I Voted

Today I voted. In person. At the town library.

I know that Washington is almost all vote-by-mail now, but you're still allowed to vote in person at disabled access voting sites.

I do not like voting by mail personally, I think that it should be restricted generally, and I won't do it. I don't even trust the mail for money, why would I trust it with my vote? There are myriad problems with mail voting: ballots could be intercepted either going to or coming from the voter, or simply lost.

Even apart from the USPS, there's still big problems with voting at home: it takes away the guarantee of secrecy. You could sell your vote, or be subject to bribery or blackmail for your vote. And with voting at home by paper, signature verification is much less secure than physical ID verification, and you also have all the problems inherent with paper ballots: they are more susceptible to errors in transferring the votes from paper to electrons, with a greater potential for overvotes, undervotes, and the election board's "interpretation" of my vote, and they degrade over time.

So I won't even drop my paper ballot off, because it still has the problems inherent in paper ballots, plus the lack of secrecy guarantees. That's not to say voting machines don't have their problems too, but they are fewer, and easier to fix.

I wonder if I am the last person since all-mail voting went into effect in Snohomish County to have never missed an election, and never voted by mail ballot (dropped off or mailed). When it goes into effect statewide, I wonder if I'll be the last in the state. Everyone else I know has either missed elections, or has voted by mail.