Why I prefer to vote in person

“I don’t fault anyone who chooses to submit a ballot through the post office,” said Jeff Jacoby, but this Election Day, I’m casting mine in person. First of all, “I don’t want to risk my ballot being lost or rejected.” In every election, mailed ballots are more likely not to be counted, either because of problems with the mail itself or because election officials disqualify them on the grounds that signatures don’t match or some other detail is wrong. With tens of millions of additional votes coming via mail this November, I don’t want my vote to be among those disqualified. Fear of the coronavirus won’t keep me from the polls, which have plexiglass shields installed between voters and poll workers and spacedout voting machines. With hand sanitizer and masks, voting is relatively safe. I also am still moved by the “communitarian spirit of voting together” on Election Day. Seeing your neighbors at the polls, all of us equal in casting one vote, “is a stirring reinforcement” of democracy itself. As usual, I’m not happy with the choices on the ballot, but I’m going to vote in person this year, “and to hope, as ever, for the best.”