please I dont want this to get political just venting

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My point is, if someone is voting, the possibility that they put some thought into it and have resources available to research and make an informed decision is a lot higher if they are at home. Honestly, if someone is just learning about a ballot proposition while they are standing in line to vote, do you really want them voting? I'll pass, and I don't care how they end up voting.

I think that's your opinion, obviously valid. But it's simply an opinion. People will do the research if they want to do the research. If they aren't inclined to do so in the first place having it mailed to them, when it could get shoved to the side with other mail (especially under a pile of junk mail) isn't likely to make them do the research.

At least here you have to request it if you want it, you're understanding that something will come in the mail because that's the way you've opted to vote. Your level of research is more likely to be dependent on your level of interest in the political realm and measures or people up for passing or election respectively speaking.

And your comment about "do you really want them to vote"..well that speaks more in respects to your thought process than anything you've said...I can only leave it at that

 

[Disneypro1]

Voting is serious business. It should be done by all and I prefer voting in person on Election Day. It’s easy and just how I like to do it. If someone doesn’t vote..... they can’t complain. If I’m in duty. I goto board of elections to vote. But,Vote by mail. Has too much of a chance to be lost. Destroyed. Etc. Mail gets lost everyday.

 

[TLSnell1981]

My point is, if someone is voting, the possibility that they put some thought into it and have resources available to research and make an informed decision is a lot higher if they are at home. Honestly, if someone is just learning about a ballot proposition while they are standing in line to vote, do you really want them voting? I'll pass, and I don't care how they end up voting.

Ummm...I disagree. Many folks form their opinions from the latest sound bite on their favorite "news" site or "paid for by..." advertisement. They are no more likely to do "research" whether they vote from home or in person.

 

[bcla]

I haven't said anything to the contrary of what you're saying so yes I do agree with you. I'm just telling you how it often ends up in my area.

It's possible advanced voting (especially in-person) is in part why sometimes one county is "done" before the other.

The way I understand it, the in-person voting can usually be provided immediately by the poll worker since that's all tabulated by machine these days, although the original paper ballots serve an audit trail. Then they'll have absentee ballots that are deposited at the polling place. In California there's three days for absentee ballots postmarked by election day to arrive, and those take time to verify before counting.

I guess the highest potential for delays comes because it's legal to deposit an absentee ballot at any polling place in the state. I've seen it before where someone said he had a Los Angeles County ballot and he deposited it in the absentee ballot collection box. Then they have to send the box to the county clerk for sorting and then mailing ballots to other counties, which then have to sort those for verification, counting, and auditing.

Absentee ballots used to be a tiny part of the voting, but I understand it's up to 2/3 of the ballots cast in my state.

https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/historical-absentee/

 

[MillauFr]

It should be done by all and I prefer voting in person on Election Day.

That requires tons of temporary workers which in a city like Seattle you are not going to get. One of the big reasons we went to vote by mail is the lack of workers to staff the polls. When a company like Amazon who is pays 6 figures for many jobs is struggling to get enough workers how is the County Elections Department going to compete for staff? Amazon has 11,000 vacant jobs in Seattle and can't find enough staff.

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

Voting is serious business. It should be done by all and I prefer voting in person on Election Day. It’s easy and just how I like to do it. If someone doesn’t vote..... they can’t complain. If I’m in duty. I goto board of elections to vote. But,Vote by mail. Has too much of a chance to be lost. Destroyed. Etc. Mail gets lost everyday.

Not easy for everyone. Even if it were made a holiday, some people will still have to work. Any first responder can be called into work for whatever reason, so even if they made plans to vote, lots of obstacles can get in their way

 

[debg]

Interesting to look at the demographics of those two cities....

Absolutely correct!

 

[shelemm]

Voting in person makes it so much easier to suppress the vote. just limit the hours/days/polling places, insist on making folks jump through hoops to be eligible.

As it turns out, hourly workers in this country have overall darker complexion than the rest of us. Plus, and this is the fun part, they may have to take off work just to get an ID.

Look how convenient that is!

 

[JimMIA]

Who the person was that decided on only having 3 sites doesn’t really matter, once it’s determined that most polling sites need to be closed down due to lack of poll workers that should be enough to postpone the election.

The problem is that you can't just shut down an election on Election Day. This is something they should have anticipated -- you know, like when all the other states announced rescheduling their primaries?

But that's not what happened in WI. The governor resisted calls to reschedule until the last minute and a huge mess ensued.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The way I understand it, the in-person voting can usually be provided immediately by the poll worker since that's all tabulated by machine these days, although the original paper ballots serve an audit trail. Then they'll have absentee ballots that are deposited at the polling place. In California there's three days for absentee ballots postmarked by election day to arrive, and those take time to verify before counting.

I guess the highest potential for delays comes because it's legal to deposit an absentee ballot at any polling place in the state. I've seen it before where someone said he had a Los Angeles County ballot and he deposited it in the absentee ballot collection box. Then they have to send the box to the county clerk for sorting and then mailing ballots to other counties, which then have to sort those for verification, counting, and auditing.

Absentee ballots used to be a tiny part of the voting, but I understand it's up to 2/3 of the ballots cast in my state.

https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/historical-absentee/

I don't have the numbers necessarily for my state but it always seems like in my county that advanced voting is utilized a decent amount. They have a variety of locations you can vote at too for advanced voting and I don't have to go to my assigned one during advanced voting. Last year I advanced voted at sports complex facility (wasn't in use at the time due to the time of year) while I was out in the area.

I could see delays for mailing at any place, that's probably the case here but I don't have the time to look it up.

 

[MillauFr]

But that's not what happened in WI. The governor resisted calls to reschedule until the last minute and a huge mess ensued.

