Be informed on voting

Let’s reassure our relatives and friends, wherever they live, with accurate voting information in case they missed the news yet have received robocalls or U.S. Post Office postcards with inaccurate information. Due to possible changes, let’s refer them to their county elections office or nearest League of Women Voters chapter (both nonpartisan) for correct deadlines, where to vote or turn in a ballot, etc. Mail’s already slower, so let’s recommend they vote early (and safely), and follow instructions exactly — how to mark the ballot, where to sign, and to copy their driver’s license or state ID signature, whichever their elections office uses.

Let’s also reassure them that how one votes is always secret (ballots are immediately separated from their envelopes, never to be matched), and that even conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation says there’s only 0.00006% mail-in ballot fraud.

With new voter restrictions and closed polling places since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, let’s especially reassure Blacks, Latinx, and poor or homeless people; Native Americans or non-English speakers; new voters (immigrant citizens, students), ex-felons no longer on supervision (check your state), etc. Consent decrees banning voter intimidation were withdrawn in 2018, so now there may be “poll watcher” intimidation, especially in key states, yet intimidating voters is illegal, and there’s no such thing as “ballot police” (know your rights: www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/voting-rights/…).

Let’s all vote in honor of the 205,000+ dead who can’t vote.

Judy Silverstein

Spokane