Here in Oregon, we all vote by mail, so most Oregonians have already gotten their voter ballots. Many have already voted, in fact, but I tend to procrastinate.
So – how I’m voting.
No on Measure 39 – This is an anti-Kelo ballot measure, which basically says that the Oregon government cannot condemn property because they want to give the property to private developers. I’m moderately in favor of the principle behind this measure ((although I’m also a little against the worship of private property rights that this measure appeals to.)), but the measure 39 writers stuck in some stuff at the bottom regarding how the courts should award attorney fees in disputes between government and property owners. I don’t like the practice of sticking obscure changes to the laws at the bottom of a popular measure; changes like that should be made through the legislature, or through a separate ballot measure, not snuck in as a more popular ballot measure’s carry-on luggage.
No on Measure 40 – Elect Oregon Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Judges by district. I’ve written about this one before, although its measure number has changed since then. I’m voting against this: Judges enforce laws for the entire state, not for their own districts.
No on Measure 41 – allows Oregonians to choose to take the Federal exemption when paying Oregon income tax. In other words, it’s a tax cut, of about $400 million a year for most of the next several years, and higher thereafter. The makers of this ballot measure don’t say what $400 million in government services they want to cut to pay for their tax cut, nor do they suggest any alternative forms of revenue the state should pursue. And because the measure is retroactive, the budget already passed for the current year would be entirely screwed up.
Oregon has already cut back painfully on essential services, such as schools, largely due to similar “unfunded tax cuts” in past ballot measures. We can’t afford a $400 million dollar a year tax cut.
Yes on Measure 42 – Prohibits insurance companies from charging people with bad credit records higher rates on their insurance. I’m strongly in favor of this one. Because a checkered credit history is so strongly associated with economic class, the current system effectively discriminates against poor people by allowing insurance companies to charge them more for the same services.
Incidentally, this ballot measure is sponsored by Bill Sizemore, who has written more horrible, right-wing ballot measures than anyone else in Oregon. I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d vote for anything with Sizemore’s name on it…
No on Measure 43 – Parental Notification on Abortion. In Oregon, minors 15 and over have the right to get medical treatment of any sort without telling their parents. This would make an “abortion exception” to that law, requiring that parents be given 48 hours notice before a 15, 16, or 17 year old can have an abortion.
Abortion is safest when done early in a pregnancy; the effect of this law is that minors would delay having an abortion until it’s less safe. Plus, it would require raped and abused 15-year olds to have the savvy, confidence and knowledge to navigate Oregon’s legal system in order to have confidential abortions – an absurd demand to make of a teenage girl pregnant by her father, or a rape victim who feels her parents would blame her for being raped.
Yes on Measure 44 – Allows all Oregonians who don’t have prescription drug coverage, to participate in the Oregon Prescription Drug Program (which is currently restricted to only lower-income Oregonians over age 53). More affordable prescription drugs, via the government’s ability to negotiate lower prices through bulk-buying. This one is a no-brainer.
No on Measure 45 – term limits. If Oregonians want to vote for someone for the third or fourth or tenth time, they should have that right. Plus, a legislature without anyone with long-term institutional knowledge tends to be ineffective.
Maybe on Measure 46 & 47 – campaign finance reform. I’m still not sure how I’m voting on these; I favor campaign finance reform in general, but I’m not sure if this specific approach is good. There’s a good article touching on the arguments both for and against here. I may end up voting yes for Measure 46, which amends the Oregon constitution to make campaign finance reform possible, and no on Measure 47, the specific reforms being proposed this time around.
No on Measure 48 – spending cap for Oregon government. This measure would cap Oregon government expenditures at the current level, adjusted for increasing population and inflation. The writing of this ballot measure is sloppy – for instance, the measure doesn’t make it clear when it takes effect if passed (is the current budget year affected?).
If measure 48 passes, it would would lower Oregon’s credit rating, so we’d have to pay out higher interest for bonds when the State borrows money in the future (borrowing money by issuing bonds is a routine way states pay for major infrastructure improvements, among other things). So this measure would mean that Oregonians would end up paying more for the same results, on anything we use bonds to pay for. That’s just stupid.
Besides, we’re already spending too little on education, infrastructure, and services. Why cap ourselves at “too little”?
That’s it for ballot measures. I’ll post again in a day or two with candidate endorsements.
