I did my civic duty today and dropped off my ballot at the Lynnwood Library. I tried to make it a learning opportunity for my daughter (19) at the same time. You know… fill out your ballot together, talk about the candidates and issues… Good stuff..

Sadly, when we got to the library, a young man in front of us was carrying a shopping bag full of ballot envelopes. When the nice lady asked him how many ballots he was casting, he abruptly responded “None of your business!”. She pressed gently explaining that she needed to keep a tally so together they counted them out as he placed (“stuffed”) them into ballot box.. I’m not sure I got the final number, but it was over 100 when they were done. When asked whose ballots they were he merely said “friends of mine”

On the way back to the car, my daughter told me that firends of hers had texted her saying that their were people at the mall who would pay you $5.00 for your blank ballot. All you had to do was sign the outer envelope.

I can’t say for certain that these two events are related, but it occurs to me that this mail in ballot idea is seriously flawed. We actually have no idea what-so-ever who is actually voting anymore… only who is signing the envelope.. I don’t want to finger any one political party for this practice, but if the integrity of our elections is the cornerstone of our democracy, we have a serious problem..

Anyone else have this experience??

Rick Jenness