Guy Ciarrocchi: The case for in-person ‘mail-in’ voting
Vote with mail-in ballots. It’s time for conservatives to play this game, too. As I’ve said for years, fight fire with fire. But I’ll make the case, one more time — with an important twist.
Now, you can vote-by-mail — in-person — and all in one stop. Fill out your application and submit your ballot before Election Day. In our state’s semi-organized election system — where mail-in voting has been in place since 2020 by law and drop-boxes have been permitted since the state Supreme Court allowed it, because the law doesn’t prohibit it — you can use a “mail-in” ballot to vote early. You can even do it in person.
Yes, it sounds bizarre, but so is much of Pennsylvania election law.
Rather than requesting a mail-in ballot online or filling out a paper application and mailing it into your county’s voters services office, you can go in-person. Go to an “Early Voting” location in your county and take along your ID. (Yes, ID!) There, you complete a “mail-in” application on-site — it takes about two minutes. You hand in your application and — assuming all’s well — you get your ballot then and there, plus the security envelope. Fill out your ballot, put it into the security envelope, sign the outer envelope, and hand it in. Presto, you have voted early using “mail-in” voting in person. Your civic duty is done.
Many Republican voters have been apprehensive to vote by mail. Some believe voting should occur on only one day so they hold themselves to that standard. Some don’t trust the process — too many steps, too many opportunities for error.
Well, for better or worse, county election officials have cut out a few steps, and the ballots touch fewer hands. You, the voter, get to turn in your own ballot to an election official.
Each county in our state has at least one “in-person” mail-in voting location. Find your county’s here. Chester County has three, Philadelphia has nine so far.
Now that it’s easier to “vote by mail” in person — what other states such as Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia call “early voting” — and there are fewer steps in the process and you can personally hand your ballot to an election official, there’s no excuse not to “bank your vote.”
(For the record—it’s public record, I vote by mail and have for several elections. And, yes, I actually mail in my ballot. After I’ve “banked my vote” and done my part, I’m free to help on Election Day.)
Still not convinced? I’ve made the case for why conservatives and all those supporting Republicans should get over their apprehensions and use this new method, as Democrats and the voters supporting them have been doing for years. As I’ve detailed, in Pennsylvania in 2020, Joe Biden led Donald Trump by 1.4 million votes before the polls opened on Election Day due to mail-in voting. Despite “winning” Election Day by 1.3 million votes, Trump fell short.
That’s why the GOP and its allies started their own programs — “bank the vote,” “swamp the vote.” Here in Pennsylvania, it’s “Skip the Line.”
As a refresher, here’s why you should vote early and use “vote by mail”— with only two weeks to go, by going in person to an “early voting” location in your county.
Better safe than sorry. You never know what may happen in your life — or your family’s lives — on Election Day. An unexpected illness, injury, having to care for an out of state relative, your child misses her bus, soccer games get rescheduled, you missed your flight back from Boston.
Your vote is “in the bank,” so you have peace of mind. Your work is done. And, in most counties, you’ll even get an email confirming that your ballot has been received.
Multiply your effort. Volunteer for your favorite candidate on Election Day! Think of the time that you put into voting in person on Election Day in a presidential election. Use that hour, 90 minutes or more to help. Stand at the polls, call, or email voters who haven’t voted.
Voting early is like making a $100 contribution to your candidate and saving campaign volunteers hours to go after other voters. In this world where candidates and parties track early voting every day, and in our world where digital commercials and texts come directly to you, if your candidate’s campaign knows that you’ve cast your ballot, you’re saving them money, and time. One less voter to call, email, text or to knock on their door.
It’s 2024. Who knows what could happen on Election Day. Already, the Department of Justice announced that one would-be terrorist was arrested for plotting to disrupt Election Day. Don’t allow a foreign or domestic terrorist or power outages, fire or worse, to cancel your Vote.
Yes, this is not our parents’ voting system. And, yes, it’s imperfect. But the rules have changed. If we win, we can bring sanity — and voter ID — to our election system. But, so far, only one party has taken advantage of “early voting.”
There’s too much at stake. It’s time for the rest of us to skip the lines and bank our votes.
Guy Ciarrocchi is a writer with Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Guy was a Republican nominee for Congress and former Chamber CEO. Follow Guy at @PaSuburbsGuy.
“In our state’s semi-organized election system — where mail-in voting has been in place since 2020 by law “. Really?? Mail in voting has only been available by law only since 2020??
Actually its been available by law in Pennsylvania since 1937.
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&yr=1937&sessInd=0&smthLwInd=0&act=320&chpt=13
That’s absentee voting, not mail-in voting. Two different systems.
How do you think absentee votes are sent to be counted? I have voted absentee long before Covid and I always was provided with a envelope to send by the Post Office.
Absentee voting as conducted prior to COVID was nothing like what PA now offers as mail in voting. Mail in voting is the way to vote if you can. It is easy and the ballot can be tracked by the PA Secretary of State office and you can get an email confirmation of your vote being received as I did when I used the process.
France allowed mail-in voting from 1958 to 1975, and they got rid of that way of voting because it can and did permit significant fraud. Mail-in voting makes coercion and vote selling easy. It is impractical to verify that mailed ballots received over the course of days or even weeks are kept securely, that none are thrown away and that extra votes are not added (your article avoids these realities by focusing on vote-by-mail — in-person — and all in one stop.)
