October 22, 2004

• 1. I haven't done any specific research on the matter, but I'm nearly 100% certain that you cannot collect ballots. In the US, most ballots are put directly into specially sealed/locked boxes which are not to be tampered with by anyone until they get to the official registrar / wherever they're counted. 2. As with #1, I'm fairly certain (at least in my state, CA) that the location must be permanent or "semi-permanent" (like a mobile home or mobile office unit in a school or the like). A van which may or may not be mobile on the day of the election is right out. The reason for this, I assume, is that they don't want you just up 'n moving the polling place somewhere else where people may not be able to find it.
• Also, also you may want to check your jurisdiction, as certain places may consider a "get out the vote" van to be a potentially partisan activity and you'd be restricted to a certain distance from any polling places. Therefore, you'd have to get in touch with the registrar to know where they are and avoid them by whatever distance is prescribed (usually, if memory serves, 500 or 1000 feet).
• Cool... I am living dangerously, complaining about Bush online with the polling place only 800 ft away. Maybe that'll get me extra jail time when the Department of Homeland Security starts cracking down on dissidents.
• Instead of working towards becoming a legitimate polling station, you'd probably be better off painting signs on the van that say something along the lines of I've got you "polling place" right here, pal! or a list of candidates that reads John Kerry, George W. Bush, Ralph Nader, Deez Nuts!!! Something like that.
• Yes, something like that.
• You could be safe, rolypolyman. I don't know the rules where you live. (I seem to recall it's Texas? But my memory is a sieve today). Plus, you're not "electioneering" near the polling place, just quietly doing your part to spread the word about the Idiot-in-Chief.
• The answer to No. 1 would be absolutely not. The integrity of an election rests on the responsibility of polling station workers who issue you your ballot and make sure that the there is a straight line from the issue of the ballot to the polling booth and then into the ballot box. In Canada, anyway, the poll workers (all volunteers as far as I know) verify the integrity of the ballot when you come out of the booth by removing a tear-away portion and handing it back to to you to place in the ballot box. (Canadian elections are thus far use only paper ballots, thank goodness, but we also don't have so many different races and different initiatives to vote on. The US ballots I've seen are a voter's nightmare!) The only concern I have is if you need some kind of permit to "broadcast" from your van im public. Assuming your get-out-the-vote drive (heh) is non-partisan, many municipalities have umpteen bylaws regulating almost every kind of public display, so I wncourage you to call your local bylaw enforcement office/police department and find out what the rules are regarding your plan. Be up front with them aboiut your intentions and I'm sure they will tell you what you can and can not do and where you can or can not do it. I applaud your initiative! Please post a follow up and I hope you get some good press out of it. :-)
• Wow, speeling hell. And I'm sober!
• We recently had our civic elections here in Alberta J.G. and for the first time that I've seen they used a computerized ballot counter. You registered at the first desk, went behind a screen, filled in the appropriate bubble with an HB pencil and handed the ballot inside a folder to the volunteer counter who then proceeded to feed the protruding edge into a machine that registered your vote. I guess the point is to alleviate the long hours of vote counting and any mistakes. No hanging chads here, no siree.
• My video store has absentee ballets at the check-out counter, you could go a little earlier and hand those out if probably.
• No hanging chads here, no siree. That's interesting, squeak, and the first I've heard of electronic voting in Canada. I am sure it is a sign of national voting protocols to come, maybe even next spring or summer in some precincts. :-) And so the fear becomes hard disk faliure/partisan hacking vs. ambiguous vote marks and hanging chads and the human eye. Not much of an upgrade in my opinion. /derail
• Nice try, hippie dude. don't do the paint job and stay away from the voting booth because we don't want anything to question non bush votes. you are 30 years too late for the paint thing, but I will love you forever...
• EvAR, i meant.
• One regrettably doubts the legality of "picking up" votes with such a vehicle, but just the same, if I were to see a contraption like the one you're planning -- with a barcalounger! -- pass my window, you'd better believe I'd get out there and VOTE MY ASS OFF even if I'd otherwise forgot. (Which is extremely unlikely, seeing as voting in this election is all I'm currently living for, but still...) You GO, ian would say!
• I know some liberal restaurant owners. I'm trying to organize a party (free food, free music) for those who vote. I'm thinking about passing out tickets to those exiting the polling place.
• Your decorating skills and musical tastes are just tacky enough to attract the attention of all the mouthbreathers you could possibly want to have contact with. Don't forget to spray a thin film of cheap bourbon on your van before you start driving around to complete the sensory freakshow.
• I'm so glad that everyone appreciates the utter ridiculousness of this idea. Don't worry, I'll get plenty of pictures to share after the big day. And coppermac... you're on to something here. Except this is in Portland, so I'm thinking maybe a free cans of PBR, handed out in exchange for each ballot we collect. Or Parlaiments. I wonder just how many laws we would run afoul then?
• chimera, Jerry Garcia - Ok.. however in Portland I've seen numerous groups walking door to door collecting ballots. So is that straight illegal, or just not-exactly-legal-but-some-people-do-it-anyways?
