A question for my fellow Oregonians

[quakerboy]

Is it weird to have Ballot parties?

[sandnsea]

1. As in, I'm having a party Sunday

and requiring my kids to bring their ballots so we can drop them off? I think it's a terrific idea. The sooner ballots are in, the more we can target the still undecideds and stragglers.

[quakerboy]

2. heh.

Similar. Some of my family will be getting together and talking about the candidates and measures. Several of us will be filling our our ballots then, though there is no requirement for it.

[LWolf]

3. No.

It sounds like fun.

Do you have your ballot yet?

I've already curled up with my voter info booklet and decided what to mark. When the ballot arrives, I'll mark it and mail it on my way into town.

Which would be more fun: the ballot party or a party to welcome in the returns?

[quakerboy]

6. Dont have it yet

Part 2 of the voters pamphlet just got here today, I am sure the ballot will follow soon.


I see no reason that I cannot have both. ballot party and election night party.

[LWolf]

7. Do it!

Sounds like a fun way to spend both days.

[Left Brain]

4. What a great idea!

Brings new meaning to the term, "political party."
:toast:

[quakerboy]

5. Yup.

I dunno. It just occurred to me that a lot of people have to go out and do all this research on their own. Many may not(including some of my relatives) and so either choose not to vote on some candidates/measures, or vote based on a limited reading/understanding.

So I decided to invite the sister and talk about it all, and centralize the research process. And we figured we should invite the cousin since he's not much of an information junkie. Then I thought, might as well invite the aunt. And so it went. Now I have to buy snacks and clean my livingroom. That'l teach me.

We don't have the ballots yet, but I expect we will within the week. I was a little worried people could feel that their voting privacy might be infringed, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone else.

[Uncle Sinister]

8. quakerboy, you've hit on my biggest problem with Vote By Mail

Voter education and outreach is hugely important, and I know you are on the side of the angels.

However...the thought of "ballot parties" or "voting parties" makes me downright queasy. Voting needs to be done by an individual, without "groupthink" or group pressure. I've heard many anecdotal stories about fundamentalist churches holding "ballot parties". Nobody tells you how to vote, but they present a warped analysis of candidates and issues, and trust on peer pressure to do the rest.

My personal opinion is that Vote by Mail is entirely broken, and we need to return with all due haste to the ballot box on election day.

(And no, the fact that Diebold owns the optical scanners in Oregon has nothing to do with it.) :tinfoilhat:

[cascadiance]

10. Voting expert Doug Jones has concerns about vote by mail...

I talked to him when I was visiting Iowa City. He was the technical consultant used for HBO's "Hacking Democracy"... I think he's concerned is that it depends too much on the integrity of those in the various state voter registrar offices that votes get counted and tabulated correctly. Having a way to validate your vote online I think will help this to some degree, but I think you are helped by having a relatively trustworthy state organization running it. But that might not always be the case. They probably need to look at reforming it so that it still has a lot more means for the user to personally validate that their vote was registered properly, and that the voter feels confident that if a recount happens, their vote will be counted for the right choices then.

Just missed voting in your election, as I will be driving/moving to Portland two weeks from today. Look forward to living there in a more "blue" area than San Diego and meeting a lot of you then. Though I won't help you get Gordon Smith out of office, at least I can help California get vote down ugly props like Prop 8 there.

Wondering if I should ask skinner to change my handle to orependence?

[quakerboy]

11. I understand what you are saying

but I disagree. Every type of voting depends on the integrity of those counting. Vote by mail is not special that way

[cascadiance]

13. I do think vote by mail is at this time a better choice...

It does provide a paper trail, but it is also good for the public to be able to oversee each stage of the process of receiving ballots, entering them into the system, and how they are tabulated for the final count, and how they are recounted later. We need to have enough oversight to prevent certain officials from putting "dents" into the system where they can "game" it. Voting by mail does allow people to vote in their own timeframe, and not worry about having their "polling booth switched", getting arrested at polling stations that other areas are supposedly being threatened with by GOP scare mails, etc. Vote by mail also allows someone to correct situations if they've been taken off of the voter rolls in advance of election day to allow that to be corrected too. However too much of the public doesn't understand what happens to their ballot after they mail it in, which could allow those with more nefarious aims to game a system if those in power locally allow it to happen, and don't get much pressure from constituents that don't know what's happening.

I do feel that at this time, Oregon's system is better than others and run by decent people to help it be that way, but we shouldn't be too complacent about putting checks and balances into the system to make sure it runs well now and in the foreseeable future, when you have different officials in charge. When I personally heard Jones tell me his concerns (and up front, I myself wasn't too concerned before hearing him voice his concerns), I do feel that there are probably things we can do to improve the system, even if it does relatively well now. Finding some way to make the counting and tabulating process more transparent, which it is in other areas with voting on election day, would help.

[LWolf]

14. I love

the freedom to sit with my ballot over extended periods of time; to ponder, to use my 'puter to spend more time on local issues and candidates that got little attention before the ballot arrived, to fill out my ballot in my robe and slippers with a cup of something hot, lol.

