Quick Short Story
The ballot board is made up of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. We certify signatures on the mail ballots. Since all my customers here have a vested interest in mail ballots, I work on the board every election.
Yesterday on the ballot board, one of our mail ballots got tagged. I asked the head election worker to please check why this voter was tagged and therefore we couldn’t approve his ballot signature on the back of his emailing envelope even though it matched his application signature.
She left and returned about 15 minutes later. The voter had died last week. The worker called his home and his wife explained that he had filled out his ballot just 4 days before he died. The worker checked further and discovered that his ballot had been received in the elections office 2 days before he died. She left it up to the board to decide whether or not to accept the ballot.
“Oh hell yeah,” I shouted in the Republican ear next to me, ” I’m a Democrat. I’m used to voting dead people!”
They did not laugh and wanted to disallow the ballot. Not on my watch. I argue that if he had voted in person, there would be no way to recall his vote. That settled it. His ballot by mail vote counted.
Two things: (1) Democrats do , indeed, vote dead people. (2) Vote the first day of early voting or the day you get your ballot by mail because then, if you die, your vote still counts. Do not toy with fate or despicable Republicans.
Oh, hell, yes! Absolutely right! And R’s also dabble in dead voters. And fictional ones. If you ever have a chance and your municipality carries names and addresses on their books, check all the number of names that live in one place! There was once one address that I recall in Detroit that had an entire village living there! And it was an upscale building that a UAW member could scarcely ever afford in his life-time. River view and all.
1I am 80 and taking no chances. I have already voted.
2Interesting thought. Significant numbers of Republicans would expire after casting and mailing their ballots, but before election day, giving Trump his argument to claim the election was rigged. Wonder what position the Republican members of JJ’s ballot board would be taking then.
3Not in NC….one has to be alive on Election Day. An absentee or early vote cast by someone who dies before Nov. 8th will be retrieved and NOT counted (since all ballots have a unique number, the reality is that there IS no Secret Ballot, by the way).
4Good on you, Susan!
5Way to stand up for that voter! I applaud your service. BTW I am an 18-year career elections office employee in Oregon. We could not function well without all the folks who keep coming back to work every election, some for decades. Bravo to them, and to you.
6Thanks, JJ, for speaking up for the rights of the dead.
7That was my exact thinking, JJ. I went in and voted the first day of early voting for that very reason. I wanted to make sure Hillary and every other Dem on the ballot got my vote in the event I didn’t live to see another day. I looked at the straight ticket option, but it was way more gratifying to press the button next to every Democrat name on there, ESPECIALLY Hillary’s.
8Brava! Early numbers from Texas show that your years of hard work are making an impact, Juanita Jean Herownself. Hilz is within the margin of error in Texas. A little nudge here, a few more ballots there and in the next election Texas succeeds with the Dump Cruz effort.
Too soon for a 2018 campaign motto? Nah. I propose: Democrats succeed, while snacilbupeR cry secede.
9Close to 20 years ago I was working a local municipal election. A married couple came in to vote. The husband looked bad. They had walked from their home to the poll. He had been released from the hospital just a few days prior after a heart attack. While voting, the man collapsed. The wife screamed my name and we were tending to him the best I could. I suddenly heard the electronic scanner on the ballot box go off twice. His wife had completed the process for him. He was dead, but she wasn’t going to deny his last wish.
10‘Democrats rise from the Dead to take 2016 Election!’
11Happy Halloween, I luv it!
Happens in Pennsylvania, too, JJ! YEARS after my dad passed – and two moves, too! – my mom got a jury notice addressed to dad. Who knew he’d been voting all those years?
12Newest ABC poll has Hillary behind in the polls. I took a deep, really deeeeeeeeeeep breath and remembered that it’s the electoral college that counts, not who ever answers the phone or responds to the poll on Breitbart. (If you don’t give them the answer they want, your choice is not tabulated, I know).
13At present I vote early on the morning of the first early voting day. I do that under the expectation that should I die before election day I will have voted for or against something or someone I found important. Therefore I expect my vote, cast while alive, to count on election day, just as if I had been around to cast it on election day. No room exists in logic for this to be any other way.
14Under Texas law the ballot counts but there is a weird provision in North Carolina that it might not
15Unfortunately my job has me trapped in Texas until election day when I can return home to Louisiana to cast my vote. Early voting was not an option for me this year and I don’t trust absentee voting back home. I hope I survive long enough to make it count. I hadn’t thought of that aspect of early voting.
16This day after Halloween, I want it known that I pretty much only vote for dead people. McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Nader, Kerry, Stein and ? Hillary.
17I much prefer dead voters to brain-dead candidates.
18This is a great story and I totally support Herownself’s decision for the outcome.
Linda, that must be the only poll showing Hillary behind. 538 still has her likelihood of winning over 80%. I’m sticking with whatever Nate Silver says.
19Linda, I still can’t help but be skeptical of polls. First there are old people like me and my 95 year old mom, neither of us picks up our land lines unless caller ID announces a family member or close friend. Then there are my cell phone carrying millennial kids who are impossible to communicate with except maybe sometimes in person or by text, if they feel like it. Those are two important demographics: very elderly ladies who can’t wait to vote for a woman, and very liberal kids with friends in a rainbow of colors and lifestyles. Who’s polling them?
20I voted the first day of early voting because anything can happen. I wanted my vote to count.
21I’m 57, perfectly healthy if not such a great driver. I filled that sucker out as soon as I got it and had it in the mail box before the last pick up of the day (okay, the only pick up of the day). I was taking no chances.
22@treehugger says
23I also take immense pleasure in pressing the individual buttons for each Democratic candidate! Just voted today. Hadn’t made up my mind about the Austin Prop 1 re: transportation/mobility until late last week then got involved in helping a church friend pull together the funeral for her husband who lost a long battle with Alzheimer’s. (RIP Ross Hise. Been missing you for a while.)