The New York Times alerts us (yes, the episode was supposed to be in this post, but there wasn’t space):

“The rate at which mail votes have been rejected for arriving late has ticked up in primaries this year and general elections last year in roughly a dozen states, prompting election officials to worry that the U.S. Postal Service is ill-equipped to deliver ballots in the fall midterms.”

It adds,

“State officials say they worry about the Postal Service’s ability to deliver votes this fall. They are urging voters to mail their ballots early or use drop boxes so their votes count.”

Being disturbed at this revelation, I was hurled into an abyss of worry and concern for our democracy. What could be done to forestall this seemingly unavoidable disaster?

More:

The states studied by The New York Times include some of the most critical battleground House and Senate seats where control of Congress will be determined, as well as key races for governor and secretary of state. The Times obtained data from California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington.

In Wisconsin, which hosts an open race for governor, a competitive House election plus contests for both chambers of the state legislature, lateness accounted for about 5,000 rejected mail ballots in the spring primary this year, or 78 percent of all tossed ballots. During the last spring election, in 2023, the figure was roughly 2,300, or 47 percent of all tossed votes.

The increase is particularly striking when comparing primaries in 2024 and this year. In Michigan’s primary earlier this month, more than 10,000 mail ballots were rejected for arriving after the state’s deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day. That is nearly double the number of ballots rejected in 2024. In Washington, the number of late-arriving mail ballots increased from about 16,000 to more than 20,000 in the same period.

This terrible. I briefly considered hurling myself out of my office window, but then remembered that it was on the first floor. And then, in the depths of despond, while I pondered weak and weary, a sudden, astounding inspiration came to me like a thunderbolt out the blue!

Why not tell voters to actually go to a polling place and vote in person? It’s a perfect solution! Like so many other brilliant moments of perception, from gravity to the knock-knock joke, once someone says it, it seems so obvious and amazing that nobody came up with it long ago.

Thank you, thank you everyone. But I just happened to be the vessel. It was inevitable that someone would come up with the concept.

In person voting!

It’s so crazy, it just might work!