Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cperciva 3516 days ago
I live in a mail-in state (WA) and in my opinion it's a pretty great system.

What mechanism, if any, is in place to prevent voters from being coerced or bribed to cast their vote a particular way? This is the traditional reason for using in-person voting rather than mailed ballots; if you can't show someone how you voted, they can't bribe or coerce you.

(Maybe the answer is "there is no mechanism", but increasing the ease of voting is considered more important than protecting the system from coercion and bribery. Not a tradeoff I would make, but I can see that some people would support that.)
2 comments
djrogers 3515 days ago
> What mechanism, if any, is in place to prevent voters from being coerced or bribed to cast their vote a particular way?

If imcoerced into voting a particular way on my mail-in ballot, I can go to the polling place in Election Day and fill out a provisional ballot hat will be counted in place of my coerced ballot. Not perfect, but this year it allows me to vote even though I'm out of the state next week.

link
pseudalopex 3515 days ago
How many people know that? The Washington Secretary of State's FAQs don't mention coercion or bribery as reasons to receive a provisional or replacement ballot.[1][2] King County, with over 1/4 of the state's population, only mentions voting centers as an accessibility option.[3] And does the ballot tracker[4] show if a ballot is invalidated?

Every state has provisions for absentee voting, and 3/4 allow early voting in person.

[1] https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/general-election-faqs.aspx

[2] https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/faq_vote_by_mail.aspx

[3] http://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/how-to-vote/ballot...

[4] https://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/ballottracker.aspx

link
mark_edward 3516 days ago
I think you're guarding against different things. If you live in a society where there are (following historical patterns here) patriarchs coercing the votes of spouses and dependents you probably have a whole slew of other problems that make this particular one just part of a larger social reform that should happen anyway.
link