Seattle-area Iraqis are voting this week in their country's first-ever free parliamentary election. They understand the value of their franchise and they gladly bear additional burdens to ensure that their hard-won votes are counted correctly:
They left the Seattle area Wednesday with unmarked hands. When they return today and Friday, the tips of their right index fingers will be stained purple.Meanwhile, here in Washington where our own votes have been devalued to the point of near worthlessness, our elections officials are only concerned with increasing "convenience", integrity be damned: "King County should focus on mail voting, panel says" and "Reed proposes online registration of voters". They even want to spare you the inconvenience of having to fill out your ballot!That's the color of freedom for hundreds of local Iraqis who are making a 1,600-mile round-trip journey to Northern California to vote for a parliament in their homeland, a historic election involving expatriates around the world as well as voters in Iraq.
Even though I have a permanent absentee ballet, I feel Washington State should limit absentee ballets to individuals who are out of town on election day or have a valid medical condition that prevents them from going to the polls.
Sam Reed has not shown any leadership with the problems that surfaced during the 2004 Governors Race. Registering online is just asking for additional problems. If you cannot take the time to go to a firestation, library, DMV, or other authorized location; you probably should not vote.
Finally King County and Sam Reed need to clean up the voter rolls. The Election Office needs to compare the voter rolls to the DMV records, USPS addresses and other government databases. Discrepancies need to be resolved on a timely basis.
You can get your mail anywhere, but for DMV and voter registration the government better have your physical residence.
Posted by: Green Lake Mark on December 15, 2005 12:59 AMFunny thing about the Iraq election today, Bush's approval numbers are up, but I see no Democrat out there sounding happy that they are voting. It is like they wanted the election not to happen. Weird bunch is all I can say for the Democratic party.
Posted by: swatter on December 15, 2005 07:22 AMMail in voting and on-line voting centralizes tabulation and increases the event of organized fraud. In England for instance, union thugs sit outside peoples mail boxes waiting to steal ballots as they arrive.
Online voting has an even greater prospect to fraud. Microsoft can't keep hackers out of their applications, what do you think will happen to this form of vote casting?
Posted by: joer on December 15, 2005 08:16 AM
Soldier, if you had actually read the proposals that Sam Reed put out, you would find that the signitures will be verified by the drivers license signitures.
I can't believe the fear posters have on this site of registering everyone to vote. Or making it easier to vote.
Whether you like it or not, most counties already have gone to all mail balloting, and most will get there in the near future. One part of the reason is the cost of elections...all mail certainly saves the high cost of staffing polling places.
And, whether Stefan believes it or not, Sam Reed is not the agent for the non-existent fraud that Stefan dreams about.
I did find it interesting in today's election in Iraq that according to CBS news...US forces left the pollin gplace security up to the Iraqi army & security...and the result was a lot less violence than anticipated.
Posted by: rossi too on December 15, 2005 08:53 AMWhy would that be embarassing? Stefan never claimed that people don't like voting by mail. He just pointed that it isn't a very good system for determining how legitimate voters actually voted.
If anything, perhaps you should be embarassed that you value your own convenience more than you value the integrity of our elections.
Which was Stefan's point.
"Funny part about it is that my vote counts the same as yours...."
You hope.
Posted by: ScottM on December 15, 2005 08:54 AMSo much for the concept of a secret ballot. I don't think anyone wants a partisan hack like Stefan to determine how voters actually voted.
But, thanks for the insight. We now have some proof of what Stefan's agenda seems to be.
Uhmmm, why do you think the insurgents want to talk about joining the country insteading of violence?
Did you hear about that huge cache of bombs that were to be used during the election being discovered? I wonder who turned them in.
rossi too, Bush was right. Live with it. You have lost the war; the Iraqis will be free.
Posted by: swatter on December 15, 2005 09:04 AMHappy Holidays!!!!( no offense intended) to all the freedom worshipers at uSP.
Posted by: Winston Smith on December 15, 2005 09:09 AMPeronally, I would prefer Stefan making that determination to the current partisan hacks Logan and company.
Posted by: Jim L on December 15, 2005 09:10 AMUmmmm. The Iraqis guarded the poll sites the last election in Iraq also. US soldiers were not seen anywhere around the poll sites in any of the 3 elections that the Iraqis have had.
