WASHINGTON — As you know we are currently dealing with a global pandemic caused by a highly infectious and contagious virus, and due to public health and safety, we’ve had to make some changes in how we conduct ourselves and live our lives.
It's with these concerns in mind that states are looking to expand voting by mail for our national upcoming elections. The reasoning is straightforward.
It's doubtful that this virus will suddenly vanish come Nov. 3, and standing in line to cast ballots could be life threatening. According to polls, roughly 70 percent of American voters are feeling this, and want the government to make this a requirement, at least this one time.
To me, this seems perfectly logical and reasonable and I would suspect that most of you agree. Unlike our president, who posted tweets Tuesday morning in response to California’s proposed vote by mail plans.
His claims are unsubstantiated and caused Twitter to put a warning label on them, saying in part: "Fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud."
This hasn’t stopped him, nor his spokespeople, from repeatedly making this claim, even as they themselves have voted by mail, like Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has voted by mail 11 times in 10 years.
She recently stated that it’s fine that the president vote by mail, because, he’s the president. Attempting to put the hypocrisy of this aside for a moment, this feels a lot like, "Do as I say, because what I do, is not for you."
According to election experts, actual voting fraud is this country is minuscule, at best, which is probably why all 50 states already allow voting by mail in some capacity or another. This would simply be an expansion of that.
Voting has been called the most important right and exercise a citizen can have, and do in a democracy -- a lynch-pin. And, I agree. But it shouldn't be asked of voters to possibly sacrifice their health and safety for it, certainly not when we have an alternative. It is incumbent upon our government, and our president, to protect this right. What’s good enough for our leaders should be good enough, for all of us.
There is no question that without a more robust mail in voting plan, in the face of this virus, election turnout will be diminished. Ahhh... maybe that's the point.
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