It is he who commands you! It is he who flung you from the gates of Heaven to the depths of Hell!

Just in case anybody is interested here's how I voted on the important stuff---

President: Are you kidding?

U.S. Senator: There are lots of reasons to despise sometimes-moderate Gordon Smith but in my own estimation Gordo showed he was unfit for office years ago when he voted to impeach President Clinton over a peccadillo. I proudly voted for Jeff Merkley.

A couple of ballot intititives I support---

Measure 54: (Voter Eligibility) Fixes a portion of the Oregon Constitution that says voters need to be 21-years old and pass a literacy test. We'll have no literate voters here.

Measure 56: (Kills Double Majority) I've hated the double majority measure which voters put in place in 1996. Essentially it's one of those deals where over 50% of registered voters have to vote for any property tax to pass, regardless of whether it pulls a majority of votes. 1) Non-voters shouldn't get as much of a say as actual voters and 2) Vote by mail has made the original arguments for the double majority obsolete.

A measure I was sympathetic to but voted against---

Measure 65: (Open Primaries) The measure opens primaries up to all registered voters regardless of primaries with the top two vote-getters going to the general. This was a tough one but I do think this opens the primaries up to a lot of mischief that will hurt moderate-leftists more than those on the other side. I would like to see instant runoff voting instead. Having said all that I can see why progressives are voting for the measure, I'm just worried about the consequences.

Most of the other measures are the typical anti-state government nonsense that wind up on the ballot every election. Every state seems to have a resident loon who makes a living getting these things on the ballot. In Oregon that loon is Bill Sizemore. I will never vote for a Bill Sizemore inititive. He makes that declaration easy by throwing the worst sort of crap on our ballots.

No on measures 57,58,59,60,61,62,63 and 64.

Happy election everybody!

Oh surely, I'm but a single bot, alone, as it were, in the vast universe thing. Maybe I can change the world.

Today's the big day in Oregon. I'm heading out to the Oregon City office of the Obama campaign after work to make calls for last minute voters.

I've been meaning to do a thing on vote by mail process since it's pretty unique to Oregon. I think I have a pretty good take on VBM since I was strongly against it before it was implemented but have come around to supporting the concept.

Voting

We actually receive our ballots a couple of weeks before the election date. Included with the ballot are two envelopes - a privacy envelope and a return envelope.

The ballots are bubble-style where you fill in your choice by pen. For write ins there are bubbles marked "write in" with a line to write in your choice.

After we have completed our ballots we stick it in the privacy envelope and seal it. We then stick that envelope in the return envelope and sign the validation signature on the front of that envelope. Above the signature is the following text-

Voter's Statement
I am the person to whom this ballot was issued.
I am legally qualified to vote in the county that issued this ballot.
This is the only ballot I have voted in this election.
I still live at the address where I am registered to vote.

The ballots can either be mailed or dropped off at several collection points located around the state on election day.

Ballot Processing

The ballots are collected at the local county election's office and the signature verified against our registration on file. If there is a problem (no signature) they will contact you. They are then sorted into precinct and the secrecy envelope removed but not opened.

Beginning five days before the election the privacy envelopes are opened and the ballots prepared for counting but they do not begin counting until election day. This process is not any faster than traditional voting. Every step of the process is open to the public.

What I think of the whole thing

As I mentioned I was really against VBM when it was first proposed by the Secretary of State. There were a couple of reasons for this.

The first is that I thought there would be too much opportunity to mess with ballots. It seemed like it was a prescription for fraud.

The other reason was that I just love going down to my local poll and voting. I'm not a religious guy but this was sort of like my religion. Vote by mail seemed like it would make voting more like paying the bills.

With regard to fraud I was completely wrong. What really opened my eyes was all the focus on our election process nationally in 2000 and 2004. In Oregon there is little difference in the ballots between different counties and municipalities. Our ballots are uniform other than the names on the ballot.

With regards to my second concern I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss going down to the polls and talking to the volunteers and going through that shared sacrament of voting. I had been looking forward to taking my kids down there to watch me vote when they got old enough to teach them the importance of voting.

On the other hand we sit down with our kids and go through the ballots and discuss the issues with them when we vote. I can say without question this has made me a better voter because I don't want to be uniformed when the kids have questions. This means that there's no blowing off the downballot candidates for county board, etc. My kids are going to ask me WHY I'm voting for that person and "because they were first on the list" doesn't cut it.

Pros and Cons of VBM

Pros

• Integrity and uniformity to process (no equal protection issue ala Bush v. Gore.)



• Less chance for cheating.



• More informed voters.



• Better turnout.



• As Swinebread pointed out you can vote naked. Although knowing Swinebread I would guess he wouldn't let traditional voting stop him from that luxury.
  

Cons

• No sense of community.



• Ballots can be picked-up by third party (potential weakness to system.)



• Paying postage to mail ballot seems a little "poll tax-ish."