The Sunni Imams have encouraged all of the Sunnis to vote. They even blasted their messages over the loudspeakers from the towers of the mosques. This is the first election that the Sunni religious leaders have endorsed. The terrorists also said they would not attack the polling places.
What is shameful about our elections is our attitudes. We all consider it to a right and assume that our right will be there. The Iraqis are honored and deeply grateful for the chance to vote.
Posted by: sgmmac on December 15, 2005 09:12 AMThe signatures from the people who register online will be compared to the signatures on their Driver's Licenses.
I do think that the State voter database will help prevent fraud by if they use the cross checks to actually verify their identity. I just wonder how many they will perform and what the initial cross checks look like. If they do it correctly, it could clean the voter rolls up and eliminate duplicates and felons.
Posted by: sgmmac on December 15, 2005 09:17 AMOn second thought, I guess I'd better explain.
Nothing I said has anything to do with individual ballot secrecy.
You see, in a real election (as opposed to those favored by you and Saddam Hussein), the winner is the candidate who gets the largest number of legitimate votes. In order to know what this number is, there must be a method for determining how each voter voted, and for ensuring that the votes counted come from voters who are entitled to cast votes in the election in question.
See, we have to know how legitimate voters voted so that we can know how many of them voted for each of the candidates seeking that office. That's how we know who won the election, and who is therefore entitled to hold that office until the expiration of the following term.
Do you understand now?
Posted by: ScottM on December 15, 2005 09:20 AMWe need to make it an effort to vote. Everyone can vote in my utopia, but you have to get up off our collective fat butts and stand in line in the rain for the privilege.
The mantra is to get everyone to vote no matter what- i.e. offer coffee and cigarettes and buses to the polling booths (that is Democrat buses). Mail-in is too simple. But, alas, I will lose this one.
Posted by: swatter on December 15, 2005 09:23 AMVoting is a RIGHT for all citizens, not a privilege. Sorry to burst your little bubble, but you do not get to rewrite the Constitution with one post on a blog.
Posted by: Ivan on December 15, 2005 09:42 AMIvan, I got chills when I got the Iraqis in the first election venture out of their homes to vote. I saw a lone man walking to the booth, then another, and then another till the streets were crowded with voters.
And yet here, you get a ballot for just showing up. We need something to make the process of voting meaningful. Oops, we do, but it is not followed.
And then the capper is when we invite the Class of Divination from Hogwarts change your intent on your ballot.
Posted by: swatter on December 15, 2005 09:53 AMplease show me where this alleged "right" is in the Constitution. Hint: you won't find it.
Posted by: libertarianobserver on December 15, 2005 09:58 AMAs for all mail voting...bad idea. I don't want who knows how many postal employees handling my ballot and being responsible for ensuring that it gets to the right place on time. It's my vote, it's my responsibility, and I want to be the one that puts it into the machine where I know it's been counted.
Posted by: Darth Dogbert on December 15, 2005 10:02 AMYeah on-line voting is more secure than voting machines - in the sense that a corrupt government and make their re-election secure.
And Rossi too. Yes they signature from the driving files can be used. But there is no verification that the owner of that licence is a US citizen. How come there is enough money and staff for having the DMV work all the voting issues, but not that the license that they hand out is meant to be given to the person. What dems don't seem to get is the fact that if someone has a drivers license that does not give them the right to vote.
Posted by: fred on December 15, 2005 10:05 AMAny republican (or democrat for that matter) that continues to vote absentee and doesn't have to, has no right to complain about this county's current election problems.
Posted by: jaybo on December 15, 2005 10:43 AMHint: Fifteenth Amendment. Hint: Voting Rights Act.
Posted by: Ivan on December 15, 2005 11:20 AM"Amendment XV - Race no bar to vote. Ratified 2/3/1870. History
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
Posted by: fred on December 15, 2005 11:36 AMHint: There is nothing in the Constitution about stoplights, either, but you jolly well stop at them, don't you?
Posted by: Ivan on December 15, 2005 11:58 AMIvan:
Well, you finally admit that common sense should apply. I wish it did to your posts.
Get the context now? Nothing in the constitution, as Libertarian O pointed out to you.
Your response "Hint: Fifteenth Amendment. Hint: Voting Rights Act."
