Senator Wants Nationwide, All-Mail Voting To Counter Election Hacks (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the wake of the Obama administration's announcement that the Russian government directed hacks on the Democratic National Committee and other institutions to influence U.S. elections, a senator from Oregon says the nation should conduct its elections like his home state does: all-mail voting. In an e-mail, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, told Ars: "We should not underestimate how dangerous... attacks on election systems could be. If a foreign state were to eliminate registration records for a particular group of Americans immediately before an election, they could very likely disenfranchise those Americans and swing the results of an election. Recent efforts by some states to make it more difficult to vote only serves to increase the danger of such attacks. This is why I have proposed taking Oregon's unique vote-by-mail system nationwide to protect our democratic process against foreign and domestic attacks." The only states to hold all elections entirely by mail are Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than a dozen others have various provisions for mail voting. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a breakdown here on how Americans cast their votes across the union. Wyden co-sponsored the Vote By Mail Act in July, and he did so for reasons at the time that were unconnected to cybersecurity. Instead, the measure was originally proposed to help minorities and others cast ballots. The plan requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots to all registered voters. Voters could also register to vote when applying for driver's licenses, too. The measure fell on deaf ears this year and didn't even get a committee vote. A Wyden spokesperson said the proposal will have a "better chance" next year if Democrats win a majority of Senate seats.

Comments

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

Here union member, prove you're loyal... when you get your mail-in ballot, just sign it and leave it blank and drop it by the office. We'll take care of it from there and make sure you get the best work assignments...

I'm sure that could never happen... it's not like mail-in ballots are considered more vulnerable to fraud or anything...

Re:Drivers License?

[frovingslosh]

Of course it isn't that simple. It has nothing to do with valid ID at all. It has to do with wanting to vote under many different names and getting all of the illegals to vote. That damn ID requirement makes that more difficult (but not much more). If IDs are so hard to get why the hell are not the Democrats defending the rights of the people and fighting against the requirement to show ID at airports too?

Remember all those illegals that had criminal records that were going to be deported but somehow they accidentally were made citizens recently? What might a reasonable person conclude about that?

Well, it's not like the Governor of Virginia recently restored voting rights to 10,000 convicted felons who are now expected to vote for Democrats. It is more like 13,000.