In Voting, Quantity Is Not Quality

In “To Get More Voters, Make Voting Easier” (“Voices, March 8), Sam Goodstein offers ideas that he feels will increase the percentage of people who will cast votes in each election. Nowhere does he indicate that he thinks an honest vote is to be preferred, nor does he suggest that an informed vote is a good idea. Just lots of votes.

Goodstein would like to see absentee ballot applications mailed to everyone. Is he kidding? The possibilities for fraud are limitless, and [the extensive use of absentee ballots] would assure that the vote would be controlled by political action committees, labor unions, religious organizations and other agenda-driven groups with lots of money. This is the exact opposite of election reform. A free society will continue only as long as individual citizens inform themselves, register in plenty of time to verify their citizenship and then make the effort to vote.

George Ousley

Indian Wells