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This may be accurate for Philadelphia County -- I don't know -- but it is definitely not how voting worked in at least one other area of Pennsylvania. I'm not saying the person is lying, but they may be misinformed about the procedures applying across the entire state. (I'm also not saying anything is wrong with how it was done anywhere in PA.)
> The voter approaches their table, and gives their name and party affiliation. I’ve voted in PA for 20 years and have never once been asked my party affiliation. This is all in Philadelphia, so maybe other counties are different? This seems sketchy. Even more so than the cop, who likely didn’t expect anyone to challenge him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on my long experience in California, I have no idea what you could be referring to. I am given ballot(s) in an opaque folder, mark my choices in a booth enclosed on three sides, and feed the ballots into the machine myself. There's no way for a poll worker to observe me making the choices, or the marked ballot. I suppose in theory they could use the order in which people enter to locate a ballot after the fact,…
Poll workers can’t riffle through ballots without being detected. The ballot counting device has a locked compartment where the inserted ballots are kept. Only the inspector for the location has the key (although this may be handed to another worker when the inspector takes a break). This compartment has a numbered tamper seal placed on it, and this seal is checked throughout the day and its number is re-recorded eac…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if you want to participate more in the elections than just R vs D, say, decide which candidate R or D should elect, then you land in a public registry, no?
It's not just party affiliation (which is public I think in at least most states) but also the procedures in place for discarding incorrectly filled ballots. Poll workers need to recover them and mark them as voided. It is not terrible , but it has a lower threshold of security than other electoral systems I am familiar with. Dropping a mail-in ballot in person seemed to have no plausible subreptitious election integ…
To be honest, the numbers are always off by 1-5 (in a precinct of ~1,500 registered voters, with ~100 physical ballots cast) simply because poll workers are generally undertrained and out-of-practice so mistakes are made throughout the day. But the system at least does a decent job of limiting the amount of fraud that could happen at a single polling location. And there are hundreds throughout the city.
Source: am an SF election inspector.
> The voter approaches their table, and gives their name and party affiliation. I’ve voted in PA for 20 years and have never once been asked my party affiliation. This is all in Philadelphia, so maybe other counties are different? This seems sketchy. Even more so than the cop, who likely didn’t expect anyone to challenge him.
Your party affiliation is a matter of public record, and you're not required to vote for your party. Not really a big deal IMO. Any attempt by the election workers to suppress your vote based on your answer would be trivially detected by a number of security checks.
Any comparison of total turnout v.s. historic turnout based upon political party could be done after the fact anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your party affiliation is a matter of public record, and you're not required to vote for your party. Not really a big deal IMO. Any attempt by the election workers to suppress your vote based on your answer would be trivially detected by a number of security checks.
You're dodging the allegation. It's not that it's not public information or that it must dictate the vote. It's that there's no reason for the poll worker to ask or know what you party registration is prior to sending to you machine A or machine B. At best it's a non-issue, at worst it's an opportunity to steer voters to a broken machine. Any comparison of total turnout v.s. historic turnout based upon political part…
But whatever, I don't write the laws. If it bugs you, you should reach out to the election board directly: 1-877-VOTESPA.
As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for. Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your party affiliation is a matter of public record, and you're not required to vote for your party. Not really a big deal IMO. Any attempt by the election workers to suppress your vote based on your answer would be trivially detected by a number of security checks.
You're dodging the allegation. It's not that it's not public information or that it must dictate the vote. It's that there's no reason for the poll worker to ask or know what you party registration is prior to sending to you machine A or machine B. At best it's a non-issue, at worst it's an opportunity to steer voters to a broken machine. Any comparison of total turnout v.s. historic turnout based upon political part…