Ives ignores facts regarding vote by mail

In a recent email message to her supporters, Jeannie Ives claimed that voting by mail "would be an absolute disaster ... There are ... the added costs of printing, mailing, securing and counting mail-in ballots, as well as allowing for drop-off boxes for those who don't believe their vote will be delivered in time." She neglected to mention in her message that President Donald J. Trump voted by mail in both the recent Florida primary and in the 2018 midterm elections.

Ives' assertions of vote-by-mail problems conflict with actual data. Colorado's transition to vote-by-mail was evaluated by the Pew Charitable Trust a few years after it was deployed. They found that costs per vote decreased by 40% and use of provisional ballots declined by 98%.

My daughter and son-in-law live in Colorado, and they are part of the 95% of voters who express that they are either satisfied or very satisfied with their voting experience (our kids are very satisfied).

In a personal one-on-one conversation, I asked Sean Casten his position of vote-by-mail; he supports it for all the right reasons. I found this encounter an affirmation of both Casten's accessibility (in contrast to his predecessor, Peter Roskam, who has strongly endorsed Ives) and his decisions based on data and evidence (in contrast to Jeannie Ives' fact-denying appeals to fear and divisiveness). These are only two of the many reasons that it is important to reelect Sean Casten in November.

Greg Alexander

Crystal Lake