Mail-in Elections

In 1999 Oregon voters decided to make all of our elections 100% vote-by-mail. Being an Oregon resident myself, I remember that I was not wild about the idea. I may have even voted against it. I can’t remember why I didn’t like the idea. Maybe I disliked the idea of change, or maybe I thought there were too many ways it could get fouled up. Whatever the reason, I didn’t like the idea. But having had vote-by mail for the past 20 years I can tell you that I do like it now (it didn’t take 20 years. After the first election or two I was a convert). I am not alone in that opinion. Almost everyone in Oregon likes our election system, Republicans, Democrats and independents. It is convenient. The results are processed quicker. There are no lines, no fraud, no problems. I say there is no fraud, but of course there is always someone trying to game the system, but what I mean is that there is no more fraud than any other system, and that amounts to a minuscule fraction of the ballots. All the studies have shown that Mail-in elections do not favor one party over another. If you are uneasy about putting your ballot in the mail, you can take it to the County Courthouse or to one of various secure drop boxes located in each county.

Oregon is one of five states currently doing mail-in elections, and while every state does things a bit differently, all five appear to be doing just fine. This year, due to Covid, there are some additional states that will now mail ballots to every voter. This election year there has been much misinformation doled out about mail-in elections, this can be ignored because it is, you know, misinformation. But some legitimate concerns have been raised. The legitimate concerns deal with a Post Office that is underfunded and some states that may not be ready for the volume of mail-in ballots they will receive. The second question can be addressed by the states; there is time. The first question (the funding of the Post Office) requires leadership from the Congress.

We need to figure this out quickly because it does seem to be the most logical way to hold an election during a pandemic. There is no reason we should not have a fair and accurate election in November. After all, we were able to hold a national election during the Civil War. If we could hold an election then, we can hold one now.

(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).

Link to Star Liner

Comments

Second Wind

You have heard about athletes getting their second wind? It is not that they feel better, that they are warmed up and ready to run more easily. It is not psychological (at least, not all psychological). No. There is an actual physiological truth to a second wind. It all has to do with respiration. When I say respiration, I am not talking about breathing. Respiration is a biochemical process that happens at the cellular level. It is how the cell gets energy. There are lots of chemical processes that are constantly going on in each cell, and those processes require energy. Without a constant feed of energy, the cell will die. The more demands there are on a cell, the more energy it needs. For example, every one of your muscle cells need more energy when you are running. In fact, you won’t be able to run if the cells don’t have sufficient energy for it. The energy currency of the cell is a molecule called ATP. You may have heard that sugar is how our bodies get energy, wh...

The Outsider

I am reading The Outsider by Stephen King. The first 150 pages or so I found disturbing. Not for the reason you might think. It is not scary, not creepy in a traditional horror way, but disturbing in a tragic way. The first hundred to 150 pages is tragedy on top of tragedy. The most disturbing thing to me (it is disturbing to me anytime I encounter it in any story) is a false accusation. A man is falsely accused and may well be convicted of a horrific crime. That kind of thing disturbs my soul. It makes the whole world seem wrong. I have always been disturbed by stories with that kind of thing. And why not? It happens in real life too. That makes it all the more horrific. In the Jim Crow South, all you had to do was make an accusation against a black man to set the lynch mob in action. No need to bother with a trial. But even if there was a trial, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, innocent or not. We see Vladimir Putin inventing charges against people and they get locked up...

A Child of the . . .

What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school. It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...

A speculative mind

Search This Blog