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]
Geeze, Oregon is trying to compete with California. I have never seen that many ballot measure in Ohio, CT, or NY.
What’s the deal?
Well, I don’t know crap about Oregon politics, but I do have a couple of questions:
Parental notification prior to a minor’s abortion; sure, an abortion is safer when it’s done earlier in the pregnancy, but do you have any evidence that a 48 hours delay will make any real difference?
Also, the whole issue of the effect on the girl’s ability to actually get the abortion is no longer theoretical, I should think – there’s plenty of states that have such a law, and proponents of this kind of objection should be able to muster evidence that this is an actual problem. After all, that same raped girl will have to navigate the medical system to make sure she’s going somewhere that will perform the abortion safely and will also have to navigate the medical insurance system to find out a way to pay for this that the abortion provider will accept (how many 15-year olds know Jack about their medical insurance?). At this point, we ought to have some actual data about how hard it was for the minor girls in those forbidding situations to get legal help. Is it that much harder to get legal help in this situation than it is to get medical help?
As far as bond rating goes, I don’t understand your rationale. If I’m going to lend someone money, it seems to me that I’d think that someone whose ability to spend money was limited by law would be a better credit risk than someone who could go ahead and get more indebtedness after I loan them money. It also seems that what would happen is that instead of having to pay more money to borrow, the state would simply not be able to borrow, since the spending cap would mean that there’d be no more room in the budget to add more bond/interest payments for future indebtedness. But, then, I’m not a financial expert and so I won’t say “You’re wrong”, as I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I would think that an objection to this measure would be “If this passes, we can’t borrow more money”, but I’m thinking that’s exactly what the proponents of the measure want to have happen.
WTH is the rationale for insurance companies to charge someone with a lesser credit rating more money for insurance than someone with a higher credit rating? How does a low credit rating come out to be a higher risk for the insurance company; if you don’t pay, your insurance is cancelled. Insurance is paid for up front, not on credit.
Everyone votes by mail? I don’t know if I’d care to trust the Postal Service with that big a role in the electoral process. How do you know if your vote was received? How do they handle the homeless (not that that’s not a problem in the existing systems elsewhere, but I’m curious to know how this system handles it)?
Rachel, Oregon is the birthplace of initiative and referendum; the number of measures this time around is actually on the low side. Me, I tend to vote “no” by default, because the whole system so often resembles democracy-run-amok and because it makes a hash of the representative system (why should a legislator stick her neck out on matters of principle if everything can just be referred to the voters?)
We’re also the birthplace of universal vote-by-mail, and it’s been working remarkably well since 1998, when voters overwhelmingly approved applying it to every election. While it hasn’t produced long-term increases in voter turnout, it hasn’t hurt turnout, either, and several studies have shown the system to have lower levels of fraud and other election problems than most states. Some of them can be read at the Secretary of State’s Web site.
You do need a mailing address in order to register, but that’s true in every state, as far as I know; there’s nothing stopping a homeless person from using a mail drop or shelter as their address.
By and large, Oregonians like the system. But then, we like not having to pump our own gas, too. (-:
We’re also the birthplace of universal vote-by-mail, and it’s been working remarkably well since 1998, when voters overwhelmingly approved applying it to every election. While it hasn’t produced long-term increases in voter turnout, it hasn’t hurt turnout, either, and several studies have shown the system to have lower levels of fraud and other election problems than most states. Some of them can be read at the Secretary of State’s Web site.
How is it working “remarkably well” if it hasn’t increased voter turnout? Wasn’t that the whole point of it? I believe that in return for no change in voter turnout that vote by mail has ended yet another community building excercise. I was against it then and I have seen nothing in it since to change my mind.
As to term limits… I’ve always liked referring to it as, “Stop me before I vote again!” I have no doubt that it will pass even though when term limits were in existence in Oregon in the recent past it led to legislators with no knowledge of the system and allowing lobbyists to run the state government.
I’ll be surprised if the Measure 41 doesn’t pass. Oregonians, like Americans almost everywhere, just don’t see the connection between the taxes they pay and the services they receive. If I were Governor when this sort of measure was voted in, the first thing I would cut would be the DOT & road & bridge maintenance.
But, as always, that is all just me.
$400 million a year from a tax cut? Damn, wish we could get one of those here. Your state budget figures must be bloat-o-rama.
