What I Miss about Manhattan: The Voting Booth

Let's start with how disappointed we are that the state of Oregon uses mail-in ballots.  That little oval to fill in (blue or black pen suggested) led me to  obsess about getting it right.  Annoying.

Ron and I loved going to our polling place, meeting neighbors, seeing how the poll workers did their jobs (very efficiently).  We've heard that mailed ballots increase participation.  Really?  My impression is this approach encourages proliferation of damned initiatives like 66 & 67, started by people who want to override decisions by the state legislature.  Oregon and the state of Washington are the two that have mail-in ballots.

And the cost?  I've been trying to track this one down without success.  Must be enough paper consumed to pay all the teachers in my grandson's elementary school (where they could use a few more teachers and classrooms, thank you).  And  the photo does not include the hefty Voters' Pamphlet, all 91 pages of it! Trying to resist are the founders of the  No Vote by Mail effort.  Good luck to them! 

Since I first voted for Adlai Stevenson in 1956, it's been exciting to get in line--New York City, Albuquerque, Oberlin, Baltimore--to pull the lever and feel the surge of participatory democracy.  Not a feeling I get in my living room.  But another change, after much resistance, is coming to the Big Apple, a holdout from the rest of New York state.  Now, folks there will vote electronically, wait in vain for the old familiar  "thump" of the lever, the sound that lets you know your vote has been recorded. 

Continuing  "yarn in the public interest," I knit my smallest YES patch and attempted to write the letters in single crochet.  Whatever it takes.  Judged readable by the very upbeat couple at the Happy Swallow, a coffee shop on Belmont Avenue that's brought kolaches to Portland from Austin, Texas.  This is result of immigration (story here).  Many surprises in our new digs, caffeine-land PDX.  Creative people always thinking how to differentiate themselves from the gazillion other cafes.

Kolaches, clever little cafes--work better for us than mail-in ballots and/or electronic voting.

Comments

[m.e.]

i'm all for non-electronic, participatory voting. glad you are having such fun learning your new neighborhood.

mt rainier is fun, too, though it's only about 9,000 people (up from the earlier 8,000). we had a free breakfast and performances at joe's movement emporium (kitty corner from glut coop) on MLK JR's birthday, and tomorrow is the centennial celebration! 100 years!!

i'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of all the empty boxes: they didn't pick them up last week on recycling day (everything to be recycled has to fit in one small yellow plastic box), and to be picked up on trash day, they must be cut up, stuffed in bags, and put in one of our trash cans.

then i went to one of the local banks recommended on the MR citizen website this past week (as an alternative to the BIG BANKS). the bank recommended not only was local, it was founded by a woman, etc. etc. when i got there, a man from africa greeted me (just barely). he did not shake my hand (cultural, certainly), and he required an up-to-date drivers license (not with the old DC address) and a current utility bill. since i just moved there and don't drive, i didn't have a new DL, and i don't get utility bills any more, being a renter. so i thanked them very much and left. i later found out that the woman who started the bank no longer owns it. it's now owned by a guy in west virginia who has a holding company. ugh.

next week, i'll change my voter registration. one of the very nice things about living in MD is that now i have congressional representatives!!!! i have always admired senator barbara mikulski, D-MD.

and so it goes. i'm growing very fond of the pupusas, tamales, and huevos rancheros at francis carry out. (about the only restaurant in walking distance). what they lack in decor (one table, four chairs, and 5 stools), they make up in heavenly home cooking!!

onward!! m.e.

[Kay Dennison]

I like going to the polls!

[Hattie]

I liked vote by mail when I lived in Oregon. It was nice to have time to study the ballot carefully and look over the voters' pamphlet again. My neighborhood was not friendly, and I never made good connections to the people there. So voting at the polling place did not interest me.
Completely different here, I'm glad to say.

[Beth Reid]

I love voting my mail. I always voted absentee when I lived in Washington ( the state), but had to remember to request a ballot it each time. Getting to the polling place was difficult because of my work hours. It doesn't matter on the method you vote, just that you vote, even if your opinion is different from mine. Beth at TP

[barry knister]

Voting by mail: I'm with you. It's fine for the infirm, etc., but otherwise it just promotes what so much else in our culture does these days: anonymity, isolation,erosion of civil society. Technology often extends efficiency at the expense of civility--ex., voicemail.

[Rain]

Having lived in Oregon most of my life, the decision to go to mail-in ballots was made in a vote by the people. Maybe it's the rain but it was chosen by the people (I voted against it but now like it just fine). It has increased participation in elections which again probably depends on whether you like what the majority chose or not.

The voter pamphlets have always been pretty big from before the balloting change We do have the ability to referendum things which is more democratic and definitely less popular with a lot of people who prefer representative government but Oregon again made the choice and it has given us things like Death with Dignity as well as the difficulty in getting tax measures passed. Sometimes that is good and sometimes not.

[janinsanfran]

I've done a lot of work investigating how vote-by-mail or "convenience voting" as the political science types call it works in practice. It doesn't help get low income or new voters out much; see these posts:
http://happening-here.blogspot.com/2007/05/getting-voters-mobilized-some-useful
and
http://happening-here.blogspot.com/2007/06/convenience-voting.html

The Obama campaign explicitly worked to get out early votes while combatting v-b-m's alienating features.
http://happening-here.blogspot.com/2008/10/together-we-can-obama-campaign-makes.html

Oddly, given my antipathy toward v-b-m systems, I almost always do it because I tend to be busy on election day.