The following information came from the U.S. Postal Service:
Every day, the U.S. Postal Service safely and efficiently delivers millions of checks, money orders, credit cards, and merchandise. Unfortunately, such items are also attractive to thieves. That’s why Postal Inspectors across the country are at work to protect your mail. But with deliveries to more than 164 million addresses, they cannot do the job alone. Here are some proactive steps that both individuals and businesses can take to protect their mail and parcels from thieves:
– Don’t let mail sit in your mailbox. Retrieve it daily.
– Don’t drop mail into a collection box at night. Take it into a post office.
– If you are going out of town, sign up to have your mail held at the post office.
– Don’t send cash.
– If you do not receive a check or other valuable mail you’re expecting, contact the issuing agency.
– If you change your address, immediately notify your Post Office
– If you believe your mail was stolen, report it immediately to the WPD, by submitting an online complaint at WWW.usis.gov/report or calling the USIS at 877-876-2455
With these now frequent attacks on our blue boxes and mail, shouldn’t we be reevaluating the use of them for mail-in ballots for elections? Wouldn’t it be a better idea to return any of the ballots inside city hall to be on the safe side and avoid any issues of ballot tampering?
Requesting a mail-in ballot to be sent to your home may be something you may want to reconsider also. Going in person to vote always worked well in the past and may well be the most secure way to do it in the future.
I raise this issue now so our city leaders can plan accordingly before the fall elections.
The Scout Motto is “Be Prepared”. Maybe this should be our motto going forward for elections.
This conclusion doesnt take into account the following facts: Thieves are not looking for ballots. First sentence in the article: “Every day, the U.S. Postal Service safely and efficiently delivers millions of checks, money orders, credit cards, and merchandise. Unfortunately, such items are also attractive to thieves.” So ballots are not under threat. Secondly, a completed ballot does not need to be returned by mail.
This yet another solution looking for a problem. One wins elections by having a message/platform that resonates with voters in the market of ideas, and not messing with the mechanisms of elections. The latter is cheating. Furthermore, what do we do with Americans overseas? Military?
California and Oregon having been doing it for nearly 50 years, and CO, HI, WA and UT have been doing it for almost 25 years. The X President did it in Florida. Only 0.00006% of the 250 million votes by mailed ballots nationwide were fraudulent, according to MIT political scientists who analyzed numbers from the Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database.” Heritage is a conservative think tank.
Given these facts, the reason a person would want to remove this option is to reduce the number of American Citizens who vote, which is morally repugnant. The moral thing is to not encumber one’s fellow citizens.
You can get an application here: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/languages/vote-by-mail-applications.htm
Thanks for stating facts and not spreading the Trump lies!
You’re welcome. Someone has to counter the insanity. Besides economics, I read everything I can on elections. I even went to the trouble of reading as much as I could about the X president’s commission on elections, even though I knew it was being done in bad faith. It bore out what every study (from the left, center and right) has, that voter fraud is essential non-existent! Which makes the lie of voter fraud so infuriating Last night, some dude on Belmont NextDoor tried to pull the same stunt. The barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are within. Heather Cox Richardson said it best, if they don’t have the votes then they will go after the mechanism of elections. And I say either compete or don’t, but don’t cheat!
If you don’t feel comfortable voting by mail, then don’t. Millions of people across the country take advantage of this easy and safe method of voting. The hype against it is largely the result of Trump’s ongoing lies about the 2020 election. Don’t fall for it.
Or as he says, do as I say, and not as I do. It’s Animal Farm 101, voting by mail is ok for me, but not for thee. If anyone needs the steps to the election booth…!
Hi Rita,
Suppositions are not facts. You’re right. Thieves are not looking for ballots. For instance, if thieves are breaking into a mailbox, do you really think that they’ll take the time to sift through their “haul” to see what’s valuable or not? No, they’ll grab all that they can in a hurry and take them to another location to sort the wheat from the chaff. It’s taking less of a risk of getting caught. I’m guessing that as a courtesy they don’t remail someone’s ballot for them.
If you’re comfortable putting your ballot in a box, please do so.
No one is relitigating the last election here or trying to frighten someone into not voting. Joan and I have different politics, but we agree on many other things. Voting is a sacred thing. And every vote counts!
I had an Aunt many years ago who would say, “Jim (her husband) and I have different politics. Every four years he goes in and votes. And every four years, I go in and cancel him out!”
Please do not accuse a person who is earnestly concerned about the safety of voting options as social engineering. I fully support the right to have mail-in voting, but I also echo Joan’s concern that we do our best to treat our vote as precious.
It’s solution looking for a problem. No one has to apply for a ballot, but removing a voting option is not the way to protect voting. For those who are concerned about the their ballots, go here: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/WhereDoIVoteMA/TrackMyBallot Galvin has webpages dedicated to elections. Now, if Galvin could address the city census and election eligibility, that would be good.
I am not saying to remove this voting option; I am just suggesting that the boxes be inside city hall so people can drop off their ballots there rather than mailing them and having them sit in a box in a dark, isolated spot outside city hall or elsewhere in the city. We don’t have a Post Office on Main St. to go into now.
Criminals and others with bad intentions who have no regard for the postal box threats of federal offenses and do not fear any charges seem to be everywhere now. We are living in difficult times.
My politics or yours don’t matter in this process. I just feel that everyone benefits by having a secure and trusted voting system and don’t suffer any unforeseen consequences should the ballot boxes be targeted for any reason. That could defeat having one’s vote being part of the democrat process.
It would be a much nicer world if some people didn’t always go to the dark side, presume things and bring every issue forward as a political issue rather than looking at the whole picture and being willing to have civil conversations on suggestions.
As has been said numerous times, and I have personally seen as the Election Commissioner for Revere, there is NO problem with mail-in voting. The dropbox is secure and likely has a video camera monitoring it, as we do where I work. The lack of trust in the elections is an artificial one totally created by Trump with NO evidence to support it, and it’s a poison. Problems with thieves taking checks from postboxes are real – let’s focus on an actual problem instead of a fake one!
The artifice is indeed a poison pill. As you probably know, the main reason people don’t vote is because of the belief that voting doesn’t change anything or the system is corrupt. To change things, it requires numbers, and the numbers exist. It is an attack on the will.
In a country of some 330 million, 258 million are eligible to vote and only 161 million are registered to do so. Households that earn over $150k (nationally the top 10%) vote all the time! And yet, the bottom 90% do not regularly vote.
Millennials and Gen Z amount to 112 million, while Baby Boomers and Silents amount to 79 million, and yet persons over 60 vote in droves! People need to get out and vote, especially young people who could easily take the helm if they just showed up.
Civility does not preclude disagreement nor correcting the record. However, raising concern about a situation does include the option of removing the situation.
Raising concern without facts is a form of fear-mongering. It creates doubt in a system without reason. Lack of confidence in a system reduces usage, effectively reducing access.
Now the original concern has been qualified to protecting the dropbox. This qualification has nothing to do with the facts in the article about check and credit card theft at mailboxes, and it reduces access. A dropbox outside is available 24/7.
The dropbox may not be the best option for everyone but it is the best option for some. Changing the availability of this option is just moving the goalpost, which I find morally repugnant.