Voting By Mail

Last week the Alameda County Registrar of Voters sent us information about voting by mail. Mail voters receive ballots within 29 days of the election, and must place the ballot in the mailbox no later than Election Day. It's different than absentee voting; with mail vote you can still be at home but choose not to go to the polls.

Alameda County encourages mail voting because it is more convenient than waiting in long lines at the polls; potentially facilitates more thoughtful deliberation about the issues and candidates on the ballot (since that ballot is sitting on your kitchen table for four weeks before Election Day); and definitely saves taxpayer money because fewer people at the polls means that less equipment and people are needed on Election Day.

These arguments made sense to me, so I signed up to be a mail voter. Helen will stick with traditional voting. Even as a mail voter, I always have the option of punching a ballot as long as I haven't mailed a ballot in already. 

So I don't have to vote alone if I don't want to.The sense of community at the polling place, with  concerned citizens gathered in one place to register their views, is certainly absent in mail voting. But usually there's not much community anyway, because people are anxious to get to work in the morning; get back to work at lunchtime; or get home for dinner in the evening. Bearing that in mind, hopefully voting by mail will feel just as consequential as voting the old fashioned way.