I love vote-by-mail

It's special-election time here in Oregon. Voters are voting for 2 special tax measures. Chris and I are now official Oregon voters, and received our ballots in the mail last week. They've already been filled out and mailed back, in their special privacy envelopes. I'd post a picture, but I'm not sure if that's legal... So I'll post instead a picture of me with my 2 boys, when they were 3 days old and 23 months.

This is probably why I love vote-by-mail the best. As a mother of babies and small children, it's so incredibly easy to vote! You can do it after they're asleep, and don't have to pile them into car seats and try to chaperon them while filling out a ballot. I know many elderly voters who also echo the appreciation of the ease of voting here. As a former shift worker, it was also hard to vote at times, and I know there were times that my husband worked such a long day that he missed the polling hours completely.

I know, from living in Michigan that there's a real sense of civic duty that you feel when you vote at a polling station, and as a kid, I absolutely loved the ballot machines and curtains that we had in Louisiana. I'm also tickled at remembering Oregon's old method that involved the infamous "chads". I also know that there's no perfect system, and vote by mail is no exception. But vote-by-mail is still my favorite method. It makes it so incredibly easy and accessible to so many who have special needs.

For my fellow Oregonians, get those ballots in the mail!