- To Sherril Huff, With Love
Right now in the The Stranger newsroom (imagine Land of the Lotus Eaters meets Blue’s Clues), we’re having the perennial debate/discussion/whine-a-thon over whether ballots should require a stamp or if mailing them should be free. Tomorrow is the deadline to vote in the primary election so today we’re trying to find a damn stamp. It’s not difficult to leave a ballot at one of the drop boxes (which don’t require a stamp) and a stamp is, well, pretty cheap. But it’s potentially a barrier to voting. So the debate… rages… yawn. And there’s no better way to settle this by voting some more.
PS — Voting on Slog polls now costs 42 cents.
The same people who bitch about having to buy a stamp are the ones who would bitch about having to get up early and wait in line at a polling place. It’s the price of voting, suck it up.
The same people who bitch about having to pay the poll tax are the ones who would bitch about having to get up early to work in the cotton fields. It’s the price of voting, suck it up.
If you cant afford a stamp, then you cant afford a pen in which to fill out the ballot with.
If you can’t find a stamp at home you’re probably also not capable of paying your bills either. Best they stay away from voting, they’ll only want to vote to get other people’s shit.
A poll tax is a poll tax. If there was a collection box in as many locations as we had previous polling stations, it would be fine, but there isn’t.
I think smartly uniformed government employees should appear at every voter’s door to collect their ballots and maybe leave Top Pot doughnuts and coffee behind.
I would say no for primary/general elections, but yes for any special elections.
I’m so glad I can use a stamp instead of going to some stupid church or school.
It should be free to mail them. As long as the state picks up the tab and not the soon to be insolvent post office.
Anything I could say would just be reiterating what Joe Szilagyi said in 5. Like so:
A poll tax is a poll tax. If there was a collection box in as many locations as we had previous polling stations, it would be fine, but there isn’t.
No one should ever have to pay anything extra to vote. Sure are a lot of ignorant claims otherwise.
In case it was somehow unclear, my commentary in #2 was meant to be a sarcastic rephrasing of the initial comment. I don’t think a stamp should be needed, since it is effectively a form of paying to vote.
You are NOT required to put a stamp on the envelop to have your vote counted. You can take your lazy ass down to a drop box (kind of like the olden days of going to a polling station, eh?). No poll tax or any of this other ridiculous drivel exists (at least not in this situation).
HOWEVER, if you choose to take advantage of the convenience of mailing from home, then the price of that convenience is that you have to affix a $0.42 – or whatever the going rate is.
I forgot to put a stamp on my last ballot, but tracked it online and it was still received/counted. So there’s that.
@13 except we used to have drop box/polling stations in EVERY neighborhood, which was nice for poor people, handicapped people, and lots of others. Now we have, what, a dozen in the whole county?
We obviously need to have the county council place a measure on the Nov ballot adding an additional $0.45 to car tab fees in order to pay for stampless balloting.
But first well need months of debate, several open council meetings on the topic and a raft of public comment & opinion offered up before moving forward wiht it.
(Cuz that’s just how we do, after all.)
Even the drop box is more convenient then how we had to vote before absentee ballots. But I do think it should be free to encourage people to vote.
I don’t think the cost of a stamp is a problem. It would cost far more than 42¢ in gas or bus fare to drive to a polling place or drop it off at a drop box.
I’m slightly concerned about the hassle factor. The county switched to all mail voting just as the mail itself is going out of style. With email and online bill payment and so on, I rarely actually send anything by mail any more. I use maybe 1 stamp a month, on average. I used to keep a lot of stamps around, and buy rolls of 100 of them. But now since I rarely use them, and the cost keeps changing, I don’t keep a supply of them around like I used to.
So it isn’t the 42¢ that is the barrier; it is the hassle of actually coming up with a physical stamp. My ballot is the only thing I’ve had to put an actual stamp on this month so far, and likely will be for the remainder of the month. If I had been out, I’d have had to go to the post office or find a store or some place to buy stamps, just to do my civic duty. Had I not planned ahead, and waited until the last day, and found I had no stamps, I might have been prevented from voting for the lack of a stamp. And that ain’t right.