Again, not in the constitution.
Traffic laws are not unconstitutional, therefore they are allowed to be enforced. The constitution grants rights. Legislators make laws for civil order, but are guided by the consitution. It really is quite simple if there is no agenda to prove.
Posted by: fred on December 15, 2005 12:16 PMI agree....but more shame on the auditors and county commissioners who take away our privilege of going to the polls, and decree an all-mail vote county.
Posted by: Susu on December 15, 2005 12:23 PMThe Fifteenth Amendment is not in the Constitution? Please explain. Thanks.
Posted by: Ivan on December 15, 2005 12:37 PMUnbelievable!!
Posted by: swatter on December 15, 2005 12:40 PMThe 15th amendment is an amendment to the US constitution. (Got it so far?). It was ratified in 1870. The words of the amendment are:
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
Which basically says, IF there is a vote you cannot stop any US citizen voting because of race.
You see, that has nothing to do with the right to vote, just you cannot have different voting laws for people based on race. You will need to come up with another part of the constitution to show that there is a right to vote.
Posted by: fred on December 15, 2005 12:59 PM"Voting is a RIGHT for all citizens, not a privilege."
Voting is not a right, it's a privilege.
Would you like to explain how a five-year-old citizen can vote? How about a felon who is a citizen (and hasn't applied to be able to vote again)? Please, Ivan?
If voting was a right then it would be available to ALL citizens. As I've pointed out, and at the same time shown your comment to be unabashedly false, the privilege of voting is not available to ALL citizens. It has to be earned (by becoming 18 years of age) and society can take the privilege away (if you are convicted of a felony, for instance).
I know you hate to be wrong and to be corrected, Ivan - but I know it happens all the time. Consider this one of those times.
Posted by: Larry on December 15, 2005 03:03 PMSo you actually LIKE mail-in voting? Bully for you. You want us to respect your preference - point taken.
So you would agree that some people like poll voting as well, right? And, in not wanting your desires to be trampled upon, you can understand why other people would feel that way, right?
And if so, you can understand why some people are outraged that some counties have gone to all-mail voting, because they prefer to vote at the polls. And if you're so open-minded, can we assume that you would vote AGAINST all-mail voting, if it was on the ballot, because you want everyone to be able to vote in the manner that they choose?
Posted by: Larry on December 15, 2005 03:06 PMIraq is voting. Iraq is becoming a Democracy.
Patrick Henry was right. Thomas Paine was right. Thomas Jefferson was right. James Monroe was right. Abraham Lincoln was right. FDR was right. Harry Truman was right. John F Kennedy was right. Ronald Reagan was right. George W Bush is right.
You, with all due respect, are wrong. History will remember the damage that you tried to do. Through hard work and determination - something with which you are unfamiliar - we will prevail.
Posted by: Larry on December 15, 2005 03:10 PMHowever, in reading the Constitution, it doesn't specifically spell out a right to vote. It says that the states can set the requirements for it's voters in selecting national offices, with congress reserving the right to pass more specific laws as needed. (Article 1 Section 2-4)
In Amendments 15, 19, 24 and 26, things that could deny the right to vote are specifically prohibited - Race, Gender, Poll Tax and age 18. All of these amendments also say that the right of a "citizen to vote".... implying that only citizens are allowed to vote.
Interestingly enough, in Amendment 14, Sec 2, it seems to say that if there are restrictions on male citizens 21 or over, then the representation can be reduced to that of only who is allowed to vote. So, if you had 1,000 male citizens of legal age, but for some reason only 500 were allowed to vote, then your representation could be reduced to correspond with those 500....
Here is the full text - do I understand it correctly?:
"Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."
So, there is a right to vote, but it is not all encompassing. The States set their regulations for voters and the Constitution further defines what reasons can not be used to deny someone a right to vote. If the right to vote were all encompassing, then why would we need five amendments to further define it?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on December 15, 2005 05:04 PMGetting people to vote that don't give a rats' .... is wrong!! Giving them money or other bennies to vote is wrong!!!
Posted by: swatter on December 16, 2005 07:53 AMExcept that Amendments 15,19,24 and 26 do put a few Constitutional contraints on how they can make voting laws.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on December 17, 2005 09:31 AM