I agree with Jake (it burns, it burns) that voting by mail undermines community. While increasing turnout would also be a negative in my view, I guess that’s not operative since it hasn’t.
Jake Squid,
This report has the following to say on Vote-By-Mail and voter turnout:
Is the voting system in use the major factor in whether or not people vote? Or is it a lack of interest in participation, through cynicism, apathy, etc.? If someone is interested enough in politics to get informed (I’m talking doing some reading or watching some analytical material on TV, as opposed to just watching the 5:00 news), will adoption of a different voting techniques draw them in?
I just moved to Oregon (Portland) recently. And, because of the nature of my job, i’ve become immediately immersed in politics. Here is a link to a site i have found useful in terms of the ballot measures – http://www.ouroregon.org/ . These guys are good too http://www.defendoregon.org/ although they are focused only on 41 and 48.
It has been interesting to see the differences in how campaigns and get out the vote stuff works in a state where people vote by mail. I’m still deciding what i think about. I do know that it does create a larger opportunity for education about things like ballot measures. Once people get their ballots they can do research on different people and different ballot measures before voting. I know that in places where you vote in a polling place you receive a sample ballot, but it doesn’t feel to me like the same education goes on before people head out to the polls.
RonF, I can tell you that voting by mail would be infinitely easier on me than voting at a polling place – I actually didn’t vote in the MA primary elections this year because I couldn’t take the time off of work, deal with babysitting and transportation, etc. I am more prepared for the election on Tuesday and have made alternative arrangements, but only with considerable effort. If I had an option to vote by mail (I can’t claim absentee status) I would absolutely vote in EVERY election.
Although voting places are open early and close late – for a commuter, who already leaves early and gets home late, with children to feed and get ready for bed – it is a hardhsip on me to vote. I do it anyway because I believe it is important, but if I was slightly more apathetic I would not, and probably would if it was easier.
I wish I could vote electronically ;) I know there would be a million issues with that, but a girl can dream.
Incidentally, this ballot measure is sponsored by Bill Sizemore, who has written more horrible, right-wing ballot measures than anyone else in Oregon. I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d vote for anything with Sizemore’s name on it…
I heard an interview with Kulongoski who said that in principle, he’s for the sentiment behind measure 42, but since it’s proposed by Sizemore, he couldn’t bring himself to vote for it. I can see his point – it must have some sort of invisible-ink clause banning Tri-Met – but, God help me, I’m voting for it too.
Kate L., I certainly favor VBM as an available alternative. Here in Illinois we have that option. There’s also “early voting”, where for approximately the week before the election you can go to various government offices and cast your ballot. I think both options are great. But from what I’ve read here, it seems that in Oregon it’s the only option.
Amp, do I misunderstand what’s going on here? Is all balloting done by mail in Oregon? Or is use of a traditional polling place available as well? I personally would be very leery of trusting my ballot to the U.S. Mail. I’ve read too many stories of caches of mail being found that went unprocessed because a sack or bin of mail got lost or got dumped because the worker(s) either made a mistake or didn’t care to finish their job. Not to mention the number of times I’ve found someone else’s mail in my mailbox.
When you vote by mail, what verification exists to assure you that your vote was actually received and tallied?
If you want you can drop it off in person instead of mailing it. They set up a number of special sites to drop off the ballots, plus there are ballot boxes in all the libraries. If you don’t trust that, you can drop it off directly at the county election office, but you might have to wait on line there.
I believe there are public lists available of who voted in each election (that’s how Dick Cheney got in trouble for not voting, several years ago). If you’re determined, you can go check the list somehow, I think, but I myself don’t know how to go about doing that.
There are also stories of boxes of ballots from traditional polling places going uncounted. My experience is that the post office is pretty reliable, and I have no reason to think it’s less reliable than the traditional means of delivering ballots.
Fair enough about “lost” ballot boxes, but for all the publicity it is pretty rare. And at least there’s an accounting method and they can be found (“Precinct 10 got sent 4 ballot boxes, we only have 3 back?”). My personal opinion is that that method is a lot more reliable than the U. S. Mail. I can’t back it up with statistics, obviously, so there’s no sense arguing about it.
Tell me this; say you look on the voting list and don’t see your name. Then what? What can you do about it? Presuming that you didn’t send your ballot by registered mail, how do you prove to the election commission that you voted and someone lost your ballot?
