Vote in Person

Dear Readers,

About a month ago, when I was making phone calls for the Jeff Smith for Congress campaign, at least half of the people I called said, “I already mailed in my ballot.” It turns out that a lot of people are doing mail-in ballots these days, and so basically I called a lot of those folks for nothing.

I think people should just wait until Election Day to go to the polls and vote in person for the following reasons:

1- Voting at your local polling place is more exciting. You get to see your friends and neighbors voting and working at the polling station. I don’t know about you, but when I vote in person, I feel democracy in the air. I get a sense of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

2- Campaigns sometimes don’t get into full gear until a few months before the election. Enthusiastic volunteers help to publicize candidates and propositions just before an election. If you wait to vote on Election Day, then you have all the information available to you.

3- If more people mail in their ballots a month or so early, politicians will start to elongate their
campaigns. Even political junkies like myself don’t like to be bombarded with political propaganda months and months before an election.

4- Scandals often break shortly before an election. Take Ben Qualye, the next Representative from Arizona, Congressional District 3, for instance. It wasn’t found out that he wrote for a raunchy website until after mail-in voting had begun. I bet there were plenty of early voters who wished that they could have changed their vote after Ben’s dirty little secret came to light.

5- If more than half of people vote early, then I think we’re wasting a lot of taxpayer money by setting up polling stations and paying the poll workers and so on.

But I understand there a lot of benefits to voting early by mail, too.

See you later.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa