Absentee voting: Point/Counterpoint
Should Virginia adopt no-fault absentee voting, which would allow all registered voters to vote absentee without providing an excuse?
True absentee voting opens participation
By Jon Liss
Liss is executive director of Virginia New Majority (virginianewmajority.org).
We are at a fork in the political road: Do we, as Virginians, fundamentally believe that every citizen should be allowed and in fact encouraged to vote? Or do we believe that voting is a privilege for a select few and that we should create as many obstacles as possible to keep out less privileged and less desired voters? A majority of Virginians believe that our state is best served by encouraging a robust and participatory democracy.
One recurring battleground on which this divergence takes place is the restricting of absentee voting. The absentee voting application form asks a number of questions and requests documentation to determine a potential voter’s eligibility to apply for an absentee ballot:
Are you pregnant? Do you work and drive to work for a total of 11 or more hours on Election Day? Are you ill or infirm?
Currently, if you want to vote and you can’t make it to your assigned poll on Election Day, get ready for the questionnaire. Depending on your county’s registrar, this can be more or less stringently enforced. Why the personal interrogation? Why allow a registrar the discretion to decide who can or cannot vote?
Virginia is among the states with the most restrictive and anti-democratic voting laws in the country. Not surprisingly, most of the most-restrictive laws are set up in the U.S. South as part of a historic effort to limit African-American voting. Enough is enough.
As a first step toward encouraging democratic participation in Virginia’s elections, we need true absentee voting (also called no-fault absentee voting). With no need for a state-permitted excuse, all registered voters would have the right to request and vote with a mail-in ballot or be able to go to a state-run facility and vote prior to Election Day. If you are elderly or young, pregnant or not, infirm or able-bodied, we all should be able to fill out the paperwork and vote. No need to hide behind allegations of voter fraud or other invented excuses.
Who’s afraid of democracy and why? It’s time to turn the page on laws that were invented to keep African Americans, poor people and immigrants from voting. Let’s move forward by creating a commonwealth where all participate. Let’s start by allowing true absentee voting.
No-excuses absentee voting invites problems
By J.R. Hoeft
Hoeft founded and continues to write for Bearing Drift blog (bearingdrift.com).
Our Constitution begins with “We the People” and goes on to explain how we establish our government through voting. Additionally, there are five constitutional amendments that address a person’s right to vote.
Intrinsically, in our constitutional republic, the right to vote is fundamental to how we as a society determine our government.
Therefore, for anyone who values constitutional principles — it is expected for people to be involved, informed and active in the political process.
However, while it is important to maximize voter participation by the electorate, no-excuse absentee balloting is not the way to do it.
Consider what no-excuse absentee balloting might give us:
n Fraud. A person who physically votes under the observation of election officials will greatly diminish the possibility of a person cheating the system or being unduly influenced and/or intimidated by outside interests.
n Diminished sense of community. Voting is, without a doubt, a community event. Individuals exercise their personal responsibility in selecting their government, but it is also the individual coming together in the sense of a larger community to make a community decision — at a particular moment in time.
n Increased expense. It is a small personal cost to pay to actually go to the polls where there has already been an investment of taxpayer dollars. With a proposed increase in absentee voting, there is the risk of increased costs on top of the investment already incurred (additional study may have to be done to see if absentee voting reduces costs in the long run).
n An uninformed choice. Absentee ballots must be returned before the end of a campaign — the actual Election Day; therefore, a voter could miss the introduction of key information into the campaign that might have influenced that person’s vote (debates, endorsements, etc.), yet his vote has already been cast.
n Changes in the political system. Right now, presidential candidates cannot spend money raised for the general election until they are the nominee. With no-excuse absentee voting, which is effectively voting on-demand, a candidate, particularly a challenger who is already at a disadvantage, has less than a month to make his case (from the end of a nominating convention to the beginning of absentee ballot voting).
The reality is that presently absentee ballots can be requested for 11 different reasons, including working all day; therefore, if a person truly wants to vote absentee, he likely can find a reason.
