Absentee vs. mail-in ballots

I disagree with Mr. Clarence Page’s Aug 10th “Opinion” entitled “ Mail-in voting and Trump’s hypocrisy” . He misleads the readers by equating an absentee ballot with a non-requested mail-in ballot. There is a big difference. I recently moved here from Hawaii. I requested to vote by absentee ballet there, which entailed that I report to the Hawaii’s Corporate Counsel’s Office, show my driver’s license, which had my Hawaii address on it, and sign a form affirming that I was a resident. When I moved to Spokane, I still had my Hawaii driver’s license and when I registered to vote by mail I had to not only show my Hawaii driver’s license but also had to show proof of residency ( a utility bill with my home address) to show I really was a resident of Washington. I then received my requested ballot in the mail for the next voting cycle..

Pure mail-in ballots are a completely different animal. A state merely mails them out (unrequested) to any person on the voters rolls at a “last known” address. The two methods are very distinguishable. Therein lie the potential problems. Mr. Page notes that President Trump is against the general idea of mail-in ballots but states The president is not bothered by some ( Red) states with mail-in voting, like Florida and Arizona and is therefore, according to Mr. Page, “hypocritical”. However, what he does not tell his readers is that Florida and Arizona have been using mail-in ballots for many years and have made the effort to clean up and bring current their respective voting rolls; thereby bring credibility to the process in those states, and reducing the opportunities for fraud and misuse.

Mr. Page’s “Opinion” in your newspaper is a very incomplete; however, he is entitled to his “opinion”.

Mark Desmarais

Spokane