Don’t believe the hype

When I was an 18-year-old election judge, in the early 1970s, the “voting machines” made a mark on a roll of brown paper whenever a voter flicked a lever.

After the polls closed, the judges at each polling place had to manually tabulate the votes to report to the Board of Election Commissioners. I recall struggling to keep my eyes open, sitting at the table after 10 p.m., as we were still counting. We’d started work at 5 am.

Mail-in ballots that can be read and counted by scanner and computer will be a breeze compared with the older manual system.

The only thing our representatives must investigate now is malfeasance by the U.S. Postal Service. The current postmaster’s policies already are resulting in delayed and missing mail. My family has missed utility bills and other correspondence.

Muriel Balla, Kenwood