Readers Spotlight: Right to vote should unite us all

Let me contrast the repugnant arson of a ballot drop-box in Vancouver, Washington, early Monday with what I saw that afternoon at the Spokane County Elections Office. Like me, lots of people were there to drop off ballots, and many walked them right up to the office door. I’d just come from lunch with a friend who was about to text her son a reminder to update his registration in person because he’d moved.

I’m heartened, personally, to see people taking this election so seriously – and doing everything they can to ensure that every voter gets their ballot counted.

But when Washington state Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh suggests that the state “needs to get back to in-person, same-day voting,” he is tipping his party’s cards. Single-day voting makes it needlessly difficult for people who are disabled, who don’t have a car, who work two jobs, who are caregivers and more to get to the polls. It also makes it easier to frustrate voters by moving or consolidating polling locations, long waits and implementing voter ID laws. The GOP would be happy with all that.

That’s not to say mail-in voting is flawless. A state audit of Washington’s 2020 election found that rejected ballots were disproportionately from Black, Native American, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander voters – primarily because of missing signatures or signatures that didn’t match those on file. All the more reason for early mail-in voting, when there is time for such errors to be fixed. Indeed, before I started writing this letter, I signed up to get text alerts about the ballot I dropped off yesterday at https://voter.votewa.gov. I’ve already been updated that it’s been received, and that the signature has been verified.

In my decades of voting, I’ve cast ballots in a school’s auditorium, someone’s garage, a Masonic Temple and a Boys Republic group home. By far, the most comfortable spot, where I could spend time thinking about the complex choices of our collective future as a nation, was my own living room.

Remember to mail or turn your own ballot in today before 8 p.m.