I offer this recommendation with a hint of trepidation, given my often-stated preference for traditional Election Day voting.
Given the option of facing an election later this year threatened by potentially fatal viral infection, I choose instead to endorse a revolutionary reform in the way we elect our presidents: Let’s go to a mail-in system.
Donald Trump doesn’t want this to occur even under the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. The president says, without a hint of evidence, that mail-in balloting is corrupt, that it invites voter fraud.
We all know what’s going on inside Trump’s thick and vacuous skull: He sees a system that would boost voter turnout and it poses a threat to his re-election.
Five states conduct their elections by mail. One of them is Oregon, the state where I was born and where mail-in voting was first begun. All the states report that their systems are secure. Moreover, they all report that incidents of fraudulent voting constitute a tiny, infinitesimal portion of the total number of ballots cast.
Mail-in voting can be done nationally on a state-by-state basis.
Texas isn’t one of the mail-in election states. A state judge recently issued a ruling that opens the door to more expansive mail-in voting in Texas. State Attorney General Ken “The Indicted One” Paxton has said he plans to appeal the ruling; the AG doesn’t want mail-in voting, either.
Americans are faced with a potentially frightening dilemma this November if they are forced to go to their polling places while the pandemic is still sickening and killing us. How do they venture to the polls and expose themselves to possibly being infected by the COVID-19 virus?
What’s the option? Staying at home and filling out a ballot that comes to them via the Postal Service and then sending the ballot back to the county election office where it will be stored until it’s counted on Election Day.
The turnout among residents who face that threat would increase dramatically. Indeed, states with mail-in voting report voter turnout that far exceeds the national average.
What, I must ask, is wrong with allowing more rather than fewer Americans the chance to cast their ballots? Isn’t a representative democracy built from a framework that encourages greater participation? Of course it is!
My version of The Perfect World would be an election system that allows us to vote on Election Day at the polling place of our choice. Moreover, such a world would produce voter turnouts that outpace the sometimes dismal turnouts we experience.
I cannot achieve electoral perfection. Moreover, I certainly can’t achieve it with the potentially dire threat posed by a killer virus.
A reasonable and workable alternative is to allow American citizens the chance to vote by mail for president of the United States.