By Richard Tomlinson
Banks are fairly safe to store your money. It gets mingled with other people's money but when you need it , there are ways to get it back. It is much safer than storing my money under my mattress or burying it in the backyard. That being said, banks are not totally safe as by human nature, other people find ways to get your money through bank robberies or scams by obtaining your bank routing number.
Elections are fairly safe where your vote is mingled with other's votes to decide which candidates will serve in office. The term "election deniers" is being floated around as a bad word. But by human nature, other people find ways to steal your vote or to cause election fraud. Florida has a photo-signature Identification requirement to verify each legitimate voter. Counties have a computer system that records when and how a voter voted (by mail-in ballot, early voting period, or on election day). This will flag if a voter has already voted to prevent voting twice. Florida statewide voter registration ensures voters are only registered in one county.
Mail-in Ballots are only sent out upon request. Thus if a voter moved or died, a mail-in ballot is not automatically issued. Florida has several safeguards as does Citrus County to prevent voter fraud. Secret ballots and improved security measures have largely ensured fair outcomes in elections. People are mostly honest, and people mostly believe other people — and deception is more of a kind of exceptional thing rather than a chronic worry.
Lastly: back to election deniers. They have existed throughout recent election history. In 2000, many Democrats denied the election of George W. Bush due to the hanging chads. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed an order by the Florida Supreme Court for a selective manual recount of that state’s U.S. presidential election ballots. In a 2016 CBS interview, Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the presidential election. In 2020, several Trump supporters cried fraud in the 2020 election. Election denier should not be a derogatory word. Looking at past elections and finding ways to improve the process to be fair and honest should be everyone's concern.