Voting by mail for dummies
I thought I’d spell it out and you can tell your skeptical Trump-supporting, voter-suppression-loving friends and family how simple it is.
Colorado has had all mail-in ballots since 2013. Boulder county for longer. You can still go to the polls on election day to vote or just turn in your ballot. And get your “I Voted” sticker.
Otherwise, you can mail your ballot or drop it off at any of the ballot boxes around the county. I drop mine off because there is one a block from my house.
In Colorado, you can register up to and on election day. If you are homeless, you can use the shelter you stay at or anywhere you return to regularly as your address.
You can sign up for Ballot Tracker and track your ballot from the time it was mailed to you to the time it was received and accepted by the county. They also send email notifications. Paper ballots, completely trackable and verifiable. Shocking, I know.
Ballot envelopes MUST be signed and the signature must match the one on your voter registration. If there is an issue, you will be notified and have 8 days after the election to rectify the issue.
Also – all the ballot boxes are tracked and monitored.
Handy video guides:
I love voting by mail. I recommend it for every democracy-loving citizen. ;-)
Open thread
Alex
If your state allows it, please consider dropping your absentee ballot off at a drop box or the clerk’s office so that you aren’t relying on the overstressed USPS. (In most states you can’t collect other folks’ ballots to drop off but you can drop off your own.) Depending on where you live, ballots delayed in the mail may not be counted.
snoey
If you do use the Post Office have them hand cancel it with nice clear readable date. Machines often blur it or miss entirely.
Learned that doing mail order concert tickets.
Yutsano
We’ve had vote by mail in Washington since 2005. We’ve only had a very few snags. You can track your ballot in the system although I prefer to drop it off. You can do it up to midnight on Election Day and you just slide it in and go. It’s dastardly easy.
Yutsano
@Alex: Usually as long as the date on the envelope is correct then the state accepts it. But yeah I always prefer to drop it off.
Just Chuck
And this is why CO is becoming a (more) blue state. When people vote, republicans lose.
BTW, you have some kind of FYWP artifact in there at the top, “Auto Draft 13”
Kelly
Oregon vote by mail has been wonderfully boring since 1998. Registration deadline is 3 weeks before the election. You can register at 16, they will start sending ballots when you are 18. Ballot includes a postage paid return envelope but it must arrive by election day, post marks don’t count. Ballot drop boxes are in many city halls, libraries and other handy spots. You can hand in your ballot at a drop box on election day. Elections send me an email when they mail my ballot and when they receive and accept my ballot. If they do not have an email and there is a problem such as the signature doesn’t look right they will send a letter.
Amir Khalid
Has anyone considered whether there might actually be more Americans voting by mail this year than in person?
And since it’s open thread: In Malaysia we have more than just TP cake. We also have pretty good gourmet burgers.
debbie
It’ll never happen in Ohio. Too GOP-controlled. I’m waiting to see how the situation develops, but I may go for early voting with a great deal of caution.
Shakti
I am definitely voting by mail. That way I bypass the skepticism about my name and long lines.
Florida isn’t all mail in ballots but the state heavily encourages mail in ballots.
Ruckus
I’ve been voting by mail in CA for a very long time. First time was 50 yrs ago when I first voted and had to be 21 even though I could be drafted and killed 3 yrs before that – and yes I’m still pissed about that. It has gotten even easier over the last few years, with drop off boxes at many public places. And if you still have the personal need to vote in person you can do that easily, because first, it’s CA and second, because far more people are voting by mail/drop off.
opiejeanne
@Yutsano: We always drive to the nearest drop box because it makes voting feel “real”, like we had to go somewhere to do it.
We really appreciate voting by mail in WA because it gives us time to research the candidates.
The Moar You Know
and no0w the demoncRATS have the entire state!!!11elenety
VOTER FRUAD!!! MY SEOCND AMDNEMENT RIGHTS111!!
In seriousness, this is not an argument I’d ever use with any Republican, because when we have mail ballots, we win. And they’ve noticed that.
You could make the argument, rather easily, that mail-in ballots flipped Colorado.
Wag
my ballot drop box is at a rec center here in Denver that’s on my way to work. Easy peasy.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: I missed something. What is TP cake? TP is usually used here to mean toilet paper.
matt
We have it in Oregon too. It works well and turnout is high. People who don’t like democracy don’t like it.
oatler.
