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I've heard the arguments against mail in ballots such as loss of anonymity, and possibilities of coercion, but they don't strike me as big as a problem as some of the disasters we've had in the US recently in Florida and Ohio. I live in California and am on permanent absentee ballot status. In Oregon, everyone is in that boat. If you search for oregon mail vote, you will find positive articles as well as this FAQ: http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dbcs/elections/election_information/voting_in_oregon.shtml where they say:

Can someone find out how I've voted?
No. All ballots are separated from the return envelope before the ballots are inspected. This process ensures confidentiality.

I realize this isn't good enough for some and it wouldn't be good enough for me in many other countries but as much as I distrust my government in other ways, I'm willing to trust them enough to always vote my true preference here (hell, I don't mind admitting who I voted for on the internet either, so I guess I don't really count).

I can't imagine what it is like to have a spouse coerce your vote. I suppose it would be possible if someone was that pathological, they could demand compliance at the voting booth and scare the other person into thinking they couldn't lie and get away with it either. It would be interesting to see the numbers of this happening and compare that to the numbers of disenfranchised voters in Ohio waiting for hours in the rain.

My choice in the US is for a common format mail in ballot for all the states. (It is also for a heck of a lot of other election reform, some of which could be taken from the UK - like having shorter election schedules - I'm ready for this one to be over now.)

Dara

How many PCs have a rat-sized hole in them for this to happen?

Now, vote by mail does introduce several of its own problems unique to mailing paper ballots and verifying signatures....
but I feel so much more confident knowing that my vote is still cast on a piece of paper that can be counted
and recounted if there are any problems. I think that more states should give it some consideration over voting machines.

Here is a basic FAQ: http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dbcs/elections/elect ion_information/voting_in_oregon.shtml

It is synonymous to design or engineer a bridge.

Rubbish. There are many different ways to build a bridge, from the purely utilitarian (eg this one or these ones) to the wonderous (such as this harp bridge or this one).

Any of the standard bridges in the second link would have done just as well in place of the ones in my second pair of links; are you sure that engineering and design are the same thing when it comes to bridges?

It is synonymous to design or engineer a bridge.

Rubbish. There are many different ways to build a bridge, from the purely utilitarian (eg this one or these ones) to the wonderous (such as this harp bridge or this one).

Any of the standard bridges in the second link would have done just as well in place of the ones in my second pair of links; are you sure that engineering and design are the same thing when it comes to bridges?

They're not trying to hire a full-time Klingon translator. They're just trying to compile a list of people who might be available as needed. It's a linguistically diverse county.

The county's RFPQ (pdf) lists the main languages they're looking for: American Sign Language, Arabic, Cambodian, Cantonese, Farsi, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Much further down, on page 45 of 54, there's a form that applicants can fill out. It lists other languages that the county would be interested in finding translators for: Afrikaans, Afghan, Amharic, Armenian, Bosnian, Chamorro, Chinese, Czech, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Klingon, Mien, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Samoan, Swedish, Tagalog, Tao Chiew, Tigrinia, Thai, Tigre, Togan-Isle, and Yugoslavic. Then there's a place to list other languages they haven't listed (there are hundreds of others, after all).

So, yes, you're free to apply and offer your services as an interpreter between English and Esperanto, Elvish, Lojban, Tamarian, or Perl. But they won't be paying you any money unless they actually find themselves in a situation where they need a translator.

Multicultural government building a rolodex of translators. Nothing more to see here. Move along, folks.

This article just begs for independent verification. Unfortunately, the Multnomah County employment opportunities is down Website down for scheduled maintenance from Saturday, May 17, 2003 at 12 AM to Sunday, May 18 at 11:45 PM.

It would be good to see some of the region's very special Native American languages get some PR out of this wave.

The Multnomah County, Oregon ESD already has a Linux distribution optimized for use in public schools. Microsoft apparently didn't really check around before they threatened MESD with a MS license audit. This thoroughly upset the locals, who rallied thier support. Microsoft lost the game of chicken when they stopped smoking crack and realised threatening a broke school district kills your PR and loses customers.