When the Snohomish County Council passed all-mail voting, I wondered if it had thought it all out carefully enough. The reasoning was to save money.
Now, however, the county will have to print ballots, hire workers to assemble and mail, with postage, the ballots, and then hire workers to check the ballot signatures.
Will the county hire handwriting experts or have to purchase new machines to verify signatures? My hands have become arthritic since I registered to vote some years ago. If my signature is not exactly as it was then, will my ballot be tossed out? How will I know?
The poll books contain the street addresses of registered voters in order to determine their precincts and polling place. Post office boxes are not acceptable addresses. Will the street addresses in the poll book be used to send out ballots? We have a street address, but we get our mail at the post office, as do most Darrington residents. The post office cannot deliver mail to the street addresses of those who have post office boxes. How will we get our ballots?
In previous elections, when voting at my precinct’s polling place, I presented my identification, signed the poll book in front of the poll worker, received a ballot and voted at an unbiased machine. I knew my vote had been cast. And they knew Shirley Johnson was alive and did not have to consult a database to find out.
Absentee ballots are the answer for those who are ill and/or out of town and unable to get to their polling place, but all-mail voting opens the door to fraud and human error. As a poll worker of many years, a former voter registrar and precinct committee officer, I am very concerned that all-mail voting will be expensive, unfair and problem-ridden.
SHIRLEY JOHNSON
Darrington
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
