I read with interest your front-page article on mail-in voting issues, in this week’s edition [“Mail-In Voting Issues Pile Up as Election Approaches” by Petr Svab, published Oct. 7]. Like many Americans, I have great fears about corruption in the process. But I should also point out that there is just massive incompetence to go along with someone trying to cheat.
My wife and I just moved to Tennessee after 30+ years in Illinois, one of those questionable states. A couple of weeks after we had moved but were still around finalizing our packing, I received five mail-in ballot request forms. Two were for my wife and I; I had notified the county clerk in April that we were moving at the end of that month right after we received our voter ID cards. I mailed the office a notice with our old address along with the new address in Tennessee.
Two other ballot requests were for my wife’s parents, both of whom had died in 2019. I had sent copies of their death certificates to the county clerk’s office as required over a year ago.
The fifth request was for my wife’s 25-year-old son, who moved to another state seven years ago and is registered to vote in Virginia. You should easily guess that I could have copied their signatures without an issue, returned the forms, and later voted five times when the ballots were returned. I did not; I returned the ballot request forms to the clerk’s office marked appropriately (moved–notice sent, deceased–notice sent, and moved–notice sent).
Mistake? Perhaps. Potential corruption? Would not put it past the state of Illinois. Total incompetence? Definitely.
Dennis Holt
