By Larry Craig

There is a big push today for a mail-in election. Every registered voter would receive a ballot in the mail. As I write this, today’s local paper was lamenting stimulus checks being sent to a lot of dead people.

I wonder how many dead people are still registered to vote and who will still receive a ballot to vote in November’s election. You don’t think somebody else would use it to vote, do you? Nah, that would be too cynical of human behavior.

There are reasons why we have polling places in the first place. The first is to make sure that the person voting is who they say they are and that they are qualified to vote. My state, Illinois, has essentially given up on that. You don’t need to prove who you are when you vote, but at least we know that the person voting is registered to vote (or something like that).

With mail-in ballots, we have no idea who is voting. There will be a lot of ballots that will not reach the intended person, either because they’re dead, they’ve moved with no forwarding address, or the ballots were sent to the wrong house. We get a lot of wrong mail at our house, and we often wonder if we’re getting all of our mail.

The second reason is that at polling stations, people vote in total privacy. We don’t sit around large tables as we cast our ballots. We go into a private booth. No one will know how we voted nor be able to influence our vote. No cajoling. No coercion. A truly independent vote.

That is totally lost with mail-in ballots. Heck, I could vote for my whole family, or I can unduly influence how everyone else votes.

This is wrong.

If a person is sick or otherwise immobile — or, in this case, afraid of getting sick — let them request a mail-in ballot. Other requests for mail-in ballots should be done in person with corroborating identification.

We have six months to the election. There are plenty of essential businesses and services open, and people use them all the time, because, well, they are essential. Voting is an essential business. We have six months to make it a safer experience if people are worried about that.

Please visit my blog at poligion1.blogspot.com for articles I have written on politics, culture, and public life.