Crispin, There is an assumption that is being made here.... the assumption is that the mail carrier knows which choices are made on specific ballots. Otherwise, if the carrier misdirects mail from certain districts the mail carrier could be misdirecting ballots that could be in favor of the mail carrier's perspective. If there is a larger disappearance from specific counties, then you could make the argument that there is a higher statistical likelihood that ballots favoring one party would more likely have disappeared. However, to have that much of an impact, that sort of voter fraud would become apparent quite quickly (by comparing historical voting records). In addition, tampering with ballots themselves would be pretty apparent, and quite time consuming for the individual hypothetical partisan carriers. In terms of voter intimidation, that still happens at both at and outside the polls. For example, certain groups can be dissuaded from voting by threats of force. Certain groups/individuals can be deemed ineligible to vote though they are. In essence, both vote by mail and traditional voting methods have positives and negatives. For me, I enjoy being able to vote from home and not having to go somewhere to vote. k- On Thursday, September 11, 2003, at 02:40 PM, Crispin Cowan wrote: > Warren Harrison wrote: > >> U.S. Mail is typically considered pretty tamper-resistent. In fact, >> documents that are >> classified as less than TOP SECRET (SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL) can be >> sent via >> U.S. Mail using some specific safeguards like not using mailboxes >> (have to send > > Bizzare. The US Post is famous for losing mail. You'd have to be > deranged to send something irreplaceable in the mail. Also, the threat > of "will someone open & read this secret document in this plain > envelope?" is a completely different threat from "will an irate > democrat/republican/whatever letter carrier deliberately lose a bunch > of clearly marked ballots from a specific county/neighborhood?" > >> it form a post office), using either Registered or Express mail, etc. >> with a return >> receipt. As long as the package doesn't go out of a USPS facility, the >> assumption is pretty much that items are secure. Can mail carriers be >> bribed? Sure, but at least they undergo background checks - the same >> can't really be said for the "election observers" who volunteer to >> watch >> you and I vote when we do it in person. > > That makes no sense: election observers are provided from each party > to provide checks & balances: they watch the ballots, and each other. > The same is not true of letter carriers working alone. I would far > rather have observation by 2 conflicting self-interested rascals than > a single party of unknown loyalty. > >> Voters that want confirmation that their vote arrived can probably >> send the > > The voter's interest is not to ensure that their own ballot got > counted, but rather to ensure that all the ballots were counted > fairly. A freakishly rare voter verification scheme that is only used > by 1% of the voters (a wildly optimistic estimate) has no impact on > election fairness. > >> You of course still can't do much about the controlling patriarch >> that insists on >> filling out his wife and adult children's ballot in vote by mail, but >> because of the >> signature, he couldn't send in the ballots without their >> participation. Anyway >> I have to figure that in 90% of such cases they have their family >> members so >> intimidated that if they load 'em up in their GMC and drag the family >> down to >> the polls they'll vote the way they are "supposed to" anyway. > > There are actual laws prohibiting spouses going into voting booths > together. These laws are unevenly enforced, but they exist for that > reason. > > Crispin > > -- > Crispin Cowan, Ph.D. http://immunix.com/~crispin/ > Chief Scientist, Immunix http://immunix.com > http://www.immunix.com/shop/ > > >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Sep 11 2003 - 15:57:27 PDT