Oregon Senators, Representative Introduce Vote By Mail Act

Oregon’s Senators Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley and Representative Earl Blumenauer introduced a new bill to expand Oregon-style vote-by-mail nationwide.

Washington state and Oregon both already have vote by mail as the standard way to vote. Registered voters receive a ballot in the mail weeks before the election.

I've voted absentee ballots, punch card ballots, fill in the circle ballots, pull a lever punch card ballots, and rejected digital voting via kiosk because the UI design was a disaster for anyone who has vision issues.

I love the WA vote by mail ballot. I can take my time and research things. I can download a draft version to use to make my decisions then fill out the official ballot. I can mail it in via U.S. post or walk to a convenient and legal ballot depository. There are a number of support options for disabled voters.

Here's more on the proposed bill.

Here's the official one-page summary of the bill.

Here's the text of the actual bill being proposed.

Albedo said:

Is there any realistic chance of getting a consistent nationwide voting system? Australia's got a very similar federal system to the USA, but our federal elections are entirely run by an independent statutory agency of the federal government. That also means we have no gerrymandering.

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That's exactly what this bill is about.

Albedo said:

Ah, I misread that.

They should introduce a bill to do something about the extreme gerrymandering in the USA, as well. Have a nationwide non-partisan agency to draw district boundaries, as we do.

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There have been multiple attempts to do just that. It's not as easy as it looks. We've got some serious problems with money/campaign finance issues.