On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
>
> Julia Thompson wrote:
> >
>
> >I've voted. My husband and I went to the only place we could do all our
> >voting at early (and even then, we had to go to two separate spots in the
> >mall) and voted this afternoon.
> >
> >So anyone wanting to change my mind at the last minute on anything is out
> >of luck. :)
> >
> ?????
>
> You can vote days before election day???
>
> How can the secrecy of your vote be preserved this way?
Once I've filled out the ballot, I stick it through a slit into a box that
will remain locked until the ballot boxes are delivered to where the
ballots are counted on election night. About all that you can tell about
my ballot is which box it's in, if even that. (And, in fact, there are 2
different boxes with 2 different ballots of mine now, due to the fact
that I got annexed by a city that's mostly in a different county from
the one I live in, and so I vote a county ballot for my county and a
special little city ballot for people in the city but not in the other
county.)
Besides, once it's in that box, how can you tell my ballot from someone
else's? We're just filling in little ovals with #2 pencils, and I don't
think handwriting analysis can determine who filled in the little ovals on
a given ballot.
Now, the fact that I have voted isn't so secret -- they have to keep
records on who's voted early, so no one can go and vote twice. But they'd
have to do that on election day anyway.
Julia
who may go down to the polling place on Tuesday just to say Hi to the
people who have volunteered to run things there that day, and express my
appreciation for them
