LETTER: Nevada Democrats open the door for voting fraud

I had to re-read Steve Sebelius’s Sunday column a few times to see if he was expressing humor, farce or being rhetorical with his commentary about mail-in ballots and vote collectors by making comments such as, “Don’t worry, a voter’s signature on the envelope still has to match the one on file.” Sadly it seems he was quite sincere.

First off, the exterior signature on the ballot does not assure that the ballot the voter prepared was the one in the envelope or that the ballot was not passively or aggressively coerced. Nor does an exterior signature on the ballot assure the collector delivered it. While we can debate if a 40 percent signature match is adequate, there is no dispute that a scanned signature can be printed on anything and look entirely legitimate.

While I am in full favor of everyone having a right and access to vote — and for providing impartial assistance to those who have prohibitive circumstances and are unable to deliver their vote in person — the now-adopted structure has so many opportunities for fraud in it that we have moved from protecting voter rights to making it easy to diminish the one-person, one-vote value of legitimately cast votes.

I view the legislators who forced the new voting standards on us as I would the Big Bad Wolf giving building advice to the first two of the fabled three little pigs. Normally, legislators pass laws tightening processes and enhancing protections. In this case, in my opinion they cut the locks off the ballot boxes. Perhaps one day we will see a return of statesmanship to our Legislature with a renewed focus on the good of the citizens as the driving force — and while I hope to live so long as to see that day, I am not betting on it.