You can still Vote by mail even if Trump destroys the US Postal Service
We can all vote by mail even without a functioning U.S. Postal Service!
Reluctantly we must assume that President Trump and his administration will do everything possible to prevent the United States Postal Service from delivering mail-in or absentee ballots in a timely fashion so as to comply with the individual state election laws throughout the United States.
With the coronavirus still spreading and deaths from COVID-19 increasing each day throughout the country, the people of the United States should not be required to choose between their personal health and safety and exercising their right to vote in this coming national election.
President Donald Trump and his Postmaster General have placed two obstacles in the way of mail-in voting this November. They hope these obstacles will be insurmountable.
The first problem is obtaining an official mail-in ballot from the State agency which prints them; the second is making sure that after you complete the ballot and seal the envelope it will reach the local Board of Elections in time to be counted before the polls close on November 3.
Every State has the means to deliver an official mail-in ballot to every registered voter without delay. In most states the list of registered voters with their names and street addresses is maintained in a computer accessible database and can be sorted by postal ZIP Code.
The state agency responsible for the election only has to do is print the envelopes that will contain the mail-in ballot and its protective envelope. The state agency would then sort and bundle these mail-in ballots and deliver them to the appropriate local post office buildings serving each ZIP code through a non-postal delivery service such as UPS or FedEx ground. The next day the letter carriers would deliver the mail-in ballot kits to every registered voter at the street address listed on their Registration.
Failing to deliver those envelopes in a timely fashion is a crime. The state agency will announce the date and time they are delivering the mail-in ballots to the post office and if a voter does not find a mail-in ballot in their mailbox or at their PO Box within a day or two, the state Attorney General can demand that the United States Department of Justice and federal law enforcement officers including the FBI and Homeland security commence immediate investigations and find the “lost” mail-in ballots.
Getting the completed mail in ballots to the proper local board of election in time to be counted on election day is the responsibility of the voter, however. The ballots are sealed in an envelope which the voter must sign and are not opened until their signature has been compared with those on the election roll.
Every step in the process of comparing voter signatures on the envelopes with those on the election roll and then opening the outside envelopes containing mail-in ballots is observed and subject to challenge by poll watchers representing every party line and each candidate on the ballot. They will observe the opening of each signed outside envelope containing a mail ballot and they certainly will object to any evidence of tampering. Poll watchers will observe the entire process of counting the mail ballots. The possibility of any kind of fraud is all but totally eliminated.
President Trump and his Postmaster General have made sure that delivery of your “mail-in” ballot to a U.S. Post Office is no longer a guarantee that your ballot will ever be delivered to the Board of Elections for counting.
The only legal alternative generally acceptable under the laws of each state and the rules of the local boards of election which execute those laws on a county by county basis is for each voter to deliver their mail-in or absentee ballot directly to the office of the local Board of Elections before the polls close on November 3.
How to be sure your vote is counted and avoid infection with coronavirus
It is up to all of us who want to vote without standing in line at a public polling place on election day to demand that every local Board of Election adopt the following simple, effective, efficient, and constitutional procedure which can allow everyone to vote, ensure the integrity of each vote cast, and guarantee that every vote cast will be counted.
Drive-by Ballot Lockboxes
Each and every Board of Elections in every County in the United States should establish a drive-by lockbox on the street in front of their office. Whether the ballot lockbox has multiple locks with metal keys such as a safety deposit box in a bank, or the equivalent multiple electronic locks, the keys will be held by the party representatives who are members of the Board of Elections.
The street-side lockbox can only be opened when all of the party representatives turn their individual keys within a few seconds of each other much the same way intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles are launched.
The ballot depository boxes would be opened once at the beginning of the day and once at the close of business on each day.
Since individual mail or absentee ballots are delivered in sealed envelopes signed by the voter and those signatures are checked against the registration lists maintained at each polling place before they are opened, there is no opportunity for fraud. Anyone can deliver any number of ballots from friends and neighbors who cannot make the trip to the board of elections building.
From the street-side lockbox to the Ballot Box
Under the supervision and control of the board of elections officials of each political party on the ballot and the poll watchers from each of those political parties, the ballots would be taken from the street-side ballot lockbox to a secure fireproof repository—the Ballot Lockbox— within the Board of Elections and held there until the Polls close in that County on election night, November 3.
At each Board of Elections when the Polls close
On election night, as soon as the polls close in each County, the Board of Elections members from each political party on the ballot would simultaneously open the Ballot Box depository while being observed by the poll watchers from each political party.
The board of election officials would check the signatures and assure compliance with any other requirements of the local election laws for mail-in and absentee ballots; then open the outer envelopes and remove the envelopes which contain the actual ballots. The original outside mail;-in envelopes containing the signatures would be saved until the election has been finally certified.
The anonymous envelopes containing the actual ballots would then be publicly opened and the ballots counted. This is nothing more than a continuation of practices that have been working well for decades and should continue to work well in this time of crisis.
Since every envelope containing a mail-in or absentee ballot must be sealed and signed before it can be opened and counted on election night, there is no opportunity for “stuffing the ballot box” or any other kind of election fraud.
Everyone will be watching!
The outside ballot depository boxes would be under constant video observation streaming in real time on the Internet. The inside ballot repository would also be under constant video observation with real-time Internet streaming.
The actual opening of the ballots would also be live streamed to the Internet. The recordings of all the live streams would be maintained in a read-only secure cloud account accessible to the public for at least a year after the election.
Let all the world, including those who would destroy our system of free and fair elections watch. All of the attempts by this Administration and foreign powers to destroy the American electoral process might just improve it.