Letter to the Editor on Early Voting

A LTE I recently submitted to a local paper. I did a similar post here 2 years ago. UPDATE 8/23/24 This was published in the Boulder Weekly on 6/16/22.

 

Editor,

It may have been better if I had written this letter about a year ago BEFORE Republicans in many states made large changes to their state’s election system. But I don’t think that those of us who believe in a democratic system are completely defeated and I want to comment on this.

I didn’t read about every change made by these Republicans but I was always relieved when I read that those Democratic state lawmakers standing up to this had succeeded in preserving early voting. I’m not saying the other stuff isn’t important, but I believe that early voting is incredibly important, partly because I don’t think the Republicans have even tried to suggest that it’s easier to commit voting fraud with early voting. I mean as important as voting by mail is, it IS a little more vulnerable to fraud than in-person voting. But not voting early in-person.

I frequently hear reports about long lines at polling places in certain areas. I haven’t seen it myself but I have always voted in Boulder and I’m not surprised that it doesn’t happen in a liberal, middle-class white area. It seems these long lines, which result in some people going home without voting, are in areas with a lot of working-class black and brown people.  I don’t know what happens to cause long lines at such polling places. My theory is that some mid-level employees and maybe some senior employees of county elections departments provide an insufficient number of working computers. However it’s done, it seems like a great solution is LOTS of early voting.

This is a serious problem when people leave the line without voting so that they can go home and sleep so they can get up for work the next morning. And it’s even more classist and racist than I have already suggested. To some extent a lot of voters who are middle-class and in that situation have some flexibility in their job and can make arrangements to skip the next day or part of the next day so they can sleep in a couple hours after staying up late to vote. And the white ones who get in that situation have to worry less about as far as their white supervisor firing them for coming in a couple hours late than their black and brown co-workers do.

I think that some areas need MORE early voting and no areas needs less, and it’s also a good idea to either make election day a holiday or to have elections on Saturdays.

Tom Shelley
Boulder