Absentee Voting

Like many other registered voters, I received in yesterday's mail an absentee voter application. I have never voted absentee in the past, but I thought, why not. So I grabbed my pen, opened the application, and on the very first section I found myself stuck for an answer.

Section I states, I hearby request Absentee Ballots for the following Election(s):
Primary Only
General Only
Special Election

Obviously, there has been a mistake in the application. There should be a box to check for Primary & General. I'm wondering how such a mistake could have happened, and what effect it might have on the voter results.

As you can see from the WikiWiki application form, 'Primary & General' is included. However, it is absent in the application that was received in the mail.

Comments

I hope this problem you've noticed gets fixed. I just received a "permanent absentee voter" application form in the mail and was considering the absentee voter option too. (In CA, this means absentee voters automatically get a ballot in the mail for every election in which they are eligible to vote.)

It seems that Florida Republican voters are being advised to vote by absentee ballot. Meanwhile, e-votes have demonstrated problems, especially if the computer systems leave no paper trail. Is the mail-in ballot system any more secure?

Eep. It looks like they caught it and fixed it in the version of the same form they've posted online (PDF). Though the question remains how they'll process the old forms they receive. Will they have to assume some voters wanted both Primary and General? Can they assume that?

Sounds like a good question for the Office of Elections: elections@aloha.net.

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