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My Point of View by Iolie Rose Harper

 

As the November election approaches, President Trump and many others have warned against the push for mass mail-in voting. When done with proper certifications, absentee ballots are fine for those who are absent or truly unable to visit their polling place. But implementing mass mail-in voting without enough time to set up a secure system is a recipe for disaster. Even in Washington state, where voting by mail is normal, the Secretary of State, Kim Wyman has cautioned, “you can’t just flip a switch and go from real low absentee ballots to 100% vote-by-mail. I mean, … with a November election deadline, I’m not sure you could do it in states across the country.”

On June 22, Marshall Cohen of CNN Politics reported that hundreds of thousands of primary election mail-in ballots were sent back as “undeliverable.” Wisconsin alone had 14,000. “State Sen. Jen Jordan, a Democrat who represents Atlanta, said she didn’t get the ballot she requested, and that she heard from hundreds of constituents who had the same experience.” Can we depend on mail-in voting this fall?

A NewJersey.com article dated June 20 revealed that “Of the 2,400 registered Republicans in Bernardsville, 500 to 700 of them received erroneous mail-in ballots, listing the Democratic candidates instead of the Republicans.” The article quoted Karen Gardner, Municipal Republican chairwoman:  “The slate of candidates (on the ballot) was all Democrat from Joe Biden down to the dogcatcher, but on the upper right it clearly stated it was a Republican ballot and it had my name and correct information on the return envelope.” 

It would be nice if all people were honest. However, there are many people who are dishonest and, in addition to error, mail-in voting is vulnerable to many methods of fraud.  Ballots can be removed from mailboxes. They can be sent to the wrong address. We can be flooded with counterfeit ballots that would be difficult for our systems to sort through. Ballots received by mistake can easily be filled out and submitted by the wrong person. 

“Putting the election in the hands of the USPS would be a catastrophe. In 2018 and 2016, there were 16 million missing and misdirected ballots,” J. Christian Adams has stated.  “These represent 16 million opportunities for someone to cheat.” 

Attorney General William Barr has also raised “questions about whether or not (mail-in voting) even denies a secret ballot, because a lot of the states have you signing the outside of the envelope. So, the … person who opens the envelope will know how people voted.”

For many of us, our political party affiliation can be discovered by a simple check on the internet. I know this because a couple of years ago I checked my name online just to see what would come up and it had me listed as a Republican. It would be very easy for a dishonest person to find out your name by opening your mail (unless it was already on the outside of the envelope), and then if you are not of their party, they could throw it in the trash.

Some of the areas around Albert Lea have mandated that we have mail-in elections, though none of us knew about it until after the decision was made. This matter could be taken to court.

On the state level, the Minnesota GOP and our other leaders are battling MN Secretary of State Steve Simon, who is circumventing the legislative process through the courts and “pushing for extreme changes to our way of voting, in order to manufacture and manage election outcomes,” according to GOP Chair Jennifer Carnahan. One example of this is Simon moving forward with plans to remove the witness signature requirement on mail-in ballots for Minnesota’s August primary. “There is a reason a witness signature is required when voting by absentee ballot — to prevent fraud,” Carnahan has said.   

Personally, I would not trust anyone with my voting ballot.  We can safely vote in person. If you can go shop at Walmart, you can go vote. People have been allowed to get together and protest in large numbers without COVID-19 restrictions all over the country, including here in Albert Lea. Yet these same people are telling us to do mail-in voting because of COVID-19. 

Whoever you choose to vote for, you should be concerned about whether your vote gets counted or not. There is not a more important issue than this.  If you want your vote to be counted, make sure that you go and vote in-person.

Iolie Rose Harper is a member of the Freeborn County Republican Party.