Letter to the editor: Ensuring ballots are counted

Voters in Pennsylvania need to know that if they received a mail-in ballot, they can trade that mail-in ballot at their polling location to vote on Election Day. They need to bring the ballot and the two envelopes that came with it.

Democratic voters should be doing that to ensure their vote gets counted in time, especially because an estimated 6% of mail-in ballots can get rejected if a voter failed to place the ballot inside the “secrecy envelope” first, and then placed that envelope in the mailing envelope.

In September, President Trump said, “Now we’re counting on the federal court system to make it so that we can actually have an evening where we know who wins. Not where the votes are going to be counted a week later or two weeks later.” Because more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans requested mail-in ballots and because these cannot be opened or counted until Election Day, Nov. 3 will see a “red mirage” where Trump will appear to be ahead in the incredibly important state of Pennsylvania.

Mail-in votes will take a week to count, and the law allows weeks to complete the count of our legal ballots. But Trump will go to the Supreme Court to stop the votes that arrived after Nov. 3, because delayed in the mail, from being counted, because he knows most mail-in votes are from Democrats.

That is why it is exceedingly important for Pennsylvania Democrats who can exchange their mail-in ballot at their polling place to vote in person on Election Day so that their vote gets counted earlier and is not eliminated for technicalities.

Sam Haut

Merion Station, Montgomery County

The writer is with Progressive Source Communications.