No-excuse absentee balloting is simply inviting more problems than it solves.
October 21, 2012 - 7:49 AM
If we acknowledge that, as Mr. Hoeft suggests, “if a person truly wants to vote absentee, he likely can find a reason,” and that those are valid votes, then what is the difference about the reason for wanting to vote absentee? Does Mr. Hoeft question the legitimacy of current absentee ballots?
I dispute the idea that the few, limited excuses currently available to authorize absentee voting create a more “legitimate” vote than any other excuse. Situations often suddenly arise that are legitimate and do not meet the arcane and arbitrary rules of the current system, and yet those legally registered voters are currently prohibited from casting their constitutionally-guaranteed right to vote.
Mr. Hoeft seems to presuppose that absentee voters are inherently dishonest. That is contrary to our moral and legal beliefs that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Voting should be fully encouraged and made easily and readily available to all registered voters. Mr. Hoeft suggests that everyone has to behave like him and cannot make up their own minds whenever they want; I vigorously disagree. Noone, especially Mr. Hoeft, decides for me. If some people can vote early, then all people can vote early.
Let us take advantage of improved technology and move forward into the 21st century by updating Virginia’s antiquated absentee visting laws.
Virginia should adopt no-fault absentee voting, with no “excuse” required.
Sorry Mr. Hoeft, but you don’t really make a very good argument for your case.
Fraud? Show me the numbers. Until then, don’t use fraud as your backstop.
Diminished sense of community? As you said, the Constitution guarantees suffrage, not a “sense of community.”
Increased expense? Ok, I’ll give you that one. But we should be doing everything we can to give more people the opportunity to vote.
An uninformed choice? That’s just none of your business. Speak for yourself here.
Changes in the political system? The last time a candidate had “less than a month” to make his case was…never? Presidential candidates run for office for almost two years. This is a silly point.
I will say though, why are we talking about no-excuse absentee voting when we should be following other parts of Virginia and adopt early voting altogether.
I wish I had known that working a very long day was a “good” reason for absentee voting. I work from 5am until 5 pm. Most of it on my feet. I do not feel like standing in a voter line after that kind of a day. I have skipped voting several times because of being totally exhausted. Too late to take advantage of that option this year but I will keep that in mind for the future. I think it should be easier to have alternate ways to vote. It should also be easier to obtain the ballots for absentee voting.
Excellent point Debi, but you should not have to create a reason or explain your life to anyone in order to cast a ballot in the way that is easiest for you. This is just not right. No-fault absentee voting, with no “excuse” required is the only way to go. Except of course if you want less people to vote.
What we should be talking about are military personnel overseas, many of whom do not get absentee ballots in time to cast that vote.
I think we can talk about all kinds of things at once. We do it every day.
What is the problem with the military getting ballots? Do you know? Why do they not have a better system after so many years at war?
Sandi that’s a great question. I realize it’s hard to deliver mail to the front lines, my real problem is with the way they are often not counted when they finally do get here.
Alton, you do not cite any sources, but I believe that information to be false.
As this article explains, a charge does not a fact make.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/09/26/obama-accused-of-suppressing-military-vote-by-withholding-absentee-ballots/
“While I won’t be holding my breath waiting for Hedgecock to cop to his exceedingly bad behavior—people like him never do—I do hope Bill Maher or Chris Matthews will pick up on this and further ‘out’ Mr. Hedgecock for being the fraud and liar that he so clearly has demonstrated himself to be.”
Obama signed the law in 2009 to get the ballots to the military sooner and the Obama DOJ is even suing some states to keep the count open if they failed to get the ballots out in time, as shown here:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20121012/NEWS03/310120017/Justice-Department-sues-Vermont-over-late-ballots
“The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Thursday asking a court to require the state to give military and overseas voters more time because some towns failed to send out ballots 45 days prior to Election Day as required under a 2009 federal law.”
Maybe you have other evidence and would like to substantiate your claim?