NEW YORK, 15 September 2004 — Absentee votes have never had a good rap. Many believe that the last presidential election was lost by Democratic candidate Al Gore, due in part to confusion regarding absentee votes.
Not that long ago in Chicago, former candidates used to joke: Vote early. Vote often. And just three years ago in West Virginia, voting regulators informed the FBI that absentee votes were being swapped for $15 and flasks of whiskey. There have also been reports at US military bases that officers, in facilitating voting opportunities for their servicemen, have also had a hand in directing for which party the vote would be cast.
Expatriates vote using absentee ballots. So do US servicemen based overseas. But it is estimated that for the Nov. 2 president election this year, as many as one in four Americans will use the absentee ballot to vote. This is mainly because of pressure by many local election and political leaders, who have promoted absentee voting as easier for people to avoid the crowds on Election Day.
Due to fraud concerns, Pennsylvania this year barred election officials from allowing party officials and coordinators from collecting absentee ballots. While in Connecticut, several local towns created a program that barred political parties from handling absentee ballots, but the state failed to institutionalize the program statewide.
Gary Bartlett, a member of the international association of election officials called the Election Center, and the director of elections in North Carolina, told journalists the campaign workers tend “to target people who are elderly, infirm, low-income, non-English speaking. So there is a psychology of almost fear and intimidation.”
Since the last presidential election four years ago, prosecutors have brought criminal charges against 15 states for fraud in absentee voting. Several voter regulation groups have examined election fraud and even former President Jimmy Carter, who co-chairs an organization that oversees and examines voting practices throughout the world, issued warnings about absentee voting here in the United States.
“For practical reasons, most states do not routinely check signatures either on applications or on returned ballots, just as most states do not verify signatures or require proof of identity at the polls,” John Mark Hansen, dean of the social sciences division of the University of Chicago, Illinois, wrote in a 2001 report about absentee voting.
In a troubling sign for November elections, the New York Times said it recently found evidence that in many states “including battlegrounds in the president campaign — have abandoned or declined to adopt the safeguards on absentee voting that election officials have warned they will need to prevent rigged elections.”