If there was a way to prevent fraud, they aught to move to online voting.
@15, 17:
JHC, have you people not noticed that every frickin social welfare program on earth is being cut?? Sure, it’d be awfully nice if we could provide for every single need that every person has in this world. But fantasy land this isn’t. Pick your battles. Is $0.42 the fight you choose?
While I agree that it would be nice to not have to rustle up a stamp or to have to drive a ballot to one of those kiosks, the fact is this: There is no way to get stuff from my mailbox to a secondary location via magic.
A man(or woman) comes to your house and picks up your ballot by hand and drives it, along with all of everyone else’s mail, to a central hub. This costs money, both to pay the mailman, and to cover gas and maintenance on the truck. The central processing facility has costs, both in electricity, maintenance, and the manpower to staff it. Once the mail is sorted, another mailman has to drive it to the election office, incurring more costs. And this is a fairly simplified version of the process, when in reality it’s probably more complex with costs associated that I have not even imagined.
Delivering your ballot costs money. So – if not paid for by a stamp, how should it be paid for? A tax? I somehow doubt a tax on voting would go over well, and would likely cost you more.
The way I see it, you can either drive it to a kiosk, or pay a very small amount for the convenience of not having to leave your home.
Reading this thread makes me understand just a bit when Republicans bitch that Liberals want everything put on the dime of the taxpayer.
This is why there is a huge deficit. My god. Asking a fucking citizen to come up with 42 CENTS causes this angst???? How the hell are we going to solve any of our deficit problems when FORTY TWO CENTS is too much to ask?
We’re screwed. As a country, we are screwed. And yes, I am a progressive Dem. But until we start getting sensible about our choices and our responsibilities, we. are. screwed.
@21 Yep. This is embarrassing. FORTY TWO CENTS.
Fuck.
“It’s okay to charge people to vote, as long as it’s a small amount.”
@22: You’re right! We should also figure out how much the election costs to run (staff, printing, etc.) and pass that cost along to the voters! I assume that $20 or $30 per vote is reasonable, right? If someone can’t afford it, they should go out and get a job instead of voting all the damn time!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax
This comment thread makes me realize that most conservatives have no understanding or empathy for other human beings.
@21 You make me laugh.
Reading this thread makes me understand just a bit when Republicans bitch that Liberals want everything put on the dime of the taxpayer.
How putting the cost of the stamp on the voter isn’t putting it on the dime of the taxpayer, I don’t know. Do voters not pay taxes?
Reverse Polarity @18, that was very nicely put.
At least in Pierce and King counties you can drop your ballot in the mail without a stamp. They are set up with the Post Office to accept your ballot and will cover the postage.
This was a bigger issue back in 2006 when the ballots would have cost $.63 to process as first class mail.
I don’t think asking to pay for the stamp is unreasonable since you do have the option of dropping the ballot off, but I do think that the county should have more drop-off locations. When I lived in Snohomish county my local post office had a ballot drop box next to the drive-up mailbox to drop ballots in (though I don’t know if they still do this). I work in Renton so it’s pretty easy for me to swing by the elections office on the way to/from work, but I’m generally lazy and just put a stamp on it anyway. Mailing it almost always costs less in gas/bus fare than taking it to a drop box, though.
Mail isn’t paid for by taxes so why the fuck should it matter what you are mailing? It is a public service paid for BY stamps.
That’s like saying you shouldn’t have to pay to go to the zoo if you love animals. It’s not exactly like that, but it is just as stupid.
42 cents? How much is that in crack?
I thought First Class stamps were $.44?
The government should pay for the cost of postage. And for people who are currently abroad during the time of an election, the cost of mailing it can be significant if they are also poor. And yes, this does happen. I know someone who was studying abroad and chose to vote during an election, even though it cut into her food budget. And studying abroad was cheaper than studying in the US, so it’s not like she could have saved money by going to a US school. A poll tax is a poll tax, and it will affect some people. Just because it doesn’t affect many people these days doesn’t make it right or acceptable.
