The personal perspectives of our citizens need to be respected and, if possible, we should try to remove any “doubts” about our election process.
An idea that is gaining traction is to on our mail-in ballot, near our signature, place three boxes. Add a tear-off strip with the reference number of our ballot and also three boxes. After signing the ballot, the voter can mark “anything” in the three boxes (numbers, shapes, letters, etc.). The voter puts the same markings on their tear-off strip boxes. When the ballot is received, the boxes will be scanned as well as the signature. If a signature is challenged for authenticity, the election commission can ask to see the voter’s receipt and see if the symbols in the three boxes are the same.
This could eliminate any questions about the authenticity of the individual ballot mailed in, as the voter can validate their own mail-in submission. Optical character-reading technology makes this reasonable. Let’s do what we can to maximize trust in our most fundamental of our rights and our democracy: the vote.