Vote-by-mail artifically saves local governments money by pushing a big portiion of the cost of holding elections onto the USPS (low cost ballot delivery - both directions), who is supposed to recoup its expense via postage from the voter.

The USPS might just say "That's too bad. Pay for your own ballot delivery system on Saturdays."

Here's a pollyanna passage:

Voters say they miss sharing the voting experience with neighbors, going to the school or the church or the neighborhood firehouse in this rite of citizenship. However, in Oregon, we are seeing a paradigm shift, the replacement of one civic ritual with another. Families and groups of friends are now gathering in homes, churches or libraries to discuss the issues and candidates on the ballot.

She leaves out the far more prevalent new ritual of "You fill it out, honey, and I'll sign it."

Isn't the cost of sending mail (including ballots) an expense that is paid for by the voter, not the USPS? It would seem that the post office would be overjoyed to get the extra business.

I thought they lost money on letters, and made up for it with bulk mail.

Saturday mail has to be sacrificed to keep postal service viable. It's worth it. Kate has a (not so) hidden agenda in spouting off on that this way.

I thought Oregon should be advocating for the abolishment of the post office.

After all, the USPS has the world's largest motor vehicle pool, and the vast majority of their vehicles are dirty non-hybrid vehicles with low fuel economy. Most of the mail is junk mail, which contributes to huge amounts of pollution in the paper manufacturing, printing, distribution, and recycling/garbage stream that is entirely avoidable. And the USPS occupies lots of prime real estate that has "higher and better" uses.

Saturday delivery isn't good enough. How about once-a-week delivery. 90% of my mail never gets opened or looked at...

"She leaves out the far more prevalent new ritual of "You fill it out, honey, and I'll sign it."

Jack that is a terrible assumption!

I fill mine out and 'Honey' asks, who did you vote for this? And what did you vote on that? Never does she look or touch my ballot! And I have never checked her ballot!

Somehow, Republicans have gotten hold of this "issue" and have created a narrative that the Democrats shoved vote by mail (VBM) down the throats of an unwilling electorate. Their goal, of course, is to keep as many people from voting as possible since reducing turnout is always in their favor.

Let's correct the record. VBM was an evolutionary step, not a sudden, sweeping change. Oregonians had already adopted VBM long before it became law. When half--or even more than half--of the electorate is voting by absentee ballot, you have a de facto VBM system. For quite a while, we were actually maintaining a very clunky dual system with most people voting absentee and declining numbers of folks taking the time to go to the polls, that was both expensive and inefficient.

The long-term trend is that more states will be voting this way.

dman ... No more of your nonsense! If the truth about VBM--that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent--becomes known, the case against it shrivels up. Don't you realize that the only reason the Dems ever win any election is because of voter fraud? How dare you speak against the narrative.

If the truth about VBM--that voter
fraud is virtually nonexistent--becomes known

No one's even attempting to determine how much fraud there is.

And the problems are more than just fraud -- there are many folks who couldn't be bothered to learn about the candidates or issues, who are giving their more motivated spouses and roommates second and third votes. That's just as bad as fraud.

It would seem that the post office would be overjoyed to get the extra business.

Ha! Maybe if it were a private business. USPS employees (along with the majority of government workers) get paid either way.

And the problems are more than just fraud -- there are many folks who couldn't be bothered to learn about the candidates or issues, who are giving their more motivated spouses and roommates second and third votes. That's just as bad as fraud.

You mean as opposed to the folks who can't be bothered to learn about the issues but who go to regular polling places and vote a certain way because someone tells them to--either the people they live with or (even worse but just as common) someone like Rush Limbaugh, for example? Or, people who make rushed judgments (no pun intended) at the polls because they've never read anything about the people or measures they're voting on?

The experience that I've had, and that people who live nearby have had, is that VBM gives people more time to gather information and make reasoned judgments about candidates and issues.

Yes, some low-information, unmotivated voters are susceptible to the opinions of people around them. But aren't they always?

I guess the Republicans will eventually get their way--as they usually do. We'll once again have a dual system where we'll spend a ton of money to pay poll workers and maintain the machinery, including electronic voting machines that are totally reliable. Meanwhile, most people will continue to request absentee ballots. Unless they succeed in making those illegal, too--thus disenfranchising shut-ins, those elderly without transportation, and others who are unable to get to the polls for various reasons. Yeah, that'll a great system.

low-information, unmotivated voters

Those folks simply didn't go to polling places. Now they don't have to. They let others fill out their ballots for them. That's wrong, but it's happening, and there's really no way to police it.

And no one's even bothering to try to quantify it. All there is is anecdotes. Kate Brown's pollyanna rap (which you repeat) is no more or less valid than mine.

Let's not forget a couple of other benefits of a vote by mail system.

1. It eliminates the "last minute surprise" attack by a desperate opponent. Since VBM started, how often have we seen a candidate smeared on the Saturday or Monday before ballots are due? It doesn't do much good to wait until then, because most of the ballots are in. And smearing the opponent a couple of weeks prior doesn't do much good, because there is time to refute the lies and leave the attacking candidate with egg on his/her face.

2. You can shut off most "election porn" by voting shortly after receiving your ballot. I usually do this, and get few phone calls and little mail once the arrival of my ballot is recorded at the county election office.

One thing about vote by mail, if local, county, METRO, or state voting fraud is uncovered (either outside or inside the government agency), besides being a racket, it's also a federal felony.

