The last thing I want to do is fertilize the insidious seeds of suspicion which the current president is sowing; but I do hope that we will make some changes in US election procedures relative to “mail-in” ballots before 2024. I am not worried about “fraud”. . .that’s a straw man. My worries are much more mundane, and likely.
Mail-in voting is an essential option for citizens of diverse circumstances in a democratic society, but there are many downsides to a system in which ballots are mailed to voters several months before “Election Day” and are being counted up to two weeks after (which just now is the subject of a fast-track Court of Appeals case in Michigan).
Even with President Trump’s recent self-immolating behavior, it is possible that, this time around, we will go to bed on election night with one presidential candidate having the lead, only to be declared the loser during the next day or week when all the mail-in ballots have been counted. Even without the lawsuits that will flow for many weeks following, this would not be healthy for our democracy.
With so much time between our votes and election day, compounded by so much time between election day and the start of new terms, too much can happen to make voters second-guess their choices. Under the current system, people are voting before one or more of the scheduled candidate debates. They may be voting before significant changes are revealed in a candidate’s background, or positions on issues, or health status.
In addition to such political nightmares, there are practical reasons to tighten some things up.
Dozens of election fliers for local, state and national offices have reached my front door or mail box after I had voted this year, and they keep coming. Candidates are spending millions of dollars on radio and television buys after millions of voters like me have already made our choices and either mailed in or personally delivered our ballots. Unless changes are made, campaigning — and campaign spending — will have to start many months earlier in the future than in the past in order to influence these earlier voters about races up and down the full length of the ballot.
If an excessively flexible voting calendar is allowed to continue, it will add to the cost of campaigns and reinforce a system which favors wealthy candidates, who will be the only candidates able to start their costly media buys much earlier and maintain that high level of spending much longer.
In addition, expenses at the local level must increase as offices of local elections authorities are required to ramp up much sooner, deliver millions more ballots much earlier, receive completed ballots much longer, and then handle and store those ballots before they are finally counted on election day, or after.
Reducing both — the length of time before elections during which ballots may be mailed out and also the period after elections that ballots are eligible to be counted — will reduce the possibilities for problems as we perform our patriotic duty.
JER. . .October, 2020
ALL OVER THE MAP 
So, assuming reliable mail service, would one month before the election to mail out the ballots to voters, and postmark on or before election day be good?
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