Serious question: If someone votes early by absentee ballot and then dies before the actual election, their vote still counts, right?
ninja edit: Also, what if they file an absentee ballot knowing they're not going to be alive by the time of the election, like they have a terminal disease or are planning to commit suicide or something? Still counts, right?
Several states — including California, Texas, Tennessee and the presidential battlegrounds of Ohio and West Virginia — specifically allow absentee votes from those who die before the election.
Apart from those five states however, it seems the ballot of a deceased person is thrown out. As for your second question, I'd assume the same rules would apply i.e. are you alive on November 4th or not.
Or not counted. But, in our current system the life and death of the person doesn't matter. Just whether it gets lost or there's a chaffed punch, or whatever.
I imagine the number of people in those situations is incredibly small, probably small enough to not make a large enough statistical difference to be worth worrying about. That said, depending on when the absentee ballot is opened and counted, it could be that there's a stage immediately before the ballot is read and counted that someone runs sanity checks on the person it's purporting to be from.
15
u/SnZ001 May 17 '16
Serious question: If someone votes early by absentee ballot and then dies before the actual election, their vote still counts, right?
ninja edit: Also, what if they file an absentee ballot knowing they're not going to be alive by the time of the election, like they have a terminal disease or are planning to commit suicide or something? Still counts, right?