"is that VBM gives people more time to gather information and make reasoned judgments about candidates and issues."

That's why Kate needs Sat for people to mail these in at the last minute.

Hard to believe she actually learned how to construct a reasonable argument in law school and relies more on rah-rah infantilistic approaches to sell stuff like any other politician.

"You mean as opposed to the folks who can't be bothered to learn about the issues but who go to regular polling places"

OK

"since reducing turnout is always in their favor."

Yeah, its always better when we can ship 500 ballots to the same 2 bedroom house. That way we can up the vote count.

What gets me about Brown's narrative is how careful they are to scan each ballot, yet they can be bothered with this level of precision or eqpt on intiative petitions.

I guess if you are asking, I'd rather have people who actually take the effort to get off the sofa and go to a polling place rather than a bunch of votes of indeterminate origin with little effort on their part.

"yet they can be bothered"

Should be CAN'T be bothered.

""You mean as opposed to the folks who can't be bothered to learn about the issues but who go to regular polling places"

Yeah, I see a lot of guys who don't give rats-butt about studying issues or voting taking the time and effort to actually show up at a voting place.

"how often have we seen a candidate smeared on the Saturday or Monday before ballots are due?"

Easy - Smear them on the Tues/Weds before.

"Those folks simply didn't go to polling places.

Yes, they do--especially in Presidential and gubernatorial elections, and in those where controversial ballot measures are on the ballot. You may have a more sanguine view of the preparedness of the electorate than I do. But I've seen and heard enough uninformed people at the polls to believe that they don't always stay away. If they're motivated by anything, it's not a well-reasoned belief in the soundness of their own political judgment, it's fear and loathing--something politicians are especially capable of instilling in poorly informed people.

"Easy - Smear them on the Tues/Weds before."

Still doesn't work nearly as well as it does when everyone goes to the polls on the same day. Many of the ballots are already in, and there's much more time for the side that is attacked to refute unfounded claims, making the attacker look bad.

rural resident, you're wrong in claiming that before VBM "even more than half--of the electorate is voting by absentee ballot". Where did you pull this disinformation from? Kate Brown?

"If they're motivated by anything, it's not a well-reasoned belief in the soundness of their own political judgment, it's fear and loathing--something politicians are especially capable of instilling in poorly informed people."

And VBM fixes this how? It just makes it easier to commit fraud and let people manipulate the process. At least if a person shows up at the poll you have semblance of one man -one vote.

'One thing about vote by mail, if local, county, METRO, or state voting fraud is uncovered"

Kate Brown actually investgate if VBM is not working and maybe make herself look bad? Dream on.

"rural resident, you're wrong in claiming that before VBM "even more than half--of the electorate is voting by absentee ballot". Where did you pull this disinformation from? Kate Brown?"

No, I got it from the SOS website showing voter participation in elections going back to the 1990s (we started VBM in 1999). Kate Brown wasn't SOS then.

Go to the following sites:

http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/nov398/other.info/G98cum.htm

http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/nov398/other.info/totreg.htm

From the tables for the 1998 general election, the last before we changed to full VBM, you can see that absentee ballots represent far more than 50 percent of those actually voting.

In the states biggest counties, more than half were requesting absentee ballots: Multnomah (52%), Washington (55%), Clackamas (50%), Lane (55%), and Marion (59%). In some rural counties (Lincoln, for example), more than 70 percent of voters were requesting absentee ballots. More importantly, the return rate was much higher for the absentees: 73.50% for absentees versus 46.2% for those choosing to go (or not go, in the majority of cases) to the polls.

In some rural counties, absentee ballot return rates exceeded 80 percent.

For the 1998 general election, absentee (mail) ballots represented 678,599 of the total 1,160,400 ballots cast--or 58.48%. That is more than half.

From these numbers, it is clear that people were already voting with their feet (or not using their feet to go to the polling places).

"how often have we seen a candidate smeared on the Saturday or Monday before ballots are due?"

Yes, it happens, but sometimes truly important information about a canndidate comes out in the final days or hours of a campaign. George W. Bush managed to cover up his drunk-driving conviction until less than a week before election day 2000. His poll numbers had been steadily dropping even before then, and absentee voters likely made the difference in the result (although not in Oregon in that case). Another thing I don't like about early voting is that it threatens to short-circuit campaigns that depend on voter education to counter a dominant narrative (tax-increase measures come to mind). If election day is Nov. 2, campaigns should have until then to make their case. Personally I always wait until election day and vote via drop-off, and I urge others to do likewise unless it's a real hardship. As I keep telling people, just because you *can* vote early with VBM doesn't automatically make it a good idea to do so.

Semi-Cynic, your citing the Bush case of late info coming into a campaign points out how smear or late,correct info into a campaign can work both ways. Very contrary to all of rural resident's claims. You can't control all aspects of a campaign; there's the good and the bad; and give voters some credit to see through it all. VBM is just another government controlled part of life that we can do away with-I don't need it to worry about this or that scenario.

rural resident, you cited "ballots requested" for the five largest, metro counties, which is slightly over 50%. But you failed to note the return rate which is under 50%. It's true that some rural counties had over 50% return rates; but that makes sense if you don't want to drive 65 miles from French Glen to Burns to cast a ballot in the dead of winter. Messing with numbers is an art-form.

We have a lot more to worry about than Saturday mailing here.

We need assurances of integrity in our elections. What role do the machines have in our elections?