I used to vote by mail when I lived in OR. Now that I’m in AZ I think it more likely that the mailboxes/dropboxes will be vandalized.
opiejeanne
@Wag: We are halfway between sites, Redmond City Hall and the Woodinville Library. The library is hard to find so we head over to Redmond even though our address is Woodinville.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
TP was in short supply here early in the lockdown, same as in America. And in yesterday’s Covid-19 update post, Anne Laurie featured an Associated Press story about a bakery in KL that makes a novelty cake that looks like, yep, you guessed it.
Whereaway
Since universal vote by mail was implemented in Colorado, I’ve never missed even the smallest of local elections.
I suspect that’s one of the things that terrifies Republicans.
Unfortunately, I live in one of the reddest cities in the country, and my local government and congressional representative are still very RWNJ …
opiejeanne
@oatler.: They’d commit a Federal crime by attacking a mail box? Do you mean people’s private mailboxes? I never put anything important out with the flag up any more, since we had to buy a locking mailbox because people were stealing the mail here in our quiet neighborhood.
Our drop boxes usually have someone on duty, keeping an eye on them.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: Haha! Off to look for that. Thanks.
PST
I am fully in favor of voting by mail, and I believe the studies showing that fraud rates are minuscule. However, that doesn’t mean that Russians and Republicans (but I repeat myself) aren’t looking for ways to cheat. I can easily imagine hostility to mail ballots provoking serious examination of potential weaknesses that could potentially elect Trump, or alternatively, discredit vote by mail and cast doubt on the results. We can’t afford to just accept that the absence of fraud in the past justifies letting down our guard. There is nothing intrinsic to vote by mail that makes it safe from tampering.
Skepticat
Maine allows absentee ballots without requiring an excuse. My place is on an island with nothing but homes on it (no polling places), so everyone votes absentee. As I qualify as a resident living overseas, I vote online, which I love. I’ve already voted in the July primary.
laura
We’ve done permanent vote by mail so long I cant remember when we started. Our registrar of voters sends lots of reminders followed by our ballot information booklet and it gives me lots of time to review the minutia of each candidate or proposition. I try to do it in time for the inevitable calls from friends and family seeking my input and recommendations as the unofficial elections/politics nerd.
However, spouse and I always drop off our ballots on election day at our local polling place so we can feel the participatory and civic aspects of the franchise-and of course, the stickers!
Vote by mail this November is likely going to occur during a massive second wave, so we may do a quick drop off and skip the sticker. Every voter should have the option to safely cast a ballot and every GOP- led closure of polling places and Janky equipment needs to be called out starting last year. Voting is a fundamental Right for a reason and the casual recasting as a privilege chaps my hide.
Old Dan and Little Ann
We opted for Voting by Mail in NY due to the Coronavirus. We received ballots for school board last week and ballots for the primary a few days ago. I thought about voting for Warren still just for shits and giggles but fuck it. Joe Biden it is. We received a few more ballots yesterday for all the local elections. I am loving it. It also makes me extra pissed knowing what the people had to deal with in Georgia this week.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: I hope Burger Lab survives. I don’t know what kind of support the Malaysian government is giving to business right now. But with interest rates dirt cheap now is the time to be borrowing.
MomSense
@Skepticat:
I requested my absentee primary ballot. It was so easy.
Dahlia
@opiejeanne: The library is on Avondale just south of Woodinville-Duvall Road.
Patricia Kayden
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@snoey: @Yutsano:
Postmark doesn’t matter in PA. It needs to be received at the elections office (or a drop box) by election day.
opiejeanne
@Dahlia: Thank you. My GPS can find it, but I still can’t remember how to get there, and I have a library card but I use it online. It’s just easier to get to the drop box in Redmond from where we live.
It seems odd that they located the library so far away from downtown (such as it is).
rikyrah
Mail Ballots are the way that the Military and Overseas voters vote.
Even if you don’t decide to use the mail ballot, APPLY FOR ONE THE FIRST DAY THAT IT’S POSSIBLE. Period.
rikyrah
Illinois Voters:
We are a NO REASON state. You don’t need a reason to receive one.
There is a bill on the Governor’s desk.
General outline
Expanded Early Voting
Every voter from 2018, 2019, and 2020 will be sent a Mail Ballot Application.
