And we have created some potential, and possibly serious, problems: Fraud: Absentee Votes Worry Officials as Nov. 2 Nears
Only 6 of the 19 states where polls have shown that voters are almost evenly divided between President Bush and Senator John Kerry still require witness signatures to help authenticate absentee ballots. Fourteen of the 19 states allow political parties to collect absentee voting applications, and 7 let the parties collect completed ballots, raising the possibility that operatives could gather and then alter or discard ballots from an opponent’s stronghold.
I have never been a fan of absentee voting except for those who truly cannot be at the polls–throwing it open like this and allowing third parties to distribute and collect the ballots smacks of numerous problems.
If I need an absentee ballot I should have to initiate the request myself, and the ballot should be mailed to me, and I have should to mail it back. That isn’t a perfect system, but it beats letting people come to me and ask me to vote when I otherwise wouldn’t have bothered.