• Are they really collecting ballots that they will vote later in advance polls or on election day? Wow. That's a recipe for disaster not to mention incredibly lazy behaviour by citizens of a country currently at war...
• Since no one seems to have mentioned this, one obvious service you could perform is to offer lifts to the polls to all, which would be in the same spirit.
• I think you'll probably be arrested.
• For those of you as confused as I was, because in any other state in the USA, the idea of picking up ballots sounds outrageously strange ... here's a news story that explains Oregon's unusual system of voting. It is the only state that relies solely on mail ballots and critics have long questioned whether it is more open to fraud. It just gets better from there. Under state law, the county offices are allowed to remove the ballots from their secrecy envelopes before the Nov. 2 election to begin preparing them for counting. Workers stack the ballots and examine them to make sure the voting marks can be read by the counting machines. Elections workers add marks to ballots where the voter intent is clear but the vote won't be picked up by the machine. After the ballots are prepared for counting ... they are stored in a specially locked room until Election Day. Ian, if I were you ... and I wanted to be involved politically, I'd start protesting the strange voting system you guys have. And to think I was griping about our new paperless electronic voting (which I hate) ...
• I'm with exppii. Pile people in, throw them a free beer, and cart them to the polling places. I'd be in.
• well, if you REALLY want to LITERALLY get out the vote, ***contact your local kerry headquarters and volunteer to pick up/drive voters to their polling places***. they need help with that! and voters would get a kick out of the red, white and blue ride. and make sure to contact your local newspaper, if nothing else you'll definitely warrant a photo.
• Jerry, while there is likely to be more electronic voting in Canada, there shouldn't be the US nightmare as long as the described system is used, which sounds similar to what I've seen lately for municipal elections. The scanner just reads the marks on the paper ballot, so the counting is done faster. The physical ballot is still available for recounts or technological disaster. The only time I've used a touch screen (without a receipt) is when I couldn't vote on election day, and had to vote early. Hopefully that's not the system that will catch on anywhere else. Getting back to the topic, you could go to Republican headquarters to volunteer as a driver, and take republican voters to the wrong precinct. If you're in a state where you can only vote at your own precinct, that will create enough confusion since other republican drivers will have to waste time driving them to the appropriate place. (Or is that one of these dirty tricks that Democrats don't do?)
• ian would say, you rock. I love SideDish's idea of contacting Kerry HQ to ask how you can help. You could also check with the League of Women Voters, even if you're male. And we want lots and lots of photos.
• and I wanted to be involved politically, I'd start protesting the strange voting system you guys have. Or, you know, rejoice in it. It's a relatively new system that has increased voter turn-out. While I miss the tactile thrill of flipping the ancient switches that I got when I lived in New York City, there is something very nice about having two weeks to mull over my vote. And the ballots are cleanly and clearly designed. I don't really trust my ballot to the mail system (although there hasn't been any claims of fraud so far) so I tend to drop it off on Election Day itself, but it's nice to know that I could vote earlier if I were, say, apartment hunting in British Columbia that week, or something.
• Anyway, what are you waiting for Nov. 2nd for? People could vote today just as much as they could on the 2nd. You could also get in touch with any of the groups working on getting out the vote to help in their efforts -- the Dems, ACT, MoveOn, and possibly the New Voters Project (I don't know if they're doing GOTV).
• Picking up people and taking them to the ballot drop off is a great idea... I'm also planning on putting my cell phone # all over the van and encouraging call-in's to arrainge a pickup. Casuistry: Yes, people can vote today just as much as they can on the 2nd, in fact, most of my friends already have. They just mailed 'em back in. I'm mostly concerned about halloween weekend and nov 1st and 2nd,to make a ruckus and further add to all the "Vote Now!" furor here in portland. Getting in touch with ACT is an excellent idea... in fact, one of my best friends works for them. I can't believe we never thought of that before. Bananas, all around ))))
• Also worth noting: In the article linked by Orb, it mentioned the big opponent of the oregon ballot system being Don McIntire. McIntire is a, well, douchebag, who has constantly fought against school funding, healthcare, and just about everything else that can do good. He's one of those republican attack dogs that believes in "Low Taxes" and nothing else, and will work tirelessly to fight everything good a government can do in exchange for a 1 percent drop on property taxes. Most portlanders hate him.
• ian - I believe they're doing what they are in Portland because there are no polling places. I believe Oregon a mail-in-only voting state this time around. I wonder if that's legal as it is, considering you're probably supposed to put them in the mail. That is, unless the people collecting them door to door are officials in the district/precinct...?
• On reading the whole thread after posting, what Orb said.
• chimeara - Yes, but solely on the premise that McIntire is against our ballot systems, means that I'm most likely for it.
• Ian WS, as you've no doubt gleaned, even if you could somehow get your vanagon-o-love to be deemed a public building, it's too late for this election. Also, many states and localities have laws barring use of megaphones within 300-400 ft. of a polling place. However, your idea to paint said vanagon-of-love red, white, and blue, and get out the vote deserves a whole grove of banana trees. Use that love-mobile to get voters to the polls and get lots of pictures. And if you're passing John Adams school in Alexandria, Virginia, stop on in!