If your voting jurisdiction has an ONLINE MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION – USE IT.
You will be able to apply for a Mail Ballot far earlier than before.
Every jurisdiction will have a ‘ SuperSite’ – a place where anyone in that voting jurisdiction, regardless of precinct, will be able to vote on November 3rd.
Exregis
We applied for absentee ballots (for the first time) in a local election because we were allowed to use COVID-19 as our reason. We got two I Voted stickers in the mail with our ballots.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: How’s it going?
trnc
Shhh. Not so loud.
CaseyL
The first time I ever VBM was, lordy, back in the 80s. I’d been bouncing around between Washington and California, and had to VBM when I returned to Washington but was still registered in California. I remember feeling a little cheated of the polling place experience, but also remember being amazed at how easy it was.
VBM is wonderful! And it’s a hoot to take the ballot to the drop-box, and see other people there doing the same thing. Gives a sweet small-town vibe to the experience.
Exregis
Open Thread Comment
Saw a sign in Ireland (the sign was in Ireland, not I) giving advice for the limited opening just starting:
Gretchen
My Kansas county (Kansas City suburbs) has already sent an absentee ballot request for the August primary and the November election to every registered voter. The Dems did that for the June primary and it worked well.
trnc
@PST: Because voting is decentralized, the bigger danger right now isn’t that it can be manipulated – it’s getting it started in more places while facing tremendous opposition from republicans who recognize the danger to themselves of more legitimate voting.
Yutsano
@WaterGirl: I keep running into setbacks it seems. Now I have to do a cycle charge on my back which means charging it last night (already done) charging it now, and charging it some time this evening. Then it should work. I’m just grateful I had someone I could contact about it. We’re gonna see progress here soon.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: I remember the energy the poll workers had. It was democracy in action! Then the results came in and I was flabbergasted. But I picked myself up from that and got to work seeing what I could do. I’m looking forward to doing that this year with a better result. Those Macedonian troll farms are going to have to pay overtime.
Alex
@Yutsano: Only 16 states and DC count ballots received after election day. Here’s a great resource on state policies for vote by mail at the National Council of State Legislatures: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx
Quaker in a Basement
@The Moar You Know: Utah uses a similar system.
CaseyL
@Yutsano: I *was* a poll worker one year, when I happened to not be working on Election Day. It was a great experience. I was the youngest person in there by 30 years, though. Another benefit of VBM is you don’t have to rely on retired persons to work the polls!
cain
Oreegon has had it since 1998 by default. I became a citizen in 1995, and so the next major election was in 2000 (and we all remember that shit show) – but I have never voted any other way. I would have a hard time moving to a state that used polling stations. There is no better way to vote than vote by mail. Having the ability to take the time to look up the candidates, do research on the bill, talk with your partner or spouse about the various bit. It’s really amazing.. it feels like you are participating in democracy.
Sure Lurkalot
I’m In Colorado too and I received an email this morning from Ballot Trace that my ballot is in the mail. A couple of weeks ago I received a postcard verifying my active voter status. Terrifying, I know…like they want me to vote or something.
kindness
Who else saw Stacey Abrams on Colbert this week? She was relating her story about voting in GA recently. She had put in for an absentee ballot and even got it in the mail. The kicker? The return envelope was already sealed when she opened up her ballot so she couldn’t use it to send it in and had to vote in person.
Republicans are evil. Nothing else to say about it.
Eunicecycle
Ohio doesn’t have a pure form of vote by mail, but at least we have no excuse needed absentee ballots and a month of early voting. We usually early vote, but there is only one early voting polling place in each county (thanks to Republicans). So not knowing what the situation will be in October/ November, we may do the absentee thing. It took about 3 weeks for us to apply for absentee, get the absentee, and return the absentee ballots for our screwed up primary.
ETA: there is also online ballot tracking, which shocked me.
SamInWa
Washington State also has all-mail in voting and has for years now. I wanted to share one experience I had in King County 5+ years back.
I sent in my ballot like normal and then a week or so later (I forget how much time) I got a postcard from my county elections office that basically said… you forgot to sign your ballot envelope. Fill out this postcard and send it to us and your ballot will still be counted.
That’s how it should work. I almost certainly did forget to sign mine and yet it still got counted.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Wag:
My nearest is in front of the Natural History Museum entrance. I can bike there in 5 minutes.
