Mail-in ballots are an increasingly popular way to vote in U.S. elections. While the reasons why a voter would opt to use the mail-in option as opposed to casting their ballot in person varies, I decided to vote via mail-in ballot because of the convenience and assurance the option provides in a rather inconvenient, busy college semester.
I didn’t want to risk not being able to make it to the polls on Election Day, and voting by mail assured that my vote would be counted. After all, voting via mail is no different than voting in person, right? Perhaps not.
After filling out my ballot and sealing it away in its envelope, I was surprised to see that I had to provide the postage to mail it in. I had wrongly assumed that postage would be covered, given that it is completely free to vote in person. The fact that postage wasn’t covered didn’t sit well with me.
Having to pay 73 cents for a stamp isn’t the issue here. What the issue is, had I chosen to vote in person, I wouldn’t have had to pay even a penny. So, why should I have to pay because I chose to use a different voting method? Sure, the postal service does cost money to run and I understand that, but in my opinion mail-in ballots are a special case.
Postage should either be free or be covered by the government. Voting should be a completely even playing field for all, and while the cost of a stamp seems like a trivial thing to argue against, to me that cost represents a deeper issue of voting equality.
The different voting methods are not equal if one can be used entirely for free while another requires something, no matter how little, of the voter. To this voter, that simply isn’t fair and doesn’t seem right. Postage should be free for mail-in ballots.
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