Worship of private property, eh? Amp, one of the basis premises of the reason why we declared independence from Great Britian was that in GB, the Crown was seen as having the power to assert ownership of private property with no appeal, and did so. That the Government should be able to assert ownership of private property was only granted grudgingly on the basis that it be used for a public purpose and that the owner be compensated. The concept that private property should be able to be taken by the government and given to another private interest so that it fits in better with the government’s concept of property usage and maximizes tax revenues to that government is to me unconscionable. That gives the government rights it should never have and that could lead to smothering and dictatorial powers. If anything, government has too many rights in this area, not too little.
One thing that I’ve gotten exposure to on this blog that I didn’t expect was that there are a number of people here who seem to think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the concept of private property. I find that amazing. Our present level of attainment in the arts and sciences is in large part due to the protection of private property rights that are afforded by the U.S. Constitution and the reasonably honest enforcement of those rights that we have enjoyed.
Note, though, that I don’t mean that to say that you should vote for that specific measure; apparently someone has snuck something in that muddies the waters and may make it undesirable, and I’m not even going to try to judge that from here.
Only 39 percent of registered Oregon voters cast ballots in the May primaries – the third lowest turnout in the last 40 years.
The point of VBM only in Oregon was to increase turnout, or so they said. Instead we have sacrificed a community building event for no or marginal increase in turnout. At the time of the measure, I thought this would happen and I was upset that instead of VBM if wanted that it would be required. The other thing I dislike about it is that you need to vote before election day. It’s unlikely, but something could happen between the time I vote and election day that would change my mind on a candidate or ballot measure.
One effect of VBM on me, which may be the opposite of most, is that I find that I am less inclined to vote. I missed an election for the first time in 20 years of voting a year and a half ago. Part of it is that there is no longer a special day when voting takes place and part of it is that it is easy to forget about the ballot over the 3 weeks between the time I receive it and the time it needs to be mailed in.
No you don’t. You can just go to a ballot box and turn in your ballot on election day.
I can see your point about eliminating a community buiding measure. But on balance, I favor VBM, because many of the Republican dirty tricks that involve trying to turn voters away at the voting booth are eliminated by it.
Colorado’s budget is approximately 16 billion dollars a year; so it’s not an inherently impossible thing for you folks to cut 2.5% of that ($400 million) out of your budget.
I don’t know that ballots by mail have decreased turnout. Like Jake, I have forgotten to vote once since its inception. Of course, I forgot before that once or twice, too. And in one case, I went to two different incorrect poll locations (my district had changed) before giving up on voting, because I had to go to work.
Plenty of other factors are just as likely to decrease turnout. this beauty was quietly signed into law in early ’06, thanks to the fine bipartisans in Salem. A comment from Noah Page at World S*c**l*st Web explains:
Oh, and Amp, sorry for posting my comments about Guv Teddy in the wrong thread. You can move it if you like, or delete it if that’s too much of a hassle. Though 2614 is, so far as I’m concerned, another perfectly good reason to bear a grudge against Kulongoski and his pals.
??? Huh ?
Maia casts a pretty big shadow around here these days, and I admire her nerve, but who else are you talking about here, exactly, Ron ?
No you don’t. You can just go to a ballot box and turn in your ballot on election day.
You can. Many people cannot. People who don’t live in the city don’t necessarily have a ballot box that is as easy to reach as their polling place was. I can’t because my nearest ballot box is, as far as I can tell, a 40 minute drive from where I live. I would have no problem with this if I had chosen to vote by mail, but I was forced into it.
Colorado’s budget is approximately 16 billion dollars a year; so it’s not an inherently impossible thing for you folks to cut 2.5% of that ($400 million) out of your budget.
It would be politically difficult. We already had a stretch of forced budget-cutting a couple years back and there isn’t a lot of pork left to cut. We’d have to get rid of actual services.
It’s lovely to know that as a homeowner, I can look forward to a long, slow slide into fiscal conservatism on your behalf. I anticipate the Alas posts of 2012 where you say “really, if the schools can’t get the job done with the funding level they have, then do they really deserve more of my money?”
When I lived in Portland, the nearest ballot box was 2 1/2 blocks away, roughly the same distance as my polling place used to be. So I was able to vote on election day then. Now, not so much.
