Apr 19, 2020 3 min read

Tuesday, Nov. 3, has arrived. It’s Election Day, and Americans have the opportunity to give President Trump the keys to the White House for another four years or hand them off to (presumably) Democratic standard-bearer Joe Biden.

After a dip in cases in the summer, the coronavirus staged a fearsome comeback in the fall, again bedeviling the United States and other parts of the world that had hoped it would come and go as quickly as a failed Broadway musical. A substantial number of voters throughout the country will have to make a decision – should they exercise their franchise by venturing to a polling place, and then risk their health by standing in line with people, interacting with poll workers and touching machines that could be laden with germs?

Or should they just stay home?

Passions have been stirred to such an extent over the last four years that many Americans will go out and vote in November even if an alien invasion, bubonic plague and a Category 5 hurricane have descended on their neighborhood simultaneously. But there are undoubtedly some who would decide to take a pass, particularly if they are at high risk.

That’s why it’s important that Pennsylvania and other states have the infrastructure in place that would allow large numbers of voters to cast their ballots by mail.

For the first time this year, voters in the commonwealth can vote by mail with no questions asked. There is no longer a need to provide the excuses that have accompanied a request for an absentee ballot. Washington County Commissioners Larry Maggi and Nick Sherman, a Democrat and a Republican, respectively, have said they plan on voting by mail in the Pennsylvania primary, which was rescheduled to June 2. The third commissioner, Diana Irey Vaughan, who is also the chair of the county’s elections board, said it was too early to call off in-person voting for the primary, pointing out that we need to see how the pandemic plays out. That’s a reasonable position.

But Irey Vaughan also believes, according to a story in Thursday’s Observer-Reporter, “Mail-in ballots have the potential for a greater risk of fraud.”

Her assertion is not borne out by the evidence.

Right now, five states conduct their elections almost entirely by mail – Hawaii, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Utah – and there have been few if any cases of fraud in those states. All told, 28 states and the District of Columbia provide access to ballots by mail or no-excuse absentee voting. Trump recently asserted that voting by mail is “a very dangerous thing for this country because they’re cheaters,” but offered no proof to back up this claim. Almost certainly because there isn’t any.

There’s also no evidence that mail-in voting helps Democrats to the detriment of Republicans – in fact, it could give a boost to the GOP, given the number of elderly voters in the party’s base.

On the other end of the state, Christian Leinbach, a Republican member of the Berks County Board of Commissioners, wants his constituents to vote by mail June 2. He told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “I have conservative Republican friends who believe that’s a really bad idea. I don’t. I believe we need to make voting in the current health crisis as safe as possible.”

He’s right. Other elected officials should follow his example and encourage mail-in voting, rather than putting forth baseless claims about its integrity.