“In Pennsylvania in 2020, Joe Biden led Donald Trump by 1.4 million votes before the polls opened on Election Day due to mail-in voting. Despite “winning” Election Day by 1.3 million votes, Trump fell short” is a slippery slope logical fallacy.
Trying to normalize mass “mail-in voting” distorts the concept of election integrity. If what you are saying is “Go vote early, in person, because that is allowed now and we no longer have an election ‘day’, so please get as many votes in there as possible” that is a different concept altogether. Asking questions during Covid became verboten. Too many people in positions of power resort to “just accept it and go along with it.” We should not accept mass mail-in voting at all.
Every I have sent in an absentee ballot during and after Covid, I get an e-mail that tells time has been received. There has yet to be any proof of voter fraud in the U.S., let alone significant. Even U.S. Attorney General, under Trump, stated that the 2020 election was the secure election in American history.
“Joe Biden led Donald Trump by 1.4 million votes before the polls opened on Election Day due to mail-in voting.” By law, absentee/mail in votes can not be counted until the polls close.
P.S. I live in America, not France.
Of course there is voter fraud. Saying there is no voter fraud in the US because we have a system to prevent it is analogous to saying that there is no speeding on the Pennsylvania Turnpike because we have radar and state troopers. The question is whether or not the voter fraud is rampant and/or orchestrated.
It is neither rampant or orchestrated. According conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, between 1994 and 2022 there have been 35 cases of voter fraud. https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?state=PA&page=0
And at a national level its just as low. https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud
So, basically we agree.
It is not who votes that matters, it is who counts the votes. In Delco those that count the votes are Marxist progressive Democrats who do not follow EAC protocols for testing of election machines and allow unauthorized software on the machines. Now we have pop up voting centers to boot. Don’t even get me started the lack of proper audit of mail-in ballots, unqualified voters being sent ballots, fighting of records requests, and certification of elections in which many precincts were not reconciled. Early voting, centralized tabulation, and mail in ballots all undermine the role of bi-partisan citizens working together in each precinct, serving as checks and balances on one another. It is the law in PA and it is the citizens’ right to tabulate and report election results from the precinct. Without the local precinct, and it’s duly elected judges and inspectors, the people lose control of their election to the unelected workers and partisan bureaucrats at the centralized counting center, where there is ZERO chain of custody of the mail in ballots. Plus, the Democrats that count our votes, obfuscate watchers, and fight transparency, are easily tipped off when voters vote early. They will easily estimate how many ballots, real or fake, they need to prevail, by their foreknowledge of how many Republicans requested mail in ballots. Even when you don’t mail it in, but surrender it at the precinct, they can predict and prepare in advance to inject fraudulent votes into the system, not hard to do. You cannot outvote an inherently fraudulent system, operated by partisan ideologues, who have no scruples. If Republicans don’t preserve the Republic, what good are they anyway? Mail in voting, and requesting ballots early, are Republic killers, and only benefit the progressive Marxist Democrats. Vote in person on Election Day unless you cannot make it to the polls.
“It is not who votes that matters, it is who counts the votes. In Delco those that count the votes are Marxist progressive Democrats who do not follow EAC protocols for testing of election machines”. Do you have any proof of this?
As a Socialist, Marxist, Communist, Fascist, Progressive that Trump is going to put in prison when he gets elected. I just want to know what your source is.
Judah,
1. No one who respects and defends the U.S. constitution is going to put anyone in prison for simply expressing (dumb) ideas. Criminal and civil lawfare against their political enemies so far, recently, has been limited to lunatics of far-Left. I’m sure you’ll agree with me it was great when the five-judge panel for the Appellate Division of New York’s First Judicial Department — the state’s second-highest court — peppered New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale with pointed queries during the hearing in a New York City courtroom, leaving the impression they may be willing to overturn or a least limit the massive financial penalty handed to Trump and his company in February.
2. Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Fascists, and Progressives are illogically lumped together like LGBTQIA – each group represents something totally different from the others and it makes zero sense to lump these various groups together.
3. The people who will be going to prison are the people who actually committed crimes (hopefully, unless other countries get to them first.) Such as below:
October 22, 2024 A Netherlands court last week ruled that Bill Gates can stand trial in the Netherlands, in a case involving seven people injured by COVID-19 vaccines. According to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the seven “corona skeptics” sued Gates last year, along with former Dutch prime minister and newly appointed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and “several members” of the Dutch government’s COVID-19 “Outbreak Management Team.” Other defendants include Albert Bourla, Ph.D., CEO of Pfizer, and the Dutch state.
“No one who respects and defends the U.S. constitution is going to put anyone in prison for simply expressing (dumb) ideas. ” – Except for Trump who has stated that if he wins he will prevent and suppress any protests against him, using the military if necessary.
“Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Fascists, and Progressives are illogically lumped together like LGBTQIA” – Except for Trump who does not differentiate.
“The people who will be going to prison are the people who actually committed crimes ” – Who are your referring to and what laws have they broke?
“October 22, 2024 A Netherlands court last week ruled that Bill Gates can stand trial in the Netherlands, in a case involving seven people injured by COVID-19 vaccines.” – You forgot to say that they are 7 vaccine conspiracy theorists, who received no injuries.
P.S. Bill Gates lives in America and not the Netherlands.