Robert, two members of Amp’s household will still be attending school in 2012. It might be more prudent to put your money on 2036, or even 2050. Of course, if Kim (basement) would rather send her and Matt’s girls to private school, I’m sure she’ll let you know the hows and whys.
Hey, if the little sprout wants an education. she can go out and work part time to pay for it. Enough of this intergenerational coat-tail riding. You want something, you work for it.
Isn’t where you live out of state? I think you wouldn’t have had a local polling place even if the law hadn’t changed.
In any case, ballot boxes are cheaper than polling stations. If we don’t have enough polling stations, then we should set up more; that in and of itself isn’t a good reason to undo the change to voting by mail.
Ms_xeno, I was reacting in part to Amp’s footnote #1, as well as Maia’s previous comments, and another poster during the “freedom of speech” thread a while back who seemed to think that private property rights were immoral.
I live and vote in Washington, I do not vote “absentee” as it were, in Oregon. Washington, where I am also forced to VBM. For me, the closest ballot box is a 40 minute drive away. But the same thing is true for many folks in Oregon. If you live in a place where there is no reasonably close ballot box, you must vote before election day.
If we don’t have enough polling stations, then we should set up more; that in and of itself isn’t a good reason to undo the change to voting by mail.
I didn’t say that it was a good enough reason in and of itself to change mandatory VBM. My primary objection is the elimination of something that builds community. The necessity of voting before Election Day/ the difficulty of getting to a ballot box on Election Day is an additional reason.
Do you believe that saving a small amount of money (as compared to overall state budget) is worth eliminating an event that builds community? Or do you disagree with my (and Robert’s – eww, eww!) belief that Election Day is a community building activity when it involves voting at polling stations?
On the contrary side (just to reverse course and ease Jake’s psychic torment), it seems intuitively clear that VBM would allow for more reflective consideration of the issues. You can sit at the computer, ballot in hand, for six hours researching all the issues, if you roll that way.
You can sit at the computer, ballot in hand, for six hours researching all the issues, if you roll that way.
Just out of curiousity, what stopped me from doing that when I voted in person?
The line of people behind you waiting to vote, tapping their watches and yelling “it’s not War and Peace, buddy, get the lead out!”
The sad fact is that lots of people wait until they hit the poll to make their decision. Having the poll be at their house gives those people a shot at actually reading something about the issue before they pencil in the bubble.
Well, I don’t know what kind of info voters had in hand before the election before VBM,…
You know the voter’s guide you get in the mail? Oregonians got that very same thing before VBM. The big advance in availability of information has been the internet. 10 or 20 years ago the info you can find online was much harder to get. In NY I used to rely on the League of Women Voters election guides, but that didn’t have as much info as I can find now.
Every election day I can’t go to Fred Meyer’s or anywhere even close to the County Elections office without being completely inundated with people working the drop-off boxes and people waiting in line to drop off their ballots.
And every election day I used to go to the library branch around the corner from me. Nobody was working the drop-off boxes – they just sat on the check out counter. There were no lines, no sense that there was anything special happening. Just a larger than usual number of people, most of whom would take 2 steps in, drop a ballot and then turn around and leave.
… for some, it is, in fact, more convenient than finding a polling place).
I in no way disagree. Anybody who wants to vote by mail should be allowed to. I just think that VBM as the only option sucks.
Based on comments like the above quotation, I think that I am not making my position clear. VBM should be made available to anybody who chooses to do so. I am only against VBM as the sole option for voting.
Which also goes to the idea of forgetting that it’s election day.
I did say that I thought I was probably unusual in this respect.
(unlike here where I at the very least walk or drive by a Freddie’s at least once or twice a day)
No drop locations at Freddie’s, etc. up here in Washington. You can either mail your ballot in or go to the county offices. Also, when I was voting in PDX the only drop locations were at library branches, the county offices and A-boy Plumbing. The addition of FM happened after I moved away.
I do remember in NY often going into the voting booth and having no frickin’ clue what some of the things on the ballot were about.
I just can’t understand this. There were stacks of guides from the LOWV everywhere I went for weeks before the election when I was living in NY. This was true in NYC, in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties. I didn’t have to go out of my way to find info on candidates or bond issues. Newspapers were full of election coverage, TV news had lots of election coverage. A bond measure, sure – those tend to be obscure, but so are the bond measures on your ballot today.
The line of people behind you waiting to vote, tapping their watches and yelling “it’s not War and Peace, buddy, get the lead out!”
