I am an advocate of reading a
local paper. Sure, the New York Times
and the Washington Post are fine “national” newspapers, but you are
missing a bet by not subscribing to a local paper wherever you live. Today’s column by Frank Cerabino in the Palm
Beach Post is one good reason why you should read a local paper.
Why I Voted by Mail this week
for the First Time
Frank Cerabino (Palm Beach Post -12/29/20)
Voting by mail makes sense in this time of
pandemic and in-person voter suppression efforts
I didn’t want to do it. I’m one of those conscientious voters
who likes to cast a ballot in person. And it’s not only for the satisfaction of
seeing my card being fed into a tabulator.
I like the camaraderie of the voting line, even when I get the
sense that the person I’m talking to is just going to cancel out my vote.
I don’t mind the wait. There’s something wholesome, patriotic
and civilized about showing up to vote and being friendly to other people
there.
I also like early voting, a chance to vote in person during the
two-week period before Election Day. I have found it reassuring to know that if
something happened on that day -- a flat tire, a work conflict, a family
emergency -- I wouldn’t miss my chance to have casted a ballot in that
election.
But I never once had been tempted to vote by mail. And when
asked about it, I’d remind people that voting by mail was the easiest way to
have your vote not count.
Statistically, people who mail in votes have a higher rate of
their votes being disallowed. In the March presidential primary, more than
18,000 mail-in votes in Florida (about 1.3 percent of the total) were not
counted because they either arrived late or had a missing or mismatched
signature.
In the 2018 midterms, thousands of mail-in ballots were sent to
Florida voters after the required deadline of six days before the election. The
blown deadline meant that many completed ballots weren’t returned in time for
them to count.
So, if you told me six months ago I’d be voting by mail this
election cycle, I would have been shocked.
But two things changed my mind: The unknown effect that the
continuing COVID-19 virus will have on the upcoming elections, and the brazen
voter suppression strategies deployed by Republicans in recent elections, as
they face the real possibility of losing Florida in November.
We got an inkling of COVID-19′s effect in
a relatively smaller election in March, (with just a 27 percent turnout) while
the virus’ effect was just starting to be realized.
Poll workers, who tend to be retirees, were suddenly faced with
spending a long day in the proximity of a parade of strangers who could pass
along a deadly virus to them.
About 800 of these poll workers didn’t show up to work on that
Election Day, causing many of the county’s 454 polling places to be
short-handed and not be opened the whole day.
Here’s an email I got from a local poll worker before that
election:
“Frank, I value your opinion, so here goes. I have been a poll
worker in West Palm Beach for five years. I am 78 years old in good health
except for a cardiac incident twenty years ago.
“My wife does not want me to work on Tuesday. I am inclined to
work at the polls as an inspector. What would you do?”
I told him I would listen to his wife when it came to the virus.
“The upside of you going is far less than the potential
downside,” I wrote. “Plus, you’ve got to live with your wife -- and if you give
it to her, you’ll never hear the end of it.”
We don’t know how prevalent the virus will be on November 3rd,
but chances are that it will still be a pressing health issue.
And the effect that it will have on the ability of local
elections officials to keep the polling places fully staffed and open is
anybody’s guess. Plus, the line’s not going to be much fun if everybody is
masked up, standing far apart and trying not to emit water vapor on each other.
My other rationale for voting by mail has to do with the
indisputable fact that Florida is both a key state for Republicans to win, and
one in which they trail Democrats in registered voters by about 250,000 people.
How do they overcome that?
Seven years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court turned its back on
enforcing the Voting Rights Act, Republican legislators in Southern states went
to work making it harder for some voters to cast a ballot on Election Day.
By closing more than 1,200 polling places in strategic
locations, they created the now-common spectacle of seeing long lines of urban
voters waiting for hours on Election Day trying to cast a ballot.
At the same time, President Donald Trump has been recklessly
undermining mail-in voting and using it to already question the election
results in November.
“Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED
election in our nation’s history -- unless this stupidity is ended,” Trump
tweeted last month.
But Trump’s a mail-in voter himself and Republicans plan to win
the mail-in vote in Florida, as they have every year recently.
In the most recent statewide general election two years ago,
Florida Republicans had a cushion of 54,208 more mail-in votes than Democrats
-- which was more than the margin of victory in the governor’s race.
And in Trump’s own election in 2016, Republicans in Florida had
a 58,244-vote advantage in mail-in votes, which was more than half the
statewide margin in Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
So, while Trump is calling mail-in voting a scam, the Republican
Party of Florida has sent out a mailer this summer to its voters urging them to
vote by mail in the upcoming election.
“President Trump and Florida conservatives are counting on you!”
the mailer says. “Request your absentee ballot today.”
Between the virus and the voter suppression strategy, I’ve come
to the conclusion that voting in person in November makes less sense than
voting by mail.
So, I updated my signature, requested and received a ballot, and
this week mailed in a completed ballot for the August 18th primary. I consider
it a dry run for November.
How did I feel mailing the ballot? Not as good as showing up in
person. But satisfied in a different, unfamiliar way -- one, I hope, that is
only temporary.
Extraordinary times require flexibility.
Convinced? If you live in Palm Beach County, and not already
signed up to vote by mail, and want to join Frank in doing so, CLICK HERE or
just visit
If you live elsewhere, do a google search for your State and
the words “vote by mail."
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