Right, except when those drop boxes wind up full to overflowing as they were in the 2008 general election. If the county can’t get its shit together enough to pick up ballots in a timely fashion, then it should cover the cost of mailing.
“I thought First Class stamps were $.44?”
Dat’s a lot o’ crack!
“I know someone who was studying abroad and chose to vote during an election, even though it cut into her food budget.”
What, it costs $2, maybe $3 to mail a letter overseas? What’s her food budget consist of, eating feral squirrels in Hyde Park?
Apparently the ability to like or peel a stamp and adhere it onto an envelop a ballot is of great concern to liberals.
“to lick or peel a stamp”
It should cost 1/1000000th of your annual gross earnings.
So Bill Gates should have to put a lot of stamps on it ….
“It should cost 1/1000000th of your annual gross earnings.”
Good to see you support a flat tax Will. There’s hope.
@26
Well then, other than foreign aid we could make the same argument for every expenditure, couldn’t we? Anything that would benefit the “taxpayer” and the expense for which would otherwise be borne by the “taxpayer” should be picked up as a government expense, the cost of administering such program then put back on the “taxpayer.”
And herein lies our current dilemma: we don’t have enough money to pay for every fucking thing that people need. We have to make choices as a society how we prioritize our resources, and here we are debating the merits of a $0.42 benefit; hence my previous comment – as liberals, we are (sometimes rightly) portrayed as being too willing to suggest that government pick up the expense, whatever the cost, regardless of the virtue of the issue. Maybe just once, instead of crying another god damn river and shouting “Poll Tax!” we could agree that we just need to suck it up. And then when we’re faced with real, genuine voter suppression (ask me about my time in North Carolina!) we can’t be dismissed as a bunch of whiney ballsacks.
How many voters in King county X 44 = a lot of money. The state?
More drop-off sites, please.
@18: “If there was a way to prevent fraud, they aught to move to online voting.”
There isn’t. We shouldn’t.
If the voting system is all-mail, requiring a stamp is a poll tax and therefore unconstitutional.
@41 – if we raised taxes on the rich the government would have plenty of money.
Also, I don’t think you properly realize – poll taxes are UNCONSTITUTIONAL under the 24th amendment. Even if most people were okay with it, it still couldn’t be done. In order for them to get away with it, it would have to have the support of every single person with standing to bring a court case about it, and that will never happen. So you will just have to find another way to balance your budget, because this one is illegal.
@41: ” Maybe just once, instead of crying another god damn river and shouting “Poll Tax!” we could agree that we just need to suck it up. And then when we’re faced with real, genuine voter suppression”
This sort of cowardice in the face of unconstitutionalality is why they get away with all voter suppression. Congratulations for conceding our government away.
@40 I don’t support a “flat tax”.
But it’s better than a rich-subsidizing regressive Poll tax, which is what we have.
Now I can’t remember if I put a stamp on my ballot. Shit!
@41 Dude. What? Was that a fart typed out on your keyboard?
We’re talking about an expenditure that benefits EVERYBODY and is applied equally. One cannot make that same argument for almost any other expenditures.
There are drop off boxes. It is not a poll tax. There are choices.
@41, I’m with you, babe. This is insane.
We are doomed, screwed, fucked up.
I keep thinking about Andrew Carnegie, the robber baron, who went around America giving money to all sorts of small communities so that they could build libraries. His only stipulation was — there must be steps up to the front door. I’ll give you the money, but I want you to make some (symbolic) effort in return.
Forty four cents is a symbolic effort towards our democracy. To call it a poll tax when there are drop off boxes (not enough? build more) is stupid.
Forty four cents to take part in our democracy and save ourselves a trip to the drop off box is too much? My god, we are doomed, screwed, fucked up.