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Mail-in voting will work

To the editor:

For 15 years Ohio has had “no-excuse” absentee and mail-in voting. Ohio is one of 38 states that have no excuse absentee voting — it is a safe and secure way for Ohioans to exercise their right to participate in our democracy. I have voted absentee by mail many times.

President Trump is now trying to prevent Americans from voting by mail because he knows the old saying is true, Republicans win by suppressing the vote and Democrats win by getting out the vote. In just the past five days he has tweeted at least 10 times about mail-in voting being rife with fraud which is not true by any stretch of the imagination. Studies have been done which show mail-in voter fraud in the past 20 years nationwide is 0.00006 percent.

The last major case of voter fraud was in 2018 when a Republican candidate’s campaign had collected ballots from people who hadn’t completed them and then filled them out and sent them in to the board of elections. That candidate and members of his family and campaign staff were arrested and found guilty of voter fraud. The reason this was newsworthy is voter fraud with mail-in ballots is extremely rare, but to hear the president talk it’s a “huge” problem.

I was on a tele-town hall with Sen. Rob Portman and I asked for his thoughts on mail-in voting and he said he votes by mail, that Ohio has a very safe and secure system and he encourages citizens to use this option this year due to COVID-19. He said he thinks other states should model their absentee voting procedures after Ohio’s system.

In the coming weeks our Secretary of State Frank LaRose will be sending out to every registered voter in Ohio the application to request your mail-in ballot. You can also request a ballot directly from your county board of elections. All you need to do is fill it out, sign it and mail it back and when early voting begins in October you will receive your ballot, you can then fill it out, sign it and mail it or take to the election board and drop it off. Many larger cities are placing drop-off boxes in multiple areas and I hope Jefferson County can have a few drop-off locations throughout the county. If you mail it in remember it takes two stamps and mail it as early as possible.

Fun facts you may not know:

• You can track your ballot online from the minute your application is received to it being counted on election night. Just go to your county’s board of election website.

• Mail-in votes are counted first on election night.

Remember, it’s your right to vote, and don’t let someone, even the president, scare you into not exercising that right.

Barbara Davis

Wintersville

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