Should I Vote In-Person Early Absentee at house of local clerk who has McCain signs/bumpersticker?
Posted October 10th, 2008 by Capsaicin
OK, I decided I would like to vote in-person early absentee in
Wisconsin after I've read items encouraging it, and it sounded like a
good way to accomplish the one small, but critically significant step
on my part towards electing Barack Obama/Joe Biden that is now
possible. Positive results include feeling like my vote is 'in the
bank', allowing the campaign to check me off the list(s), and--child
situation permitting--possibly allowing me to drive others on election day.
I called the local Clerk and found that early voting occurs
at the clerk's house, and I could come vote early by calling and making
sure he/she was home. So I decided to do it immediately and drive out
to the home, which was not far from the regular voting building used on
Nov 4. Once I found the right mailbox to the house however, I noticed
a McCain-Palin sign in the driveway and a McCain bumper sticker
on the car. Probably just unreasonable paranoia on my part caused by
reading liberal blogs, but I had a very creepy feeling and turned right
around with only a momentary stop there.
I called on the way home, lied and said I had my license but needed to return to get my
proof-of-address, and the clerk informed me that was not needed since I was already registered on the rolls and had picture ID. So I lied
about needing to pick up my kid and would have to come some other
time--and the clerk said OK--just call anytime to make sure.
He/she--especially if they saw the car--perhaps suspects I'm lying!
Now my community is a small one of slightly less than 1500 between Milwaukee and Madison, so I can
understand that there may need to be more informal voting processes in such areas.
And I've heard nothing bad about the clerk in charge, who has been
around a long time from what I gather and has been in charge of other
local offices. I'm sure there are good Republican clerks and good Democrat clerks who have to accept ballots from the 'other' party all across Wisconsin. Nonetheless, in an election year in which Van Hollen is already attempting tricks, and Wisconsin is one of the handful of more hotly contested states, one cannot be too careful. I put this story on my Obama blog and emailed it to the campaign not to accuse anyone, but just for them to be aware of. My options appear to me to be the following:
(1) Avoid voting in-person absentee early since my voter preference may have been noticed by the partisan clerk, and just vote anonymously on Nov 4 like most people. Since my town is small this is not difficult as long as I arrive at non peak hours. However, it would reduce the time I would be available to drive other voters to the polls, which I am considering volunteering for.
(2) Go to her home and vote in-person early absentee, but do some steps of due diligence just in case the clerk is facing pressure from above to 'tamper'--including (a) take a cell phone picture of my ballot (b) take careful mental notes of the steps involved in voting to make sure all the voting rules/privacies are followed (c) look up my vote in the VPA online voter registration database to see if there is a record of me voting or (d) go to the polls on Nov 4 and check for record of me voting. Now option d is less preferable because, as with regular voting, it would reduce my volunteer time available. Option c is preferable, but I am not certain when record of the absentee ballot appears in the online database--is it logged when the unknown vote is received and filed away to be opened and recorded on election day, or is it recorded online on election day or after? If the latter, it would be too late for me to respond to a clerk's accidental 'loss'/'misplacing' of my ballot.
(3) Request an early absentee ballot and mail it in. There's still time to do this, but the ballot would still go to the same clerk, who may have identified me as an Obama supporter. I'd still desire a way to check (a) that I'd voted (b) ideally, that I'd voted for who I desired to vote for. Is there any way of even
partially confirming whether I voted for Obama after my ballot has been
through a McCain-Palin clerk's hands weeks before the election?
In general, likewise, aren't there some kind of 'public witness' standards for early absentee
voting that would preclude a single elections clerk (of either party)
from taking an absentee vote
in his/her private home, presumably with no other witnesses or representatives from the other party? Where are the early votes
stored--in a clerks personal safe? Isn't there even an
implicit problem of voter intimidation in my local case in regards to
early voting--that is, Mccain voters go up to the house and see affirmation of their candidate on driveway and car (and can feel
confident encouraging Republican friends to 'go vote early, it's easy'), whereas Democrats like myself--rightly or wrongly--feel like
they're about to entrust their votes to enemy hands--and may feel
discouraged from early voting and thus increase the lines for regular
anonymous voting on Nov 4.
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Clerk's home?
That is totally wrong. Don't they have an office?
Even then there should be member from both parties working in the office.
As for voting election day but it would interfere with volunteering to drive voters to the polls. Why don't you vote when you take one or several of them to the polls?
What I think I'll Do
I think it's wrong too, and a friend of mine who is a librarian in Ohio and handles all sorts of election questions recently noted that librarians dealing with elections materials need to be as non-partisan as possible in providing information to the public, and he thought it likely that if this clerk is allowed to register voters in-home in Wisconsin while overtly displaying their partisanship (a question not heard a decisive answer on yet), then this clerk is likely displaying McCain-Palin signs intentionally to create a low-level form of voter intimidation and scare away any early Obama voters.
Well, I'm going to vote early with this clerk anyway. I'm guessing that there must be a linkage between the 'voter rolls' at the polls and the Wisconsin online database vpa.wi.gov, and that these are most likely updated as the registrations and votes are received (since it is simpler, and there is much more time to do so before Nov 4). I also heard the Obama campaign can get these early voting records--through vpa.wi.gov, maybe?--just the fact that the person has voted, that is. So I'm thinking between all these sources I should be able to confirm that I have voted. Then the only question remains--did I vote for Obama and my other ticket choices, or could the vote passing through the hands of a Republican official somehow alter my choices? Well, even early voting must have some sort of security process to ensure fairness, so I guess at the most basic level I just need to trust public officials to come up with a just and private voting process.
Regarding voting when taking others to the polls, this would work fine of course assuming at least one of my driving trips is to my local office. However, since my community is small and rural (and more inclined towards McCain than Obama from the signs I've seen) I was assuming I would need to be driving folks to polls in more populated areas where there is a larger number of people without cars (e.g. Milwaukee). Maybe this is not the case, and driving could be more 'local'--i.e. within 30 miles of home.
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