I also like having the paper trail, and the option of mailing it in or dropping it off. The drop off boxes are in a few places in town (I use the library) and available from the weekend we receive ballots until the end of "election day."

I like the fact that nobody is hanging outside "the polling place" to do "exit polls."

I am, of course, concerned about making sure the count is accurate. What could Oregon do to make that process more transparent?

[Uncle Sinister]

15. #1 have the ballots hand-counted, instead of scanned by a Diebold computer. eom

[quakerboy]

16. I would be very ok with that

Although My preference would be to have them double counted. In to the machine, out the other side into the hands of a human counter, preferably watched by observers from several parties. Then compare the numbers at the end, and if there are discrepancies, figure out why.

[LWolf]

17. That should be true of every ballot in the country.

Not just those turned in by mail, or by early vote, or in Oregon.

Two years ago, Dennis Kucinich introduced HR 6200, to amend the "help america vote" act, requiring "paper ballots, hand counted, results posted at precinct."

Introduced in the fall of 2006. The same fall that put a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.

He did get 20 cosponsors, but not enough support from his own party, from Democratic "leaders," to pass it.

Why is that, do you think, after the debacles of 2000 and 2004?

I can speculate all day, but the point is that the Democratic Party herself does not support hand counted paper ballots. Unfortunately.

Perhaps this is something that can begin at the state level.

[cascadiance]

18. Have a way of verifying online that your vote was received and tabulated...

I know that Deborah Bowen has been looking at providing this option for Californians, so that someone can verify that someone has appropriately put your votes into the system instead of just having "trusted" them to do it. If there's an online ballot that can be looked up, that would mean that there's a set of electronic data that should have proper counts if the totals are extrapolated from that. If the totals are extrapolated in other ways, then these totals can be compared.

This doesn't mean that things like additional id's couldn't be put into the system, but this might be harder to do without getting caught.

Having an electronic validation process provides a similar purpose to knowing that you turned in your hand entered ballot in to election workers in states with paper ballots and knowing that there's some sort of visible trail of your ballot.

[file83]

19. I have a simple idea on how to do that...

What if 2 stickers came with your ballot with UPS-like tracking numbers & a barcode. You peel 1 sticker off, place it on your ballot before you place it in the secrecy envelope. The other sticker you can keep to use later to track the ballot online.

When the ballot gets scanned, the tracking number gets permanently associated with the votes in the tally computer. The voter can later go online and "track" the ballot to see not only IF it got counted in the official count, but also HOW the votes were counted (Obama or McCain, for example).

It's an optional system. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to. The stickers are sent to the voter in the same ballot package they get now, but there is no way match the sticker/tracking number to the actual voter (they would make sure of this easily by inserting the stickers into the envelope in a random/separate process before it was mailed to the voter.

What do you think?

[cascadiance]

21. Perhaps don't need stickers, but do as you suggest...

I know here in California there is a "receipt" portion that you can tear off of your absentee ballot. If both that portion and the ballot have some unique identifying code (that doesn't personally identify the voter, but allows one to connect that ballot with the "number" or whatever id is on the receipt), then one could type this in to a web page and verify that it was entered and what votes were entered for it.

Whatever method we do choose, it should be something relatively simple for a voter to enter in later to verify their voting record to ensure that it isn't just a "fringe" group of us that use this. If many people use it, then it would serve as a disincentive for those in charge of voting apparatus from cheating the system that much more.

I think the other thing we'd need to be careful about is the potential "data mining" that could occur if someone tries to have a "bot" go through with brute force to see how people voted to do their own "polling" with the real voting data (if you show how they voted). If we show how they voted, there should at least be a "picture string" validation prompt or something similar to prevent this sort of automated harvesting of voting data. That could be used dangerously for other purposes if not well protected.

[Tom Kitten]

9. I think

voting is personal and should be done within the confines of one's privacy. I don't like the idea of ballot parties, especially if one decides to vote according to some sort of peer pressure in order to possibly continue be popular or maybe conform with the majority present. It sounds too Scientology-like for me.

[quakerboy]

12. I think the point

is not so much that anyone will be voting there, but more of a research party, if you will. I doubt that anyone will actually fill out their ballot while at my home. But it provides an opportunity to discuss the ballot measures and candidates. It also provides an easy way to pool researching time. That is something that I see lacking, particularly in those less involved politically.

An example. I know that my cousin will not go look any of it up. He will vote based on what he sees on the TV. Actually, given the channels he watches, he is more likely to be voting on a combination of whim and what he has heard my racist uncle spew in the late evening once he is drunk.

I feel no regret for trying to provide an opportunity for him to think through these things with more viewpoints represented, and the chance for several of us, from several different political persuasions to have a rounded conversation on the merits of the measures. I don't think that is scientologyish at all.

[quakerboy]

20. well, we had ours

We spent about 3 hours talking about all the in and outs of the measures, and it was complicated by having people from several counties with local issues. We only put about 15 minutes into the candidates. It was fun for all involved, by the reports I have gotten back. I was impressed by at least one person who I expected to want to gloss over details, but instead was very thoughtful on each topic.