[conspire] Alameda County Overseas Ballot QR Code

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Nick Moffitt (nick at zork.net):

> I'm not sure what the ballots look like for the in-person voting, but
> the process for overseas voters last registered in California (of
> which I am one) involves filling out a web form that generates a PDF
> with a QR code alongside the plain-text descriptions.

As a small amount of context for that, about a week ago, I wrote a pair
of new paragraphs for
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/election-2021-09-14.html#timeline that cover
this type of voting.  Part of this is going to be made pithier and added
to my standard elections stuff.


  Any voters who've lost or never received their ballots have in
  California, since November 2020, a fallback option:  the RemoteAccessible
  Vote by Mail[1] (RAVbM) ballot, which you print out at home and then
  vote.  RAVbM was created in 2017 specifically for active military and
  overseas voters, but starting 2020 can be used by any California voter.
  If you opt for such a ballot, you attest online that you're registered
  and provide your driver's license / state ID information and date of
  birth to authenticate your identity, fill out and return RAVbM paperwork
  by election day, your ballot selections will be transferred to an
  official ballot by election workers, and the county election system will
  void the voter's official ballot (when the voter self-authenticates to
  elect RAVbM balloting), so that nobody can also vote the voter's
  official ballot.

  Claims (without evidence) by conservative news outlet Washington
  Examiner[2] and candidate Larry Elder[3] that RAVbM voting has
  "security issues" lack any factual basis:[4]  RAVbM is just another way
  to have and cast one single, official paper ballot, helping people with
  disabilities, particularly those with vision and dexterity issues, to
  vote privately without needing others to assist them, and also benefits
  military and overseas voters.  It raises no extra security concerns, and
  _does not_ constitute voting over the Internet. The _Washington Examiner_
  story, sourced from Franklin News Foundation's "The Center Square"
  conservative Web site, gets added to the big pile of misinformation
  and disinformation[5] about recall electoral procedures.

  [1] https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/remote-accessible-vote-mail
  [2] https://news.yahoo.com/california-voters-able-download-ballots-143000433.html
  [3] https://twitter.com/larryelder/status/1428362956031496199
  [4] https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/09/02/no-california-program-designed-to-help-voters-with-disabilities-isnt-a-security-concern-as-recall-candidate-larry-elder-suggested/
  [5] https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/aug/16/politifact-california-guide-misinformation-about-n/


I hope that accords with your experience so far, because you at this
point doubtless know more about RAVbM than I do.  I'd only barely
heard of it, but suddenly was hearing far-right claims that it's a major
vehicle for vote fraud, and so looked far enough into its basics to 
give a basic description and sufficient reasons for readers to see for
themselves that the fraud claims were yet more bushwah.

[on Question 2:]

> I would hope that the order is randomised in some way that the id
> field can be correlated with the value of this to determine the
> correct candidate's name.

What I heard is that each of California's 58 counties does a random draw
to determine candidate-name presentation order.