Heh. My Washington state absentee ballot came with a postpaid envelope.

And it was duly voted and mailed back this morning.

I'm not sure why Oregon ballots require postage. Seems odd to me, given the nature of things. But they do.

I don't know what it's like up north, but here in Lane County I've seen several warnings posted to make sure you include enough postage. It apparently requires more than just one stamp. So Oregon voters, be sure you've got enough postage! Otherwise, your vote won't get delivered! Ain't democracy grand?

Yay Twoson!

I was told that one lovely thing about voting early in Oregon is that the people who call to remind you to vote for whatever their hot button is usually *check* the incoming lists. If you've voted, they don't call and bother you.

I don't know if this is true, but I sure hope it is.

Dropped my ballot off at the library today. No postage!

We sat here tonight with our ballots and various voter's guides and talked. Mostly it was serious. One of us would say "measure *insert number here*?" and the other would say "wait, I saw something about that one here".

A couple of the Measures were "Not just no but oh hell no."
And we ended up with a shorthand that went:

"Measure *insert number here*?"

"Sizemore."

In chorus "Bzzzt!"

It was a very pleasant way to spend an evening.

I would love to be able to do early or by-mail voting, but apparently Connecticut isn't advanced enough for such things yet. Instead, I'll have to haul myself down to the polling location on Nov 4th and wait in line behind all of the people who didn't vote in the primaries this year, and are therefore going to be completely confused by the new voting machines. That'll be fun. I need to get my vote in for my freshman Congressman though, since he's been voting the way I want him to on most of the important stuff, and I guess I'll grudgingly vote for Obama while I'm there.

I like the mail voting system, since I can drop off my ballot in a box at the courthouse. (Which I'm going to do in ten minutes!) If I had to mail it, I'd feel a little leery.

As an election administrator, I'd love to go to an all mail-out balloting system. We get better numbers, it's very convenient in this rural community, and it makes the ballot processing run so much smoother than by regular voting and absentee. I'm curious though - what seems to be the general thought on your mail-out ballot system? Do people like it? Or would they rather go to a polling place to vote?

So far as I can tell, people here love it across the political spectrum.

I've been down to the county elections division and done the observer walkthrough, during the 2004 presidential election. They really have this stuff nailed.

Glad to hear it. We so often only hear the negative about our jobs and the work we do, so it's nice to hear positive feedback even in a different state or county.

I'm a little uncomfortable with the concept. I went on about it in great lenght here and here. Of course, as a New Yorker, my opinion doesn't count for much. Nevertheless, there's something traditional, almost solemn, about going to my polling place—sometimes with my family, sometimes alone—and waiting (again, sometimes with a crowd, sometimes not waiting at all), stepping in to that seemingly ancient machine, flicking the little switches, and then pulling the lever. And knowing that up to half of my fellow citizens are doing precisely the same thing on this day, all across the country, is kind of awe-inspiring.

The idea of just sending it in, like paying a bill, somehow cheapens the process.

The tradition of voting is a big part of why Montana hasn't switched over. A good portion of the voters here see it as a way to gather and see each other out and about, which I freely admit that I love too. The community generally has a bake sale at our single polling place, and it's usually very festive and cheerful.

However, my county has a lot of reasons for switching over. Convenience for the voter is probably the biggest. I've had a lot of feedback from our absentee voters that they love to have the time to review the ballot, think about the candidates, and send in their ballot at their convenience. I also have had a great many residents inform me that absentee voting really helps their confidence in asking someone to help them vote - they have felt embarassed to use voting assistance machines or to have to ask for help in public. I understand that point, especially since I'm legally blind and absolutely hate asking for help.

And specific to my county, we live in an area where we don't know if we'll have a foot of snow the first week of November. We had six inches over Labor Day weekend, so it's a very real concern for our voters that live 30 miles away from our single polling place. Many of our in-town residents work jobs outside of the county too, so that makes it easy for them as well.

Right now, of course, most of those arguments are for the minority of people. But we have 1200 voters in my county, and of those, 460 so far have voted absentee. That number has grown by leaps and bounds (roughly 30%) over the last two and a half years, so we're seeing a lot more voters using it.

Not going to lie, either - from an election administrator's standpoint, I'd love to see an all-mail system. Costs are roughly the same, and we would actually wind up spending less money on election assistance equipment since we now have to maintain enough voter assistance machines to cover both the polling place and the courthouse. That would save the county thousands of dollars each year alone. And yes, convenience-wise, it makes my job wayyy easier. We would be training roughly half the current staff, maintaining a smaller workload on a day to day basis, and it would free me up to work on other things that need my attention, such as county budgets, payroll, recording documents, and filing.

But like I say, until the majority of my voters tell me they want to seriously push over to the mail out system, I'm happy with it the way it is. Keeps me on my toes!

As I said elsewhere here, I love voting from home. I can look things up, puzzle out the nonpartisan races, wade through the very innocent-seeming ballot measure titles, etc. Far too much to keep in my head and carry into a polling place.

(Never seen a voting machine in my life. Back when I lived in Texas, we used punch card ballots.)

I early voted yesterday. There's photographic proof (somewhat) at http://renegade500.livejournal.com/331925.html.

Just out of curiosity, how many people were running for President on your ballot? And how many races/issues were there for you to vote on?

Here, the "down ticket" races get almost no air play, but I seriously haven't seen or heard a peep about any of the races in which I'll be voting, so I'm going to do some research.

Six, I think, on the presidential ticket. Pacific Green Party, Peace Party, Libertarian, and maybe Natural Law? Plus the headliners. And I think I had about two dozen down ballot items.

I love voting from home. I can look things up, puzzle out the nonpartisan races, wade through the very innocent-seeming ballot measure titles, etc. Far too much to keep in my head and carry into a polling place.