Letters to the Editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

States have responsibility to monitor mail-in votes

In the Aug. 28 PV Times, Mr. Ralph Bazan used several tactics used by many, especially in the political and media realms. Things like the omission of relevant information, twisting of actual facts, and insinuations of things without supporting facts. I find Debra Saunders to be one of the few fair-minded journalists left around, even though there have been times I did not agree with some of her conclusions, which says she must be doing something right.

With regard to Senator Harris, it’s well known and has been an open secret how Kamala was able to ‘fast-track’ her political career thanks to a well-known California politician. And as far as her stance on the death penalty, some may totally disagree with it because of her stance on abortion even in the third trimester with a viable fetus.

Next, as far as the voting by mail, Mr. Bazan, like many others are conflation “voting by mail” with “absentee voting”. Absentee voting has been around for a long time and every state has the responsibility to provide rules and make certain they are adhered to. Every state I know of wants any potential absentee voter to ‘request’ a ballot, giving that state’s voting board an opportunity to validate that voter’s eligibility. Most states’ reasons for the voting absentee are very lenient, from being on active duty, work, physical reasons, caretakers of others, and the list goes on.

The attack on Louis DeJoy, postmaster general, is nothing more than a diversion. Mr. DeJoy came from the private sector to improve the operation of the Post Office. His expertise lies in logistics and transportation and it will not be the weakest link in the “vote by mail” mess. What will be the mess, unlike the absentee system which is usually 3 to 5 million votes, the “vote by mail” ballots are just sent out according to a state’s “voter rolls” which have been proven to be woefully out of date and inaccurate in most states.

Nevada, which is one of the states using the vote by mail system and claims to do it well, during the 2020 primaries, Clark County alone had 223,000 ballots that were “undeliverable”, which amounts to 17% of the registered voters there. Also, voting by mail puts strains on each state’s voting board by requiring them to look at not 3 to 5 million absentee ballots, but 60 to 70 million ballots that meet their state’s voting laws, not to mention really massive crash courses on being handwriting experts. Does anyone remember the Bush-Gore fiasco? Multiply that maybe several hundred times.

David Jaronik

Reader clarifies Electoral College information

A correction is in order to the letter to the editor from Dwight Hunter. He keeps referring to Nevada Senate districts, those senators and the Electoral College. The Senate District 19 that he refers to is the state Legislature Senate, NOT the Senate in Washington, D.C. The Electoral College has nothing to do with the state legislatures. We, and every other state, only have two senators in Congress and that’s where the Electoral College comes into play. To use our state Senate as an example is apples to oranges. So, the entire letter by Mr. Hunter is in error and makes no sense.

As for the Electoral College, it needs to go. It was originally formed when there was no rapid communication between the states and Washington - sometimes news took weeks to get across the country. So, the lack of sufficient information to choose had to be handled by those “in the know.” Today we all have immediate information to make an informed decision on our own so we no longer need someone else to do it for us.

Another, and the biggest reason, is the difference between the states’ number of votes. North Dakota gets three votes and has a population of 762,000, which is approximately one vote per 254,000 people. If we give California one vote for every 254,000 (as in ND) California would get 155 votes. But California only gets 55 votes!!!! So, ND gets way more say in who is elected president and vice president. This is clearly NOT democratic. To be democratic, everyone would get one vote.

We in Nevada get six electoral votes. But according to the ND formula we should be getting 12 votes (3,080,000 / 254000 = 12 votes). So, we are getting less votes in the Electoral College, too. Again, this is NOT democratic.

CJ Stevens