Yes, vote by mail has paper. Paper is a plus in an election.
But, an election should not be judged primarily by these things:
1. convenience
2. turnout
3. speedy results
4. cost to administer
5. flashy equipment
An election is not a drive-through hamburger, where speed and convenience trump taste and nutrition.
The very planet is at stake in elections in the U.S.
The ONLY way to judge an election is whether every qualified person who wishes to vote, got to vote, and their vote counted. One voter, one vote. AND, if anyone cares to verify that, they could.
(No extra votes, either -- Casper the Friendly Ghost and his large family are not qualified voters.)
All the rest is extras.... options, like heated seats on the car.
We keep worrying about the heated seats on the car, and failing to notice that the wheels are square, the engine is missing, and this electionmobile ain't going nowhere (at least, nowhere the People want to go).
Vote by mail is convenient. But, there is no independent way to verify what happens to the vote between the time it leaves the voter's hands and the time it is counted.
It substitutes a blue box for the black box.
Remember what's at stake -- our elected representatives get to control spending of our tax dollars (sales tax, school tax, property tax, income tax, social security withholding, etc.) and get to determine policies at all levels of government, and get to control the world's most powerful military. Would a crook try to intrude in the election process? Well, gee, think about it.
So, if we the citizens and media aren't watching the ballots as they wend their way through the mails to be counted, could something intervene?
Could somebody "sort" the incoming ballots by zip code, and discard a percentage from certain zip codes?
Maybe a
contractor handles the incoming absentee ballots and vote-by-mail ballots? Who is checking the background on those contractors????
Bev Harris found documentation that indeed a contractor was handling this in King County, WA.
Embezzler Programmed System To Connect Ballots To Voter
Friday Dec 19, 2003
By Bev Harris - blackboxvoting.org
An embezzler who specialized in sophisticated alteration of records of computerized systems was programming our voting system, and also had access to the printing of the ballots, and ties to the private company that sorts King County absentee ballots.
<snip>
King County {WA} contracts the mailing of its absentee ballots out to {John} Elder’s division, and Elder’s division subcontracts with a firm called PSI Group Inc. to sort the incoming absentee ballots - the most high-risk security point for absentee ballots. You see, we know how many absentee ballots we send out, but we have no idea how many are filled out and sent back in, especially if they pass through a middleman before being counted by elections officials. The elections division may tell you they count the ballots before outsourcing for precinct sorting, but in major metro areas, up to 60,000 ballots arrive in a single day and they are simply not staffed for this. It makes no sense to count ballots by precinct and then send them out for sorting. According to a 2001 SEC document, our felon friends had contracted for absentee and ballot processing for the following counties:
King County Records and Elections-Ballot Production 7/15/98
King County Records and Elections-Absentee Process 7/10/98
Fresno County Elections-Ballot Production 2/28/99
Fresno County Elections-Absentee Process 2/28/99
Tulare County Elections-Ballot Production 9/03/99
Los Angeles Elections-Absentee Process 8/01/00
Santa Clara County Elections-Absentee Process 9/12/00
Sacramento County Elections-Absentee Process 9/05/00
Purchase Orders based upon Spectrum's ballot production and absentee Statements of Work
Santa Barbara County
San Luis Obispo County
Marin County
Lassen County
Siskiyou County
Humboldt County
Trinity County
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
I haven't researched PSI Group. For those who are so inclined, maybe you can back this up yourselves. Or disprove it, for that matter.
The point is, whenever ballots are being handled in back rooms or trucks or warehouses out of view, corrupt stuff can happen.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT DID OR NOT ON A PARTICULAR DAY OR IN A PARTICULAR ELECTION -- What matters is that it can. If the stakes are high enough, SOMEBODY will try to corrupt it.
If we don't have enough transparency to stop them, we're toast.
I believe we have not been stopping them for at least 3 national elections, and if you look around, you'll see what I mean by toast.