Letter to the editor: Absentee ballot fears

Voting is a right guaranteed by our Constitution. This right is paramount to the “right to bear arms” in that voting appears at least five times, while the aforementioned appears only once in that very document. Both are equally important, but you get my drift.

I am voting for the very first time by absentee ballot. My age has put me in the unenviable category of being an “at-risk person” during this pandemic. I applied for my ballot today. While I thought all the personal information that I provided would guarantee my right to vote and be counted, the article “In battleground states, absentee ballot rejections could triple” (Sept. 7, TribLIVE) is disconcerting.

The article noted three reasons for rejection: “arrived too late in the mail, voters forgot to sign them or signatures didn’t match the one on file at the local election offices.” Too late arriving? No signature? Signature doesn’t match? What???

I do my own tax returns electronically. No signature is required. The polls remain open until the last person in line votes. How many handwriting “experts” will review the signature on my ballot and those others voting by mail? Who determines that it’s not me when I had to apply for this right and sign for it? And besides, handwriting changes as you age. Mine sure has.

Voting, in the end, is a bloodless revolution. Denying that right certainly leaves a less desirable outcome. And that, too, is covered in the Second Amendment.

Jim Gebicki

Latrobe