Safe voting: Letters to the editor, Aug. 30, 2020
No worry to tally ballots all night
Election results are not mandated to be final within an hour or two of polling closures. Before the “instant gratification” syndrome, votes were counted by hand. In 1960 my mother was a precinct captain and the house was a polling station. Votes were counted in batches of 10; the tally was to match each worker’s total. Any discrepancy resulted in a recount of those 10 votes.
Guess what? They did it through the night and this was duplicated throughout the country. The final result was not Tuesday night. The government survived.
The president’s fear of mail-in ballots reflects his insecurity complex. Joseph Stalin said who you vote for is not what counts, it is who does the counting.
Ann Pardini, Fresno
Wear mask, wash hands, stay apart
COVID-19 is like the weather. I know it’s summer, it’s hot; winter will be cold. I know the news will tell me that COVID is still ravaging and only getting worse, it seems. My iPhone continually giving me alerts that read more bad news. It seems that confusing reigns — I don’t feel reassured by our most senior leaders.
Despite all this nerve-wracking negativity I know I am still free. I can come and go as I please, shopping, to eat at a restaurant outdoors, a haircut also outdoors, a drive and I can come home watch a movie. I try to avoid the depressing repetitive news; I’m comfortable. Yes indeed, we all have it better than most.
I wear a mask, I wash my hands, I keep my distance. I know that it won’t necessarily take a big crowd for me to become infected; it only takes one for that to happen.
Joseph Riofrio, Mendota
No democracy under Trump
In his me-first, self-centered narcissism, Donald Trump has turned his back on the welfare of “We the People.” Even in this time of severe trial and tribulation, he thinks money and might and misrepresentation will solve all problems and, of most importance, bolster his self-aggrandizement for which he vehemently hungers. Rather than coordinated, well-envisioned programs, he is merely playing the fiddle so we will dance to his tune all the way to self-destruction.
He has isolated us from integral cooperation and compassionate “Do unto Others,” which together manifest goodness and beauty and community. Rather, he has constructed divisions within our citizenry; very unfortunately, also between the United States and a world that was once so grateful for our efforts to manifest freedom and justice and goodness for all.
With his quest for personal wealth and totalitarian tyranny, step by tragic step, Trump is dismantling progressive efforts toward social cooperation, just freedom for all, vital life,and commonwealth, all of which compose functioning fruitful democracy.
Marlin Roehl, Visalia
COVID testing is not contagious
To all you insisting that the increased cases of COVID-19 are due to testing, please be assured that testing is not contagious. It is the virus that is contagious. The testing only helps us better cope with the situation.
Ruth M. Gadebusch, Fresno
Don’t call him, he’ll take our call
Members of my staff and I relish speaking with constituents. Since your Aug. 9 editorial, “Why your newspaper delivery driver could disappear,” we’ve gotten several opportunities.
Nearly identical editorials were published in Modesto, Merced, Fresno, Sacramento and San Luis Obispo urging readers to call legislators to ask that newspaper delivery workers be exempted from the requirements of AB 5, which reclassifies them as employees rather than contractors. Only the names of the newspapers and targeted elected officials were changed.
A little research would have shown that I was the only Democrat in the entire Legislature who voted against AB 5 in 2019. Here in the Valley, where thousands depend on intermittent work to make ends meet, I worried that insufficient thought had been given to the impacts on these workers and their families if gig-work opportunities were outlawed overnight due to political gamesmanship.
Yet, you targeted me for phone calls. Most went to my staff, taking them away from other constituent work such as tracking down tardy unemployment benefits, locating PPE for essential workers and researching issues of vital importance to our Valley.
The next time McClatchy wants to send a message, how about choosing your targets more carefully. Better yet, just give us a call. We’ll always answer.
Rep. Adam Gray, 21st State Assembly District, Merced
This story was originally published August 30, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Safe voting: Letters to the editor, Aug. 30, 2020."