But, but… I research at home before I go to the poll. I write down my choices on the sample ballot that was mailed to me. When I get to the poll I vote according to what I have written down. I haven’t had a problem with people getting impatient with me.
The sad fact is that lots of people wait until they hit the poll to make their decision.
If they didn’t find out anything before they arrived at the poll, what are the chances that they’re going to research anything before filling out and mailing their ballot? Hmmm, note to self: must find a study on this.
What I fail to understand about this is why people argue so strongly for VBM only elections. Why is this any better than vote in person only elections? What is wrong with having both? Is it all about the piddling amount of money saved by not having polling places? What?
Living where I live now – the least community like place that I have ever been – makes me yearn for community building activities like never before. Of the other 8 houses on my street, one of them is friendly with me, 2 1/2 others will wave, and the remaining 4 1/2 refuse to acknowledge my existence. I think it would benefit our neighborhood if once every year or so we were to run into each other on line to vote. Maybe we would find something in common and learn each other’s names. With VBM only there isn’t a chance of that ever happening.
Feh on all of you. “I like VBM so you should have to vote that way, too.” Glargh.
the remaining 4 1/2 refuse to acknowledge my existence
Well, if you’d stop blasting Motorhead at 3 in the morning and scrape the “Christ Kills” decal from your bumper, maybe they’d like you more.
I imagine that they made it VBM only because that’s cheaper than running two parallel systems. But hey, Washington has the initiative – find some sponsors and fight the power, man!
Well, if you’d stop blasting Motorhead at 3 in the morning and scrape the “Christ Kills” decal from your bumper, maybe they’d like you more.
Hard as it may be to believe, one of the houses that refuses to acknowledge me is the one where I had to ask Mr. House to stop blasting VH1 at 11 PM on a Thursday night. Not that anybody seems to mind the band practicing the same 1/4 of a song in the not sound insulated garage all day long. Not even those with teenyweeny childrens. Maybe I’m the only one who can hear. I actually have a “Clergy” sticker on my rear window. Not that these people would ever get close enough to see it.
As I see it, the current mood in the US runs toward, “Every person for themself.” That is at the core of both the Republican and Libertarian movements. Community is nothing, the individual is paramount, I am not responsible in any way for the well-being of anybody who is not me. Every man should be an island and if they aren’t they can damn well sink to the bottom of the ocean and good riddance. VBM only elections are just another little chit in that pile.
What’d the VBM only ballot measure get? 65%? More? I can’t remember. Obviously people felt that if they liked VBM (which was already available at the time) then everybody needed to vote that way. I hated the measure at the time and I don’t feel any better about it now. “It will increase voter turnout,” proponents claimed repeatedly. Well, it didn’t. And much like Bushcoadmin, proponents now make different claims about its benefits which are also unsupported by the evidence (voters are more informed, it’s easier to vote, and so on). I honestly can’t see a reason for VBM only other than what I said above.
Well, it’s not my children’s future being affected by this. Yet I can’t help but care about it.
Well, you probably had a much more active branch (branches) of LoWV down that way.
That may very well be so, but VBM didn’t make the info any easier to come by. As I said, Oregon sent out the very same sorts of voter guides you get now before there was VBM only. It is the advent and growing popularity of the internet that has made the info you were lacking upstate more available now than it was then. I just don’t see the connection.
Granted, you are now talking to possibly the most vehement opponent of VBM Only elections in the world. But, honestly, other than the fact that you really like to VBM what are the compelling reasons for VBM Only? Turnout? Nope. More knowledgeable voters? Nope. More available information? Nope. More and easier access? Nope – not when you could’ve VdBM before all other options were eliminated. Saves a teeny portion of the state budget? Okay, I’ll buy that as a true but hardly compelling reason.
I’ve voting by absentee ballot this time around (because I’m away at school) and I can tell you that I put in more research time before voting then I would have if I had gone to my local voting place.
Though I did miss turning in my old glasses to the Lyons Club that always sets up tables at the polling places…
I don’t see any good reason for measures that seek to increase voter participation for it’s own sake. I certainly advocate removing barriers to voting (increasing polling times and places, adding early voting and VBM alternatives, ensuring disabled access, etc.), but stuff like making each vote an entrant into a lottery (for example) simply encourages people who haven’t thought about what they’re doing noise into the signal.