OK, I’m convinced about the early voting with the same concerns you mentioned about mail-in. Especially interesting and unknown to me was the information candidates and parties gain by knowing who voted early.
Our small county doesn’t offer early voting, unfortunately.
One point we should all consider: Don’t JUST vote. Think first, study, think again, and THEN vote.
Too many voters fail to do their homework; they just let their dogs eat it. When casting their ballots they look for a familiar name, listen to traditional and social media, or go with emotional reactions. The result: Voters often make choices they (or the rest of us) later regret.
As I said in the piece, we can wish for a different system but we have to take advantage of the one we have.
Regarding "no machines", our last statewide election saw around 600,000 votes cast - and it wasn't even a presidential election year. I had three pages on my ballot, with more than a dozen different races. Do you think a hand count of that many races would be more or less error prone than our current system? How much should taxes go up to pay the literal army of people necessary to hand count that many ballots?
As much as I like the idea, I think it's simply unfeasible today. An optical tabulation scanner that retains the ballots for auditing is a good compromise between security and efficiency, so long as the machine and its software are independently audited as well.
OK, I’m convinced about the early voting with the same concerns you mentioned about mail-in. Especially interesting and unknown to me was the information candidates and parties gain by knowing who voted early.
Our small county doesn’t offer early voting, unfortunately.
One point we should all consider: Don’t JUST vote. Think first, study, think again, and THEN vote.
Too many voters fail to do their homework; they just let their dogs eat it. When casting their ballots they look for a familiar name, listen to traditional and social media, or go with emotional reactions. The result: Voters often make choices they (or the rest of us) later regret.
Joe Biden vs. Mr. Mean Tweets anyone?
Bank your vote is another cheating tool. We must not go for it. One day, one vote, paper ballots and no electronics. When will Idaho wise up.
As I said in the piece, we can wish for a different system but we have to take advantage of the one we have.
Regarding "no machines", our last statewide election saw around 600,000 votes cast - and it wasn't even a presidential election year. I had three pages on my ballot, with more than a dozen different races. Do you think a hand count of that many races would be more or less error prone than our current system? How much should taxes go up to pay the literal army of people necessary to hand count that many ballots?
As much as I like the idea, I think it's simply unfeasible today. An optical tabulation scanner that retains the ballots for auditing is a good compromise between security and efficiency, so long as the machine and its software are independently audited as well.