Finding a way to vote in the coronavirus pandemic

To the editor:

United States citizens have been voting in our elections for over 200 years.

They rode horseback and walked on unpaved muddy roads and streets to the voting places to cast their ballot. If they wanted to vote, they found a way to do it.

In comparison, today, we have it made. We drive our vehicle on nicely paved highways and streets to vote in heated or air conditioned places. I understand many people are concerned about the virus and don’t want to go into public places to vote. Absentee voting can and will take care of that concern.

An absentee ballot request is checked by our county clerk’s office, and as long as the person making the request is registered to vote and in the precinct they claim to live in, the absentee ballot is sent to them. When the absentee ballot is returned, it is not identified as to who the voter is. Nobody knows how the voter voted. Their vote is secret.

This business of wholesale mailing ballots to everyone, regardless of whether they requested a ballot, is ridiculous. There is no way of checking the integrity of the returned ballot. There would be no way to keep somebody from sending in multiple ballots. The reason for mailing out ballots wholesale because some people cannot mail in a request for an absentee ballot is insane. The same people demanding the wholesale ballot mailing, no doubt, also want to help those helpless people fill out their ballot.

Phil Cordes, Seymour