The RoanokeSlant

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My first vote was by absentee military ballot (JFK vs. Nixon) and I have only voted absentee several times since then.
My view has been that voting by absentee ballot is NOT secret or secure.
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The following article by J.R. Hoeft is the best description I have seen that well summarizes the major issues of this misdirected change to our voting systems.
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By J.R. Hoeft;  Hoeft founded and continues to write for Bearing Drift blog (bearingdrift.com).
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Our Constitution begins with “We the People” and goes on to explain how we establish our government through voting. Additionally, there are five constitutional amendments that address a person’s right to vote.

Intrinsically, in our constitutional republic, the right to vote is fundamental to how we as a society determine our government.

Therefore, for anyone who values constitutional principles — it is expected for people to be involved, informed and active in the political process.

However, while it is important to maximize voter participation by the electorate, no-excuse absentee balloting is not the way to do it.

Consider what no-excuse absentee balloting might give us:

1. Fraud. A person who physically votes under the observation of election officials will greatly diminish the possibility of a person cheating the system or being unduly influenced and/or intimidated by outside interests.

2. Diminished sense of community. Voting is, without a doubt, a community event. Individuals exercise their personal responsibility in selecting their government, but it is also the individual coming together in the sense of a larger community to make a community decision — at a particular moment in time.

3. Increased expense. It is a small personal cost to pay to actually go to the polls where there has already been an investment of taxpayer dollars. With a proposed increase in absentee voting, there is the risk of increased costs on top of the investment already incurred (additional study may have to be done to see if absentee voting reduces costs in the long run).

4. An uninformed choice. Absentee ballots must be returned before the end of a campaign — the actual Election Day; therefore, a voter could miss the introduction of key information into the campaign that might have influenced that person’s vote (debates, endorsements, etc.), yet his vote has already been cast.

5. Changes in the political system. Right now, presidential candidates cannot spend money raised for the general election until they are the nominee. With no-excuse absentee voting, which is effectively voting on-demand, a candidate, particularly a challenger who is already at a disadvantage, has less than a month to make his case (from the end of a nominating convention to the beginning of absentee ballot voting).

The reality is that presently absentee ballots can be requested for 11 different reasons, including working all day; therefore, if a person truly wants to vote absentee, he likely can find a reason.
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No-excuse absentee balloting is simply inviting more problems than it solves.
http://blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/2012/10/absentee-voting-pointcounterpoint/
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Also, a key component of voting is the verification that those voting are in fact who they say they are and that they are qualified to vote in that location and at that time.
After much race-baiting and rabble-rousing by the liberals, the courts and even Obama's AG Holder were compelled to approve Virginia's Voter ID law:
http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2012/08/virginia-voter-id-law-okd.html
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