It's not the "mail-in" part of "mail-in voting" that's the problem, it's the "mail-out" part.
But, more on that in a bit.
In yesterday's column, I spent some time making the argument as to why there's a fatal flaw with trusting the anonymous, untraceable chain of custody provided by the United States Postal Service with your precious vote.
The summation of my argument is: If you wouldn't send cash money via first-class mail, why would you send your vote that way?
The responses from many Democrats and leftists ran the gamut from infantile to oblivious to insane.
Many sent me emails asking for my address so they could send me "poop" (that's not the word they used). The number of scatological references so often employed by Democrats makes me grateful that I raised four toddlers. It provided terrific practice to combat the "Oh yeah, you're a pooh-pooh head" argument I so often get from the Left.
The other popular response was, "The government sends out social security checks and stimulus checks in the mail all the time!" which, of course, misses the point entirely... no, actually it helps solidify the point. The government does not send our wads of cash in the mail, that would be insane. They send out checks because checks are replaceable, cash is not. Checks are traceable, cash is not. Checks are cancelable, cash is not. You get the picture, you're not an ignoramus.
However, many of the responses I received at LarryOC@Townhall.com were inspiring and encouraging.
Like this one:
"Send me your cash!"
Great idea and I am not sending my cash. I am going to my local polling station to vote for Donald Trump in November.
Love your columns.
Mary
Thanks, Mary! And I love your emails!
And this:
Larry,
I love your challenge. I wonder who will do it, if anyone.
Here's my argument:
If I vote in person and pull that handle, I KNOW my vote will count. If I mail in my vote, no one can guarantee that my vote will not get lost, damaged or altered. No one can guarantee that my vote will count. It's a very interesting legal issue.
Jon
It is an interesting challenge, and no doubt it will be made along with myriad other lawsuits in the weeks and months following this election. It's almost like that's what the Democrats want.
Which brings us to another part of the "mail-in balloting" process that is warped in more dementia than the daily Biden basement video rant.
It's the mailing out part that should concern you.
When President Trump sat with Jonathan Swan of Axios this week for an interview, one exchange over the mail-in ballot topic went like this:
Trump: “We have a new phenomenon. It’s called mail-in voting.”
Swan: “New? It’s been here since the Civil War.”
Mr. Swan is either a duplicitous hack of a moron. Now, I've met the guy, I'm pretty sure he's not the latter which leaves us with only one option.
Absentee voting is not the same as the mail-in ballot scheme Democrats are forcing on several states this year. Read it again and say it out loud: ABSENTEE VOTING IS NOT THE SAME AS MAIL-IN BALLOTING.
And the difference is in the mailing-out part.
If you request an absentee ballot, you proactively petition the state in writing. The ballot is sent to you only upon that request. The number is somewhat limited and controlled. Only those asking for ballots receive ballots.
With the Democrats' scheme, everyone gets a ballot. Everyone. Why is this a problem?
Think it through.
When you go to vote, you show up, you stand in line, you sign in. If you live in a reasonable state that takes voter fraud seriously, you show ID to prove you are who you say you are. You then get a blank ballot.
You are not allowed to take that ballot and leave with it. You are not allowed to give it to someone else. You must take it to a private booth, fill it out, and then deposit it in a scanner to be instantly tabulated.
Why all those rules?
Why are you not allowed to leave with your blank ballot? Why must you stand in line? Why don't they just have a giant stack of blank ballots sitting in the front of the building so everyone can just grab one (or several) and come back later with their completed ballots?
The answer is obvious. It would open the door to massive fraud.
Now think about what they are doing in New York, California, Nevada and a host of other states.
They are mailing ballots on a massive scale to millions of people who are on their voter rolls. We know for a fact that in California alone, there are millions of registered voters who should not be registered to vote. Those ballots will be sent out. They will be sitting on coffee tables, on kitchen counters, and on apartment building lobby floors.
There will be ballots everywhere. And the opportunity for fraud will be multiplied exponentially.
The only thing stopping a person from mailing in a ballot that is not theirs is their own conscience. Are you ok with that? I mean, if you are ok with that, then we should stop with the lines and the sign-ins at polling places. After all, there's nothing illegal about handling a blank ballot. The only crime is if someone actually fills in a ballot they aren't supposed to fill in.
But we put those precautions in place because people will break the law and we should be as responsible as we can to prevent people from breaking the law. That's why we have such tight control over blank ballots at polling places.
And by mailing out a blank ballot to every single person on the voter rolls, we have thrown those precautions out the window.
We are told that we should just trust that people will be honest. And we should trust that the postal service will be competent and honest. And we should trust that the tabulation process of millions of mail-in ballots will be honest and efficient.
And we have no way of verifying any of those things we are supposed to trust. We've gone from "trust but verify" to "trust and shut your mouth about any concerns you might have because you're a racist" or something.
The 2020 election is worse than a train wreck... it's a slow-motion train wreck that we are all witnessing and are incapable of preventing. And those of us who are saying, "Oh no, look at that terrible train wreck," are shouted down and told we are imagining things.
Have I mentioned recently that 20% of mail-in ballots in New York last month were rejected and not counted?
Twenty Percent.
Everything's fine.
Meanwhile, I really do love getting your emails! Keep them coming, VIP members! LarryOC@Townhall.com.