Mail-in ballots are a very good way to conduct voting during the pandemic and possibly as a long-term procedure. They allow voters to cast a ballot without going to a polling place.
However, there is one potential problem that should be addressed. I have been a teller and a warden many times over decades and have found that about one out of a thousand ballots contain an error that inhibits the machine from counting all candidates or items on the ballot. At the precinct, we are able to return the ballot to the voter, have the original ballot set aside, and provide a replacement ballot to the voter. Mail-ins don’t have a ready solution to this problem. The long-time solution could be to have the machines reprogrammed to ignore the errored vote area and accept the rest of the ballot. This solution would take time to write and incorporate new algorithms to the system and the current situation does not provide the time necessary to carry this out.
A second solution is to allow the warden or town clerk to recreate a ballot omitting the errored area including all valid votes, and putting aside the failed ballot.
A third solution would be to tally the ballots at the Town Hall as they are received, and to notify the voter of the error. Somehow, we must find a solution to ensure all voter selections are carried out, if possible, to preserve our democratic election system.
William Stewart
Saugus
