Opportunity to get paper or mail voting in Ohio as opposed to EVMs

[Kolesar]

Only 5 or so counties in Ohio use EVMs (elctronic voting machines). The activists prevented the mass purchase of EVMs in Ohio this year (Yay!). We have an opportunity to create democracy in Ohio, but we must act soon.

There is nothing that says we have to buy EVMs. Ohio needs comprehensive registration and election reform. We ought to consider a mail-in voting system like Oregon uses. That would prevent the problem with lines.

We have to get on this to get ahead of the fools in Columbus government before they buy EVMs.

[Eurobabe]

1. yeah, WTF?! In Vermont, you can vote from home!

Why not in OH?

[mongo]

2. I've been thinking about this a lot

It is not so much the electronic machines themselves, but the fact that they do not leave a paper trail. In fact, an electronic machine that leaves a human-verifiable paper trail would be preferable to the punch card system with hanging chads and ballots that can be easily spoiled by punching a hole accidentally.

I have been thinking about a ballot imitative for an Ohio Constitutional amendment to force the state to have free, fair and verifiable elections. I'm not sure about the wording yet. I am afraid that if we don't do something now that Diebold will decide the next pres. election.

Anyone else think this is a good idea? Want to post some possible verbiage for the amendment?

BTW - I am totally serious about this.

[truhavoc]

5. I thought of the same idea

I emailed Herb Asher, a ohio politics expert at Ohio State with a lot of ties locally to see if he could assist in this. If you would like to organize something locally to start this effort I am up to it. I live in Columbus and would like to start here in the center of the state. Personally I think you make the repugs come out against it as well...which sets dems up for a nice win in 06 or 08!

[Kolesar]

3. CASE-Ohio is working on this, mostly to block EVMs

www.caseohio.org

[0rganism]

4. If you're interested, here's the Oregon ballot measure for VBM

http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/nov398/guide/measure/m60.htm

It really does work, in terms of turnout. Before this measure, Oregon usually had about 50% turnout for "hot" elections. Now we regularly get 70%+ even for minor elections. We had 82% turnout this year, and relatively few people had to stand in the rain.

Now there are two things to keep in mind.

1) Big turnouts don't mean Democrats win. Nor have the approved ballot measures gotten noticibly more liberal. It's a myth. There are no guarantees, you still have to GOTV, because everyone votes more than they did before whether Republican, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, or Grade-A Lunatic. Still, from the POV of raw numerical democracy, it is an improvement.

2) VBM is not immune from the ravages of electronic vote tabulation. Optical scan ballots are still processed with database software produced by the same kinds of shitty republican-owned companies that make the worthless DRE machines they use in Florida and Georgia. Your votes go into a big pile, through a spiffy machine that hums and clicks, and back into another big pile, where they are stored somewhere "safe". There's still no guarantee that what comes out of the machine's counting software has a strong relationship to the intent of the ballots that were put into it, but at least you do have a paper trail.

[Kolesar]

6. thank you so much for looking that up! eom

[SPB]

7. We love paper Ballots in Switzerland

Check us out on http://www.swissvs.org

We are all about mail-in voting, above 92% in Basel.

We do not have queues. We do not even need polling booths.

US$2.- cost per voter!

Colored, notched ballot papers. Easy to sort, easy to count.

Accuracy, vast cost reduction, reliability - these are our reasons-to-be.

Please take a look at our web site. We can also provide in the normal mail, examples of our ballot papers.

You can also contact me [e-mail] and ask any questions you like. I will answer quickly.

We share your urgency "We have an opportunity to create democracy in Ohio, but we must act soon."