This after living for 22+ years in a county in Misery that was either the reddest of second reddest depending on the year.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: Well, sorry that everything is such a pain, literally and figuratively, but it’s a good thing if it’s related to your back and not something else. Right? So relieved.
WaterGirl
@kindness: I heard Stacey Abrams on Pod Save America last night. I thought she was very good, as always.
Louise B.
Another Oregonian here who loves vote by mail. Ballots must be received, either at the county election board or in one of the drop boxes, by Election Day, so you get used to filling your ballot out early. I am old enough to remember voting in person, it was always pouring down rain on Election Day. I would stop after work to vote at a classroom in the nearby Jewish temple feeling like a drowned rat. It never felt like participating in democracy.
J. Squid
Despite my dislike of the concept of mail only voting – I always felt that Election Day was a community building event – I was totally wrong about it. I mean, I hate voting that way but turnout is up noticeably in Oregon since we went all mail in. And we have had no cases of voter fraud that I’m aware of, nevermind systemic or massive voter fraud.
But these are people who believe that global warming is a hoax and there’s no amount of evidence that can convince them to acknowledge reality.
Erin in Flagstaff
Arizona has Vote by Mail and early voting. I highly recommend getting on the Permanent Early Voting List. You always get your ballot via mail. The benefits to this:
Send them in before election day, as they must reach the election office that day. Earlier is better, as it saves the load on the county election offices confirming it is a valid ballot. It takes days to do this with the number of mailed-in ballots they receive, so the more they can process before election day, the less we have to wait for final results after election day.
Michael Cain
Yes, vote by mail. I love it.
Also, advice to states — start assembling your system 12-18 months before your first big election. The logistics and equipment are different than what you’ve been doing before. Don’t think that you can just scale your old absentee ballot system up by a factor of ten — it won’t work. One or more states will attempt to scale the existing system up this year and will have a disaster.
I am fascinated by the regional difference in trust in delivering ballots to voters by mail. In 2018, in the 13 western states in total, just over 70% of all ballots were delivered by mail. The only states that delivered less than 60% of their ballots by mail were Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, and Hawaii. This year that number will almost certainly hit 80%, maybe more. Utah and Hawaii were already committed to permanent full-on vote-by-mail starting this year. California has committed to full delivery for at least this year. Once you get out of the West, though, mail delivery is much rarer and much less trusted.
Michael Cain
@J. Squid:
Where do you live? The state where I’ve lived for the last 30 years has had staggering population growth for the entire time. So every two years the voting locations changed, the precinct make-up changed, the number of precincts (limited by the number of volunteers) was too small, they were too far apart so driving was mandatory and parking a nightmare. The first week in November meant a fair chance that the weather would be truly crappy. Everyone was grumpy and no one wanted to talk to a bunch of strangers. The permanent no-excuse absentee ballot list was considered a godsend, so popular that vote-by-mail was almost inevitable.
After a couple of elections with vote-by-mail, one of the polling outfits asked the question, “Should Colorado retain its vote-by-mail system?” Statewide, 85% of Dems said yes, 80% of unaffiliated, and 75% of Republicans. Apple pie doesn’t poll that well.
rikyrah
@Michael Cain:
How do you think that election authorities can do this? How can they scale up to expect 5-6 times their usual reception of Mail Ballots?
Ruckus
@Michael Cain:
I lived and voted in OH in 96, 00 and 04. 2004 was the year that the SoS screwed the bluer areas but cutting back the number of machines and adding more precincts to each polling place. Waited 4 hrs, in the rain to vote in 04. We had twice as many precincts and half the machines from 2000. The word clusterfuck came to mind. Often in that 4 hrs. Many people had to leave to go to work. I wasn’t giving up my right to vote for my job. Voting by mail is far, far easier, as many here have attested to. Plus there is a paper trail. Of course the SoS has control of that once it gets there but the overwhelming volume should help stifle any bullshit that they might try.
joel hanes
Open thread ?
Important duck news
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/duck-walks-pub-drinks-pint-34954
Kent
I’ve voted in a wide variety of circumstances and have never once faced the slightest hassle. But then I have never voted in a minority district so have never experienced lines.
