BOSTON— Less than 30 percent of respondents to an informal survey of Patch Massachusetts readers said they plan to entrust their ballots to the U.S. Mail, despite the lingering coronavirus pandemic and the resulting fears about the safety of in-person voting on Nov. 3.
The survey results come a week before the state’s Sept. 1 primary, for which in-person early voting and mail-in absentee voting are already underway.
A third of the more than 1,800 respondents to the survey, which was emailed to Patch subscribers over the weekend, said they still plan to vote in person on Election Day. Almost 12 percent said they plan to vote in person at their city or town halls before Nov. 3, and 27.5 percent said they plan to obtain an absentee ballot and drop it off at their town or city clerk’s office.
Only 28 percent said they plan to mail in their absentee ballots.
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But respondents gave a wide range of other reasons for avoiding mail-in voting: some because they are suspicious of the motives behind the Trump administration’s recent cutbacks in postal services and equipment, others because they believe mail voting is subject to fraud.
Asked to rate their confidence level that mail-in voting would be safe and fraud-free, nearly 4 in 10 put it very low.
Some argued that in-person voting, including the presentation of a picture ID, is the only way to prevent fraud.
“(W)e need to show a valid ID to fly, drive, obtain an RX with codeine and to get a library card in Reading, MA, et al,” one person wrote. “However, there is no way to check an ID with mail-in voting. The possibilities of fraud are endless.”
Other respondents added that mail-in voting is unnecessary, because voting in person is reasonably safe.
“If you are sick, you get an absentee ballot,” one respondent wrote. “Otherwise everyone should vote in person. It is no different from standing in line wearing a mask and gloves to go in a grocery store!”
Still others decried the practice of mass-mailing absentee ballots to registered voters, which is used in other states but is not contemplated in Massachusetts.
But other responses showed widespread mistrust of the President Donald Trump’s motives in his recent attacks on mail voting, and that they don’t trust the Post Office as a result.
As one respondent wrote, “I would like to avoid polling places, but fear the mail-in balloting is already damaged by political tampering, so I will personally deliver my mail-in ballot. If that was not possible, I would risk disease to vote in person.”
Another wrote: “Trump has so politicized the Post Office that I don’t trust it to get ballots to town halls on time,” another wrote. “He knows that if all eligible voters vote he will lose again, and this time the Electoral College might not be able to save him.”
PEABODY, PATCH