That is the puzzling part of this whole episode.

 

[JimMIA]

The city has no say in how many polling machines/supplies they have.

I'm sure that varies from state to state, and I don't know how Wisconsin does it. In Florida, the state sets certain parameters for voting equipment and then it's up to the counties to decide how many polling places, how many machines, how many poll workers, etc they use. With 50 states, there are probably at least 50 ways of managing this.

I will be upset with the slimy party that controls the legislature that insisted this go on without any regard for the citizens of larger cities.

I thought I read that the same party controlled both houses of the legislature and the governor's office.

 

[briggscreek]

Voting is serious business. It should be done by all and I prefer voting in person on Election Day. It’s easy and just how I like to do it. If someone doesn’t vote..... they can’t complain. If I’m in duty. I goto board of elections to vote. But,Vote by mail. Has too much of a chance to be lost. Destroyed. Etc. Mail gets lost everyday.

I'm in a vote by mail state but never actually put my ballot in the mail. I always drop mine in a drive-up ballot box at the courthouse. I think it's crazy that people are still expected to stand in line on a specific day to vote.

 

[JimMIA]

That is the puzzling part of this whole episode.

Well, I'm sure he had a reason, and I really doubt it was to cheat anyone out of their right to vote, lol.

If I'm not mistaken, the date for this election is precisely specified in the Wisconsin state constitution. If so, the governor may have felt that he had no authority to reschedule.

 

[JimMIA]

In Florida, we don't have mail-in voting, but we have absentee voting which is easy to justify. And all military personnel who maintain their permanent residence in Florida (a LOT of folks) are automatically allowed to vote absentee.

We also have extensive advanced voting for weeks prior to the election. I usually advanced vote at one of our public libraries in primary elections, but I enjoy actually going to the polling place, standing in line, and physically casting my ballot on the real election day. Guess I'm just old school that way.

 

[bcla]

I don't have the numbers necessarily for my state but it always seems like in my county that advanced voting is utilized a decent amount. They have a variety of locations you can vote at too for advanced voting and I don't have to go to my assigned one during advanced voting. Last year I advanced voted at sports complex facility (wasn't in use at the time due to the time of year) while I was out in the area.

I could see delays for mailing at any place, that's probably the case here but I don't have the time to look it up.

I'm not sure if early voting is considered absentee or not in my state. Some counties may provide an absentee ballot, while others may actually use the same process as voting in person at the designated voting location. I'm guessing it takes a while to get the correct ballot for the particular voting precinct.

 

[Deploraboo]

Of all the Constitutional rights being stripped here, voting (which should really be a Constitutional OBLIGATION rather than a mere right, imho) is arguably the most precious we have. We cannot give it up. If an asteroid hit the Earth And polls remained open, I’d vote. And in my neck of the woods (New Jersey), my vote is useless anyway.

 

[JimMIA]

I'm not sure if early voting is considered absentee or not in my state. Some counties may provide an absentee ballot, while others may actually use the same process as voting in person at the designated voting location. I'm guessing it takes a while to get the correct ballot for the particular voting precinct.

In my county, we bubble in our votes and then our ballot is run through a scanner. So for early voting, they just give you the ballot for your precinct and everything is right there.

We have closed primaries, and we also have non-partisan positions like School Board, so in a primary they have 3 ballots for each precinct -- Democrat, Republican, and no party affiliation. Easy peasy.

 

[b2k1121]

The problem is that you can't just shut down an election on Election Day. This is something they should have anticipated -- you know, like when all the other states announced rescheduling their primaries?

But that's not what happened in WI. The governor resisted calls to reschedule until the last minute and a huge mess ensued.

Except that's not what happened.

https://www.wisn.com/article/legislative-special-sessions-gavels-in-out/32041946#

The governor, Evers, called a special session on April 4 to vote on postponing the election. The republican legislature refused to show up and vote and claimed there was no reason as citizens could safely vote.

So, the governor decided to postpone the election the day before.

 

[bcla]

In my county, we bubble in our votes and then our ballot is run through a scanner. So for early voting, they just give you the ballot for your precinct and everything is right there.

We have closed primaries, and we also have non-partisan positions like School Board, so in a primary they have 3 ballots for each precinct -- Democrat, Republican, and no party affiliation. Easy peasy.

We've had a variety of different ballot types in my county since I started voting, but it's always been some sort of optical scan form. I remember when it was this weird 8.5"x11" sheet that actually separated into three sheets and was filled front and back. Then we would slip it into a sleeve and deposit it into a ballot box. The ballots would be delivered to the county clerk to be scanned.

The first time I remember using the current style ballot was during the California Governor recall election where there were over a hundred different replacement candidates on the ballot. Then it was just one sheet, although back then I remember we just deposited the filled ballots in a box.

These days we have on-site scanners and the voter is supposed to insert the ballot sheets individually. The machine keeps a running count of the number of ballots received and I believe will keep a tally of the votes. Earlier ones didn't really give any feedback, but lately I've seen a screen attached to the machine that provides feedback including who/what was voted for and when there's an undervote or overvote. We had some contests where we could vote for up to 5 candidates, and when I only voted for 2 it flashed a notice in red asking if I really wanted to vote that way. I believe it gives chance to reject the entire ballot and vote again if the voter wants to correct a ballot. I'm not quite what it would do - maybe like a bill accepter it will spit out the ballot for the poll workers to spoil.

We also have touchscreen voting machines at every polling place, although few people use them. As far as I know, they're generally used by people with vision problems, where they can blow up the text, or by blind voters who can use headphones and a system that will announce how the vote is recorded. I only used one when they ran out of paper ballots one election. And I was the guinea pig since they hadn't even set it up until they realized they were out of ballots.