@Polly Ticks@Smokin Joe@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer@corbe@QueenCatofAragon @mystery-ak@thackney Early Voting, Absentee Voting, Provisional Ballots
Early Voting
Early Voting will always be here.
1. If all voted on just one day, the lines would be so long, it would take two or three days for all to vote.
2. To avoid having long lines that would require more than one day to vote, more polling places would have to be added in each voting precinct and that would be a massive expense along with the problem of two or more voting places in a precinct would not allow the workers in one voting precinct to know if the voter had already voted in another polling place in that precinct. Voting on one day only is not going to happen.
Absentee Voting/also known as Voting by Mail:
1. Some on this thread had to vote absentee because they were not going to be in their voting precinct during voting early days, or election day. If absentee voting/voting by mail was eliminated, all military overseas could not vote. Any non-military person going to be out of the country could not vote. My son lives in Cardiff, Wales, in the United Kingdom (England), lived there for over 20 years and votes absentee in every federal election. Going to be absent on early voting days and election day, used to be the only legal way to vote by mail.
2, I was working in elections the year the law changed to add other legal conditions to be able to vote by mail.
A. One can now vote by mail if over a certain age. This is for elderly people who cannot leave their home due to illness/disabilities and/or cannot stand in line to vote, or for no reason at all except they are over that age and can do it for convenience.
B. Any voter of any age who has a medical condition preventing them from going to a poll, may vote by mail.
Without voting by mail, seniors/others confined to nursing homes or hospitals, could not vote.
3. A good side effect of voting by mail is, there are less people at voting precincts on election day - the lines are shorter due to mail ballots.
4. A check on voting by mail is this:
A. Every request for a mail ballot is checked by the election administrator to determine that request was made by a registered voter in that county. If the person is not on the voter list, no ballot is sent.
B. The Early Voting Ballot Board (made up by Democrats and Republicans) meets a day or more days before election day (depending on how many mail ballots there are), to examine the ballot envelope, to determine if the voter is a registered voter and has a valid reason for voting by mail and all the required information is on the envelope . If the envelope does not pass these tests, the ballot inside the envelope is rejected.
C. I was the Judge of the Early Voting Ballot Board for ten years. We met two days before the election and also on election day to examine mail ballots that came in on election day.
D. People who work in elections, are paid by the state. I got money for being the Judge. I used that money to buy their meal on Sunday, and have it delivered, so we could keep working during the lunch period. A restaurant in town, owned by a Republican, delivered the hamburgers.
Provisional Ballots
When there is a voter at a precinct who is not on the voter list, if that person insists on voting there, he/she votes a provisional ballot. That ballot is a paper ballot and kept out of other ballots voted. The provisional ballots are not counted then, but go to the Early Voting Ballot Board to be evaluated. In the ten years I was the Judge of that Board, no provisional ballot was counted. Just because a person votes a provisional ballot does not mean it is counted.
