According to the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College, 28 states allow no-excuse absentee voting by mail, including Oregon, where everybody votes by mail. Well, some of the folks that will be dropping their ballots in the mailbox this year (or already have) are abuzz on Twitter about their unique way, and lack of specific day, to vote. I’ve been following and tweeting about it all morning. Check it out.

Voting by mail isn’t universally lauded as a solution to America’s low voter participation, however. As I explored when I visited the main postal sorting facility in Los Angeles, vote-by-mail may cut out one part of the American voting system that many people have come to rely on: the secret ballot.

* 9/23 UPDATE: Other cool Twitter voting searches I’ve been doing are early voting, voting early, and absentee ballot.

Posted in Early voting, Election 2008, Election Reform, Oregon, Vote-by-mail | 2 Comments »

NPR’s Ina Jaffe took a look yesterday for Weekend Edition Sunday at the vote-by-mail election system in Oregon, and how the rules there make campaigning a unique experience.

A big critique of vote-by-mail, which has been echoed here by Norman J. Ornstein, is that the process negates the secret ballot. “We got rid of that big reform that guaranteed secrecy in the voting booth,” said Jim Moore, political science professor at Pacific University, “and got rid of the idea that no one can come between you and directly placing your ballot in the box — a sealed locked box.”

Listen to Jaffe’s piece here. My piece this week for NPR Sunday Soapbox, which was teased on Weekend Edition Sunday, was about how super delegates are shifting the election reform debate from our voting systems to our party system.

Posted in Election Reform, Existing laws, Oregon, Vote-by-mail | Comments Off