The more I read about the problems with voting across the country, the more upset I get with Republicans who try to suppress the vote, starting with voter registration and including making it hard to vote even if you are a registered voter.
The fiasco in Georgia is just another example of a system built to discourage voting.
34 states & DC don’t require an excuse to vote absentee/by mail. 5 states vote entirely by mail (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington), a ballot is automatically sent to every registered voter. The other 29 states & DC offer “no-excuse” absentee voting — any voter can request a mail ballot.
And from what I’ve read elsewhere, routinely operating “mail only” voting is actually less expensive for states to do, even in years without the added costs of protecting the voting public and poll workers from a pandemic.
But it is much harder to suppress the vote in “mail only” systems.
(And, of course, a fully functional national mail system would be needed to ensure the system worked. Wait, we already have one of those in the USPS, so that problem isn’t a problem... right?)
Thankfully Kansas is a “no excuse” mail voting state. Anna, her mom and I have taken advantage of it before and will do so this year.
And some folks in Lawrence are making it easier for people to register.
www2.ljworld.com/news/general-news/2020/...stration-initiative/
Moving forward, a step at a time.
