So if I vote early or by absentee ballot and then I die before election day, how is it that my vote should be counted? I'm dead on the day of the election? Is it right for dead people to vote? And you gotta figure that this happens to literally thousands of Americans. Alive on October 4 but dead a month later.
Why even have an election day? Let's just have an election year, then add up the totals on Dec. 31. That makes just as much sense as letting dead people's votes count on Nov. 4.
Just wondering. But what difference would it be if on election day I went and cast a vote for someone who had died six weeks earlier and in a sworn affadavit said, "Here's how I will vote on Nov. 4." Would that vote be allowed? No way. He's dead and can't vote. But if he had voted early his vote counts? Go figure.
But the biggest laugh to me is that I can walk into my local polling place, give the folks there a name with a corresponding correct address and without checking any ID they hand me a ballot and allow me to vote. Yet without ID a young adult can't buy a pack of cigarettes. Go figure.
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We were just talking last night about the fact that you can walk in and vote without anyone checking your ID.
What happens when I walk in to vote and they look at my name on the list and someone has already signed in as me and voted? Surely that has happened somewhere? If not I'm sure it will soon the way things are going. Hopefully Acorn doesn't read your blog and get more ideas.
In theory, that could happen in this country, too. In practice, unlikely to happen to us, as we know the people who usually staff the polling place, but could certainly happen to others.
Mind you, so few people bother to vote (alas!) that it's a very improbable form of identity theft!
I guess that's true, but the number of people who both vote early and die before November 4 will be an extremely, extremely, extremely tiny percentage of the vote.
When you think about it, someone could walk into a polling place on November 4, vote, and then walk out and immediately get hit by a car and die. We just have to decide what an acceptable time frame is. A few hours is acceptable, most people seem to think a few days is acceptable, a few weeks does seem like it's pushing it but it certainly won't be a significant number of votes.
Originally it was said you could bring a death certificate to the polling place on election day to show someone who voted early was now dead.
However what does that matter since you won't know which ballot was their's, will you?
And in the end, does any of it really matter since it's the electoral college that really chooses the president?
How tiny will it be?
In the first week of early voting in just the state of Indiana, 60,000 voted early. The current US death rate is 8.27/1000.
Even if only 1% of those early voters nationwide died...
But I think Apple's point is valid.
Just to be clear, I think we're on the same page. I'm wary of early voting as well. A better way to allow more people to vote would probably be to just make election day a federal holiday or something. I don't know.
But to be fair, the death rate is per year, so much less than 1% of any 1000 people die in any four week period. So while I agree that early voting is a topic of concern, I don't think it's a topic of ENORMOUS concern. You know? It's a problem of a rather small scale compared to other potential problems this election.
Again, I don't mean to be rude or to try to convince you not to feel the way you do. It's certainly reasonable to examine how our elections are run. I'm just trying to examine the scope of the problem and it seems quite small in this case.
I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that I have had to show my photo ID here in Chesterfield, VA. I guess I'll find out for sure in a few weeks. : )
Do they really not check ID where you vote?
Where I live (SC) they are so strict that I am given a hard time because my first name on the voter registration is not the first name on my Drivers liscence.
I can look into the face of someone who knows me well in the community and they will act as if I am a stranger until the correct ID is presented.
And you better not show up to vote if you have moved and do not have valid proof of your new address.
The volunteer helpers are trained to be brutal here!!
I've never had them check my ID to vote.
"Your name, please sir." "Your address." I guess they figure that if I know where I live I must be me....
I don't think the point is the relatively tiny amount of people who vote then die before election day. The point is, doesn't citizenship and the privilege of voting imply you are alive?
It is not American I tell ya! I agree all too much. Having lived in Chicago years ago with the "Chicago machine" method of voting ( lots of dead people voting) I think that the early voting system is fraught with potential for fraud.
We are newcomers to NC and I recently went to register to vote. They did not ask to see ANY ID. I could have been ANYONE from ANYWHERE signing up to vote. In NJ you had to have as much ID to register to vote as you did to get a drivers license. I can only imagine that they will likewise not ask for much when I actually go to vote! But as for me and my house we are voting only on the official voting day in November! It is the American way! Any if I am dead by that day... well hopefully another conservative will step up and cast his/her vote the way I would have cast mine!
Well stated Rick!
Here (NJ) they ask the demographics (Name & address) then they have you sign the sheet, you must provide photo id in order to sign the book. I would think a way of making some feel better about the absentee ballot is if a notarization is required but let's be honest if a person really wants to get around the system, they will. It's a failed system either way because all my life I have been told to go out and vote but in 2000 the popular vote was thrown out. Basically they told Americans that their vote is only for "show" and that the electoral college is all that counts. In 8 years, we should have found a solution that rectifies this.
So true. I voted on Friday and was not asked for any identification, though I had my voter registration card. No check for any proof that I was who I said I was--that I was aware of. They did type some stuff in a computer and print out a form that I handed to the machine clerk, so maybe there is a check I was not aware of.
I had never considered the whole death thing...but definitely something to consider!
Thank you for posting this! This is something that has been driving me crazy for a few weeks. I live in Mississippi & we don't have early voting but we have absentee voting. I live near Memphis & TN has early voting & Memphis is renowned for their "mishandling" of votes. Now, as far as showing ID I personally think there should be no question about that! I think you should have to show your ID no matter what but then someone is going to cry that they are too poor or uneducated to have an ID. We live in a world where PC is more important than right & wrong. I appreciate your post!!! I will be voting but I'm waiting until election day!
Emily in Mississippi
Early voting opened today, here in Florida, and the lines were horrendous (Of Course B.O. was in town to speak today, so they encouraged everyone to leave the rally and go to the polls to vote - so that may have affected it locally)... either way, I don't understand how if a Police Officer makes a procedural error, all related evidence (including dna and confessions) is thrown out under the "fruit from the poisoned tree" theory, but we don't hold the ACORN vote registrations to the same standard. After all, voter registration is a crime, isn't it??
are you SERIOUS that they don't check your id!??!!!? I've always had mine checked and been required to have my voters card...
I voted today from Iraq and am happy to be included!!
Bill
Do they match your signature later? That is how our votes are verified out here in Oregon, since everyone in the state votes by mail. Once you register, either at the county office or by mail, the state sends out ballots to all registered voters at the address they registered at. If you have moved they will not be forwarded. Once you fill out your ballot, you put it in a secrecy envelope, then an outer envelope that you sign. The outer one comes with you address (no name) printed on it. Once the county gets your ballot back they look up you address and make sure that the signature matches one on file for that address, remove the outer envelope, then put it into a pile to be counted later. It is often rated as one of the most secure and voter fraud proof ways of voting in this nation. It sounds like there could be a lot that could go wrong, but nothing has in the near decade that we have been voting this way, and we are often in the top 5 states in number of registered voters voting as it is much easier to do at home on your own time.
Bill,
I think our military is the one exemption I'm comfortable with voting "absentee" or early.
But it is ashame that with all the technology available to us we're still voting in much the same way we have been for 200 years.
What disturbed me 4 years ago was when I voted early, then while watching the news election night, it was announced that the early ballots would not even be counted b/c the race wasn't close enough.
Basically, my vote didn't count. I wasn't too happy about that. This year, I'm voting ON election day. They WILL get my opinion, whether they want it or not.
Voted today in Johnston County.
Gave name and address ...
Never showed one iota of ID.
So far over 2 thousand people had voted on that machine. Usually when I vote on election day it's about 500 people.
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