I voted yesterday... No Political statements just asking about the method you chose on casting your ballot.

[bcla]

I'm a little concerned now about how secret my ballot was. I called up my county elections office and asked about what they do with the machine marked ballot produced by the touchscreen machine. The clerk said that they were transported to the county elections office to be tabulated.

He offered to look up if it was counted, which kind of worried me. I gave him my name and he was able to look up which early election site I voted at and then that it was tabulated. So apparently they could trace that ballot (and all the votes) to me. He did say that he had no way to look up who/what I voted for because the tabulation system doesn't store that in my database entry.

So theoretically there's a piece of paper being archived with all my votes that can be traced back to me. I think they probably have safeguards. My votes were specifically noted on that marked ballot in human readable format, but my voter registration number was probably only noted in the QR code. I thought that whatever unique identifier in the QR code couldn't be traced to me.

 

[Hikergirl]

It would be a really great thing if FedEx or UPS or some other commercial freight company would step up today to overnight those to where they belong. They could do 1-2 airports per state, and the counties could send couriers to pick them up.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ballots-like-u-s-postal-service-idUSKCN25B00I

 

[bcla]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ballots-like-u-s-postal-service-idUSKCN25B00I

A few states allow it. But if there's a postmark requirement, it would still need to be received by election day because courier services don't legally "postmark" anything. In Texas it seems that their law allows a "common/contract carrier" to deliver, with the mark of that carrier accepted in place of a postmark.

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/EL/htm/EL.86.htm​

Sec. 86.007. DEADLINE FOR RETURNING MARKED BALLOT. (a) Except as provided by Subsection (d), a marked ballot voted by mail must arrive at the address on the carrier envelope:​

​

(1) before the time the polls are required to close on election day; or​

​

(2) not later than 5 p.m. on the day after election day, if the carrier envelope was placed for delivery by mail or common or contract carrier before election day and bears a cancellation mark of a common or contract carrier or a courier indicating a time not later than 7 p.m. at the location of the election on election day.​

I found this from Lady Gaga's Twitter feed.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320104804086124549

Not sure what the FedEx envelope is for. That looks like a Los Angeles County (she supposedly lives in Malibu) ballot package. I can't find any way to use a courier to send in a ballot there. All they list is dropping it off at an official dropoff location, at a voting location, or mailing it in. Also I think they use a post office box. Maybe she looked up the county elections office address, but I see nothing that authorizes anyone to send a ballot there. This is what a return envelope looks like there:

 

[NotUrsula]

FWIW, I wasn't suggesting that a courier service do any "last mile" freight of ballots, just that perhaps they could get large lots of ballots that were mistakenly hand-delivered in the wrong state entirely back to their home states in time for local authorities to pick them up and move them into the legitimate postage or dropoff pipeline; whatever would be required in that place (a lot of jurisdictions will accept in-person drops directly to the election authority, bypassing the USPS. That is in fact what happened to those particular ballots, because if they had been mailed, they would have been headed toward the address printed on them.)

It's absolutely true that by law, you cannot take mail that has already entered the Postal Service stream and remove it to send it by other means. Nowhere did I mean to suggest that as a possibility. (Contracted freight carriers can be paid to move pre-sorted mail between USPS stations. They do that in trucks that are dedicated to the US Mail; nothing else is carried in those loads, and they are not allowed to open the bags. That's a different scenario entirely.)

 

[little tess]

Well, we have voted in western Colorado. Filled the ballots out at home and took them in to the central elections office to drop them off inside. There were many people of all ages dropping ballots off inside and out, as well as a long line there to vote inside, along with some to register. Some had their children with them. Everyone was masked. The parking lot was a mess and the city has the road out front torn up in two directions.

People were calm, orderly and even tempered. I was proud of all of us as citizens.

 

[Snap Crackle Pop]

I dropped my ballot off in a dropbox.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

We dropped ours off this morning. Checked the election website mid day and it had been marked as received.

 

[bcla]

FWIW, I wasn't suggesting that a courier service do any "last mile" freight of ballots, just that perhaps they could get large lots of ballots that were mistakenly hand-delivered in the wrong state entirely back to their home states in time for local authorities to pick them up and move them into the legitimate postage or dropoff pipeline; whatever would be required in that place (a lot of jurisdictions will accept in-person drops directly to the election authority, bypassing the USPS. That is in fact what happened to those particular ballots, because if they had been mailed, they would have been headed toward the address printed on them.)

It's absolutely true that by law, you cannot take mail that has already entered the Postal Service stream and remove it to send it by other means. Nowhere did I mean to suggest that as a possibility. (Contracted freight carriers can be paid to move pre-sorted mail between USPS stations. They do that in trucks that are dedicated to the US Mail; nothing else is carried in those loads, and they are not allowed to open the bags. That's a different scenario entirely.)

There's been talk about possibly having the package/courier services do that, so I hope you don't mind that anyone would be thinking of that possibility.

Also looking at the photo of Lady Gaga, I think it may not be what it looks like at first glance. It looks more like it was sent to her since it already has a label. So perhaps whoever is taking care of her primary home used FedEx to send it to her a different location.

 

[NotUrsula]

And the winning states in the Where-will-2020's-early-vote-turnout_surpass-2016's-total-voter-turnout? sweepstakes are (drumroll please) ....

Hawaii, with 110.6 % of total 2016 voter turnout
Texas, with 108.3 % of total 2016 voter turnout
Washington, with 105.4% of total 2016 voter turnout
Montana, with 102.4% of total 2016 voter turnout

Good job, folks!

 

[WebmasterKathy]

political, thread closed.