During grad school in Seattle my precinct was the Seattle Yacht Club as I lived in the Montlake neighborhood across the bridge from Husky Stadium. They always had nice plates of hors d’oeuvres set out for the neighborhood voters and it was the only time you ever got to see inside the yacht club if you weren’t a member. Never any line.
I spend years living and working in Juneau, Alaska. Voting was always paper ballots that were scanned into machines right in the polling place. Worked great and it meant that every polling place had unlimited capacity. If it got crowded you just got your ballot and found a corner on the floor to fill it out. You didn’t need to use one of the actual voting booth stands with curtains. And you could see your ballot actually go through the machine and get counted. If it got rejected due to smears or tears they would give you a fresh ballot to try again.
I spent a decade voting in an affluent GOP suburb in Texas. Utterly easy and almost never any lines compared to the black and hispanic parts of the state. They had early voting at a local church for a couple weeks prior to election day that rarely had lines. And then same day voting was a bit more crowded but never more than a couple minutes wait. During the primaries they would automatically hand me the GOP ballot because as a middle aged white guy they just assumed. And the old ladies would be fairly surprised when I asked for the Dem ballot instead. It was always on electronic machines with no paper trail so I was always suspicious. But there was nothing else to do.
Now that we live back in WA it is all vote by mail which I love. I usually drop the ballots off at the big red ballot box in front of the post office. Except this past primary I put my Joe Biden ballot in the mail because I was lazy. They still have same-day voting at a few precincts where they have various types of machines to assist with voting for the disabled, blind, etc. for whom mail-in voting doesn’t work. And for those who just like going to the polls in person.
I understand that my experience as a white person living in mostly white and mostly affluent areas is completely unrepresentative of what people of color face and urban voters in red states. But I do understand why a lot of white suburban voters in affluent areas don’t see the problem. It is because they are like me and have never experienced any problem. Their vote has always been carefully coddled and curated their entire lives.
Kent
They need to hire a lot more staff to print and mail the ballots and they need to invest in a lot more staff and technology to collect, organize, and count the ballots. But that needs to have already been done and may be quickly getting too late. Buying vote counting machines in October 2020 will be like trying to buy ventilators in March 2020. There won’t be any available.
And counting by hand is not really a viable option when you have 30 items on the ballot. Theoretically possible but logistically impossible. You really need to be able to machine-scan the ballots. You could have vote counters sitting there reading ballots and typing votes into computers by hand, but the opportunity for error or outright fraud would be immense.
Paul W.
If you’re in NYC you might be getting mail and hearing about my partner who is running for the NY-12 seat in Congress (east Manhattan, LIC, Astoria, and North Brooklyn). We’re really blowing up, and every vote counts so check us out at https://laurenashcraft.com/ and you can register for our NY1 debate watch part, or you can watch the previous debate where she cleaned the two male candidates’ clocks!
Michael Cain
@rikyrah:
From a cold start at this point, about four months from when they’ll have to start mailing ballots out? Most states probably can’t. It’s a logistics problem — some problems are hard just because of size. Eg, verifying the signature on one ballot return envelope is easy. Doing it for 300,000 like my county in a vote-by-mail state is hard. Arizona does it manually for about 80% of their ballots and takes weeks. My county runs them through a scanner that’s statistically better than a human in hours. (The machine not only kicks out the envelopes where it rejected the signature, it also kicks out a random sample of accepted signatures for human verification.)
RedDirtGirl
I just put mine in the mail today in Brooklyn NY!
J R in WV
We voted early in the county seat, for the first time. I needed to pay property taxes in order to renew a vehicle registration, complicated, but that’s one way they ensure people pay those taxes.
Anyway, I missed the local voting in the local school gym.
The poll workers have seen us come in to vote for years and years, and remember us. We chat and are social. Not this year. Masks and alcohol hand sanitizer and strangers. New machines that seem good, they print out a paper report of your votes which you take over to be scanned into a ballot box. Seemed pretty foolproof, but I’m not into cheating on elections, so a real pro could maybe twist this into fraud.
Michael Cain
@J R in WV: I worry more about accuracy than fraud, myself. Remember those big ol’ lever machines people seem to love? They were notorious for under-counting, and got steadily worse with age. Anything with software in it somewhere is subject to odd errors. The kinds of things I’d ask about with the system you describe are how and when do they audit the printers? How and when do they audit the scanners?