Your votes are not private

[Wilma]

Oh, dear, Larry is lost.  Can someone help him find himself?

I don't know about other states, but Kansas has a write in system.  If Candidate A loses in the Primary, he can still mount a write-in campaign and possibly win over Candidate B in the general election.  It isn't very probable that he would win, but it is possible.  Therefore if your favorite doesn't make it through the primaries, you can still vote for him by writing in his name in the proper space.  Of course, you are still limited to only one vote so if you write in someone, you can't vote for any of the other candidates for that office.

[larryJ]

Not only lost, but gave myself a big headache!  I may have to go to bed early!  Or, I will go over to the thread with Sarge playing the harp and just listen and close my eyes for a while.  



Larryj

[hhjacobs]

Other places include an extra envelope with no markings on it when you vote absentee. It stays sealed until it is time to count the votes.

[larryJ]

Other places include an extra envelope with no markings on it when you vote absentee. It stays sealed until it is time to count the votes


Yeah, you would think that about counting the absentee ballots.  In a large urban area such as Los Angeles County, there are millions of votes to be counted and many of them absentee ballots.  I know people who are county workers who are given the opportunity to make a little extra money by working the elections and counting votes.  Some of them start as early as a week before the election "sorting" those envelopes to make the counting process easier come election day.  Who is to say that those envelopes might not be opened to speed up the process?  I know it is against the law to do so, but there are a lot of votes to be counted and the public wants to know the results of their votes right away. 

Years ago, the major networks would predict the winners of certain contests when the polls closed in the East-----5:00 PM in California.  So about the time Californians were getting off work and heading to vote on the way home, they already had an idea who had won the race.  Complaints were made and the practice was stopped.  When you watch TV now, the networks are chomping at the bit, waiting for 8:00 PM Pacific time so they can tell you their "predictions."  The first thing out of an anchor's mouth at that time is "this network has predicted that "john doe" has won the race."  Now how would they know that information judged solely on exit polls?  Alright, by 8:00 PM Pacific time, the votes in the East have been counted for three hours, and the votes in the central time zone have had two hours to be counted, the mountain time zone has only had one hour, and  most certainly no votes have been counted in the pacific time zone which contains a lot of voters.  So how do they know?

By law, no votes can be counted until the polls close, right?

Larryj