Feature pegged to election 2012 - Essay Example

In Florida, early voting is different from absentee balloting since early voting occurs at multiple locations while utilizing similar machines like those applied during Election Day. On the other hand, Florida absentee voters need to move to the administrator of election office, before filling out a mail-in ballot (Coleman, 4). Candidly, absentee votes count as it permits voters, in addition to those who are not able to get to the polling stations due to health issues, as well as the elderly the chance to vote.

Furthermore, the existing system offers every support possible, specifically, the system offers a lot of time to register for the ballot online, in addition to sending emails every step of the way for proper verification. Moreover, it has been made much easier for the voter to research the candidates and their issues, with the actual ballot in front of them. Mark Stillwell, who is looking forward to voting in November, believes that the basic absentee voting system is okay, but it can be superior if there is an audit trail, which could verify that individual votes are counted.

For instance, several Federal laws still guide the department of defense officials, in ascertaining military personnel serving beyond state and overseas when it comes to requesting, acquiring, and casting their absentee ballots. Certainly, this is an obvious disadvantage that suppresses military votes to be decided by only senior civilian officials in Pentagon. Whilst the pros of absentee voting are rather obvious, the cons are fairly ambiguous. The reason being that, absentee ballots, are pegged on decisions from local election officials, who interpret them using their individual state laws (Coleman, 4).

Thus, this creates confusion as most of absentee ballots are often discarded due to technicalities. For instance, Erica Stillwell interviewed for this segment, says that “my ballot came with a "privacy sleeve" that I had to fill out with my personal information so they knew it was my ballot. It's supposed to be separated from my ballot to keep it all confidential, but I think it's a system that could be easily abuse”. Thus, this has caused her to be a little bit unease regarding the privacy of the whole process.

Some of the absentee voters do not feel totally secure that their votes will be counted. Erica Stillwell argues in support of this conception by providing her own experience, “I also received three identical emails telling me that my ballot had been received, which makes me even more nervous about the validity of the system”. Despite of this indecision, she says “I honestly actually missed all the ceremony built up around Election Day too. I hate standing in line, but I always did feel a certain civic pride going to the polls and coming out with my "I voted" sticker”.

Erica Stillwell fears are by no means unreal, since Florida overseas ballot voting statutes gives room for candidates’ campaigners to trove, incoming ballots via mail from the state residing abroad. They are also able to mount legal plus public relations battle to influence canvassing boards within their strongholds, so as to waive Florida election regulations in counting the overseas absentee ballots. There are numerous reasons that cause most people to distrust Florida absentee voting process, especially given that most are complaining that they do not feel absolutely convinced that their votes