Letters: Voting by mail ensures safe, fair elections; New mascot wouldn’t replace memories
Voting by mail ensures safe, fair elections
Voting by mail is popular, safe and vital to voting participation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the U.S. Federal Election Commission and nonpartisan National Vote at Home Institute:
States with higher use of mailed-out ballots see a materially higher voter turnout.
Voting by mail increases voting participation in local elections.
Mail-in ballots increase voting participation among voters with disabilities.
Both “red” and “blue” states utilize mail-in ballots.
Vote-at-home is less expensive than in-person voting.
Ballots are only sent to registered voters.
Ballot envelopes are barcoded to one individual voter and validated by voter signature verification.
Tampering with or diverting a mail ballot is a felony punishable by large fines and years of jail time.
Voters can track their ballot in real time using USPS mail-tracking tools.
To ensure a safe, fair election this November, all voters must be able to cast their ballot by mail.
New mascot wouldn’t replace memories
Bellefonte High alumni understandably view the mascot through their own personal memories, but nostalgia can be a cloudy perspective. It would be interesting to know what the current BAHS students think about their mascot, as seen in their 2020 vision.
One absolute truth is that things change, people change, attitudes change. My now-defunct high school was all-female and fielded only a basketball team, called “the Lassies,” which even back then conjured up bizarre images of a TV wonder collie and the Highland fling. Founding a high school today, it probably would not be girls-only and I really doubt any student body of present times would willingly choose a mascot recalling dogs and young Scottish girls. Times have changed.
Choosing an animal mascot would ensure no complaints, now or later, from any rightfully offended humans. Pennsylvania’s black bears are large and fierce, at least in looks. The Bellefonte Bears. Or give a nod to the iron industry that is the reason Centre County was formed, or even to the geographical location: the Bellefonte Centres. The first east-west airmail flight in the United States in 1918 is commemorated with a historic marker in front of the high school, then Beaver Airfield. The Bellefonte Pilots.
Alumni can hold their memories intact — changing the mascot now does not erase the past — but any new symbol can and should align with what are known in education as “best practices,” which would include appropriate respectful recognition of all human beings.
Trump delivers on promises?
Recently a letter writer from Spring City regurgitated talking points from Trump campaign ads to assert that, unlike Joe Biden, President Trump keeps his promises. Has he forgotten Trump’s failed promise to make Mexico pay for a border wall?
Trump has run contradictory ads against Biden – one faulting him for being overly tough on crime, the other faulting him for being weak on crime. Which is it?
The writer suggests that Trump has been tough on China. Yet, Trump refused America’s entry into the Trans Pacific Partnership, the toughest move he could have taken against China. Biden supported America’s membership.
Fortunately, Trump has failed in his promise to abolish Obamacare. If the Supreme Court does strike it down, Trump immediately will be confronted with the failure of his promise to protect 135 million Americans from the denial of insurance coverage due to preexisting conditions.
The letter writer asserts that President Trump kept his promise about adding manufacturing jobs. Yet, he says nothing about the staggering, Depression-like job losses resulting from Trump’s inexcusable and unforgivable failure to take adequate steps to contain the coronavirus.
Because Trump promised that the coronavirus would “just go away,” he abdicated national leadership for months. Consequently, when the coronavirus didn’t go away, Trump was compelled to issue stay at home orders which shut down and destroyed America’s economy. Trump has the blood and the impoverishment of tens of thousands of Americans on his hands.
How’s that for “Making America Great Again?”