signatures on petitions equal to 1/10 of 1% of the votes cast at the last election; and require majority election:
Round 1: October. If no majority, candidates with more than 15% of the vote advance to round 2. Trailing candidates are eliminated one-by-one and may transfer their support to other candidates possibly causing them to avoid being eliminated.
Round 2: November. If no majority, candidates with more than 25% of the vote advance to round 3. Trailing candidates are eliminated one-by-one and may transfer their support to other candidates possibly causing them to avoid being eliminated.
Round 3: December. If no majority, top 2 candidates advance to round 4.
Round 4: January. Winner determined.
States may concurrently hold their State and local elections on the same dates and polling places so long as they conform to the same standards.
I’ve had a lot of replies so I won’t respond to anyone in particular.
I’d call in sick, I’d call a cab, I’d pay $50, I’d run 2 miles, I’d write a 5-page essay, and I’d endure water torture if that’s what it took to vote. I shudder to think that those people [of whom are able], that can’t find one hour within a 30 day period to go vote, could vote without even putting on pants. The idea of having 100% paper ballots does sound nice, but do you count your own vote? As with electronic systems, all they have to do is count the number of voters and make up the totals. True statists don’t hold honest elections.
I have nothing against absentee voting and how dare anyone ever insinuate that the US Postal Service, the greatest mail carrier in the world, could ever lose a piece of mail! I am partially concerned that such a program guarantees the loss of anonymity. How would they know to send John Doe a confirmation if they didn’t know which ballot was his?
I’ll just reiterate what I said earlier on the third bill. If a person is partisan what’s the difference that they’re publicly or privately partisan? If the Chief Elections Officer is at least allowed to participate in partisan political activity then he/she may be dumb enough to actually do so which could be sufficient grounds for replacement.
“I have nothing against absentee voting and how dare anyone ever insinuate that the US Postal Service, the greatest mail carrier in the world, could ever lose a piece of mail!”
Martin, in saying this, has made it obvious that he is a troll. USPS has lost my mail on numerous occasions, and I know for an absolute certainty that I represent the majority in this. I guess he’s never heard of the “Dead Letter Office” or had to deal with having his mail forwarded.
Then again, seeing his blind allegiance to the status quo and his overbearing sense of patriotism (do you seriously have to give a shout-out to the Post Office?) that he’s not one who’s much for using his brain, period. Best to just stick to what his first-grade teacher told him about America. I bet he also thinks that all cops are honest.