May 11, 2008Discuss Trejbal's column on votingAllow Virginians to vote by mail Before Tuesday, I had not voted at a polling place since the first time I cast a ballot. Last week, I confronted the voting machine. The experience did not impress. |
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May 11, 2008
Discuss Trejbal's column on voting
Allow Virginians to vote by mail
By Christian Trejbal
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
Before Tuesday, I had not voted at a polling place since the first time I cast a ballot. Last week, I confronted the voting machine. The experience did not impress.
Read more.
Comments
[May 11, 2008 10:54 AM]
Ed S."I ran the candidate gauntlet in reverse, reached the safety of my car and headed to work."
You didn't get a sticker?
[May 11, 2008 11:11 AM]
c. trejbalI did also receive a sticker. Wore it until about 5.
[May 11, 2008 11:26 AM]
C RamseyDid you also drive around all day without your driver's license? Or did you just leave it in the car when you said you forgot your ID to test whether someone would try to suppress votes?
[May 11, 2008 11:29 AM]
c. trejbalI promptly retrieved my license after voting.
[May 11, 2008 2:45 PM]
JoshFor someone who worries about voting fraud so much, Mr. Trejbal certainly is trusting of the mail system and the officials who open and record ballots manually. I think I'd feel better about seeing my vote acknowledge on a machine, even if I lived in one of the Democrat-controlled precincts in Ohio or Florida where all of the voting fraud of 2000 and 2004 is alleged to have occurred.
[May 11, 2008 7:55 PM]
J CampbellI also have made only one trip to my highly inconvenient polling place in Floyd County in over a decade. Many times I have arranged work activities on election day to qualify for an absentee ballot. Even Floyd now uses voting machines that provide no paper trail, so I have little confidence that all votes are recorded correctly.
[May 11, 2008 10:13 PM]
Blue JohnHanging chads anyone?
[May 12, 2008 8:58 AM]
HenryI wonder if Christian will still support voting by mail if he goes into the polling place and discovers he can't vote because someone already mailed a ballot in his name.
[May 12, 2008 9:17 AM]
c. trejbalAside from the fact that the scenario you propose is unheard of, Henry, there are a number of structural things in place that prevent it from happening. Not least, every voter only receives one ballot. Someone still only gets one vote, so voting for someone else only wins some spite, not more votes for a candidate.
Moreover, that person would have to accurately forge a signature. All signatures are compared against the one on the registration card. If there are any problems or questions, the registrar contacts the voter on election day to resolve the situation.
(This leads to an interesting side issue. People's signatures change as they age or due to injury. So there are some calls every year, and voters are urged to update their signatures periodically.)
Don't fear something just because it is different, Henry.
[May 12, 2008 10:15 AM]
HenryI think you just shot down your own argument. You don't know who filled out the ballot. You only know who signed it. Churches could hold voting services. Candidates could offer money for ballots. We've eliminated "voting in secret".
All you have done is made voting fraud a whole lot easier.
[May 12, 2008 11:36 AM]
c. trejbalSurely you aren't suggesting that a church would tell its flock how to vote , violating the rules governing its tax exempt status.
[May 12, 2008 1:43 PM]
HenryIt happens all the time. They even collect money for candidates.
[May 12, 2008 5:06 PM]
Josh2"Surely you aren't suggesting that a church would tell its flock how to vote"
I don't know, lets ask Rev. Jeremiah Wright and see what he says.
[May 19, 2008 10:41 AM]
Wendell HensleyA voter unwilling to make a physical effort to vote is, in my opinion, unlikely to make the mental effort to study the issues and the candidates. More voting does not equal better voting.
[May 19, 2008 11:44 AM]
Other JohnI'm sure I'll anger someone with this, but there really needs to be fewer people voting every year, not more. There are way too many mindless & uninformed adults out there who vote and mess up the system because they vote based on things that don't matter, like which candidate wears boxers, who came on MTV to plug their campaign, who looks good in swim trunks at the beach, etc.
[May 19, 2008 1:11 PM]
ValerieWendell,
Good point - I can tell you as a Council candidate that voters do not remember the May date of the local elections. They relate elections to November. I know this is puzzling to those of us who are engaged but if I had a dollar for everyone who asked me - "now when is the Council election" - I could have had some TV ads.
Will moving the elections to November increase attendance at the forums? Will the media increase coverage of the candidates positions? Only one of the Grandstrand questions was in print and the rest were relegated to roanoke.com and not available to those without internet access.
Watch today's 2:00 Council meeting - non-partisan elections to be referred to the Legislative Committee.