Kentucky needs to maintain confidence in the voting system. Here’s how to do it.

Linda Blackford’s opinion in Sunday’s (June 28) paper took a very optimistic view of mail-in voting. First of all, it took over one week to determine the winners in this primary election. Previously, we had winners within a few hours – not days -- of the close of voting.

We know from years of experience that the most efficient way to collect votes is to have small subgroups of voters cast their ballots in local precincts. If the worst case wait in the precincts is five voters, and we have only 100 precincts, then a centralized voting location would end up with 500 persons in line. See the result at Kroger Field. We know, or should know, better than to expect one location to serve walk-in voting in Fayette county. Even the smaller Scott County underestimated the walk-in voting by having four locations in two adjacent schools.

We need to make a big differentiation between mail in voting and absentee ballots – a distinction that seems to elude most writers. Absentee balloting requires a voter to request a ballot using their Kentucky driver’s license as identification. A ballot is then mailed to the voter. At each stage there is verification. First, the request has the driver’s license as verification. Second, the voter expects the ballot and can contact the election coordinator if none is received. The voter can directly deposit the ballot at the election board or use a trusted person to do so. Finally, the double signature validates the ballot. There are only two less secure areas, the voting location where the voter may be influenced by family or friend, if the ballot is marked in their presence. Second, is the level of Post Office security. We all assume the Post Office is secure, but of late there have been verified reports of ballots not being delivered to the Election Board by the Post Office.

Now consider the issue of mail-in voting where ballots are sent to “registered” voters. Several states have gotten into real (legal and other) issues when trying to clean up or determine the validity of individuals on their voter rolls. Assuming we can get clean voter lists, there are still the issues of assuring the ballots get to voters, after sitting in mailboxes all day until we get home, voter influence when marking the ballots, and finally delivery back to the Election Board. The latter is when the most egregious fraud have occurred when states allow “ballot harvesting” that is, when persons go house to house collecting ballots by offering to mail them for the voter.

So, what ought we do for November and beyond? First allow more persons to request absentee ballots. Second, continue to make available local, precinct voting, on perhaps a 50 percent basis, but no less than 35 percent of the local polling locations. Consider extending the voting hours, until, say 7 p.m., or even shift the hours to 7 a.m. to 7p.m. Continue to utilize or constrain voting to paper ballots. Finally, instruct the local Election Boards to prevent backlogs of more than 3 hours for unread ballots. When ballots are received and the backlog exceeds three hours, the election board should appoint two persons to process the ballots, recording the date, and totals separately, filing the totals again separately. When the polls close, the remaining ballots are processed and the final results produced - being the sum of the individual day totals. The two individuals would compare the totals, resolving any differences, and report the final results. Of course, the two individuals charged with these responsibilities would not be allowed to communicate the subtotals to anyone. These are the only ways we can maintain confidence in our election system.

Don Dziubakowski is a retired chief engineer and former director of quality for a division of an international corporation, and currently a registered Professional Engineer in Ohio. He has resided in Scott County for the past 15 years.