Voting By Mail

 

I’m not really a fan of the expansion of voting by mail.

But I can say I’m convinced that Wayne County Clerk Liz Ann Woodrow has worked diligently to eliminate the suspicion of voter fraud here.

She has followed the letter of the law by mailing out 6,000 applications to voters. So far, as of yesterday afternoon, over 550 say they want to vote by mail. That’s close to a 10-percent return rate. Pretty good.

Woodrow followed the letter of the law by sending applications to voters who have voted in one of the last three general elections. She could have sent out applications to every registered voter in the county….some 10,000 people.

The clerk says she checks each of the applications to match the signature with voter records, which is admirable. You won’t find that kind of scrutiny in other counties in the state. Take my native Madison County where they have 262,000 people. It is doubtful they have the manpower for the kind of scrutiny we see here.

There are a couple of major drawbacks to mail-in voting.

The first is no election will ever truly be called on election night. Mail-in voters must have their ballots postmarked on election day. It could take a few days before they are delivered.

More importantly, there is increased chance for fraud. Dozens of applications sent by Woodrow have been returned to her. Either the voter moved or they died. What if those applications fell into the wrong hands?

Pretending voter fraud doesn’t exist is folly. I think we have just made it easier.