Vote early to make sure it counts
This Nov. 3 election will be most significant of our lifetime. Don’t you want to have your vote counted?
News about the U.S. Postal Service potential slow down of delivery and removal of high-speed mail sorting machines across the country indicates that even mail-in voting is threatened.
The most effective way to ensure that your vote counts is to register to vote, sign up for early voting, get an early ballot in the mail, fill it out right away and either mail it in via the post office or drop it off at one of the early voting sites.
This avoids the long lines on Election Day as well as safeguards your health during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Visit the Pima County Recorder’s Office website to start or continue the process of voting and to check your status.
There is a list of early drop-off sites available from the Recorder’s Office web site. Please vote. Every vote matters. Our country depends on your vote.
John Wood
Northeast side
What are police unions thinking?
While law enforcement agencies are struggling to restore public confidence in their ability to enforce the law fairly and without favor, this is the worst possible time for the Tucson Police Officers Association and other members of the Arizona Police Association to endorse President Trump.
It is the height of hypocrisy for our police to support an impeached president, an unindicted co-conspirator (“Individual-1”) who is also the subject of ongoing criminal investigations in New York and elsewhere, a man who faces charges of sexual misconduct by at least 25 women and a man who violates the Constitution and governmental norms on an almost daily basis.
This appalling endorsement of Trump displays an utter disregard for the people they serve. How can we rely on our police to be impartial and fair if we fear that they only enforce the law for Trump supporters? Is the TPD truly “Ready to Protect, Proud to Serve?”
Julian Donahue
Foothills
We don’t have
to put up with this
We keep saying and thinking “only seventy-some days till election,” but mid-August till past-mid January is more than five months. Trump and his administration can continue their daily atrocities for all of that time.
Even if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win, come January, will we have any shred of democracy left?
Why is there no effort to apply the 25th Amendment or restart impeachment?
It’s easy to blame the R’s, but why are the Democrats so complacent, acting as if all of this chaos is acceptable? It’s not! Democrats and independents should be exposing every offense that has been committed against the world and the American people — and who knows?
The public just might rally around the idea of getting rid of the whole kit and kaboodle.
As we used to say in New Jersey: “Hey, you never know.” Unless you try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Kathleen Pastryk
Oro Valley
UA Athletics is a mess
The UA Track and Field program’s coaches and athletic director all need to be sued and fired. The inaction on their part is illegal, inappropriate and morally reprehensible. They have destroyed the lives and mental health of at least these students who have come forward and perhaps the lives of many more over time.
They do not deserve their jobs or high salaries. There are hundreds of better coaches in this country who would defend the lives and health of these women.
Edward Jennings
Midtown
Writer using tragedy for self-aggrandizing piece
Re: the Aug. 14 article “Give high-level attention to low-grade depression.”
Are you kidding me?! It’s amazing (and not in a good way) that the Daily Star would even consider printing the Aug. 14 opinion piece on “low-grade depression.”
For the writer to connect the 2016 presidential election result of Trump to the horrendous Tucson shooting tragedy of January 2011 is incomprehensible.
For the writer to also include details of the shooting and how it affected her is just another self-centered, despicable example of “look at me, I was there too.”
Even more laughably, although worrisome, is that she seems to be serious: The writer adds that all can be well with yoga and perhaps a peach.
Funny how she suddenly has this revelation around election time — I guess she felt it was her obligation to save us all.
Too bad the Opinion page editor is unwilling or incapable of choosing thoughtful and well-written pieces instead of disgusting garbage like this.
Diane T. Nelson
Foothills
Hobbs doing part to protect voters
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs continues to advocate for Arizona voters, countering efforts by Attorney General Mark Brnovich locally and the Trump administration nationally.
In a recent Howard Fisher article, Hobbs amplifies the growing unrest over the current postmaster general’s efforts to destabilize the postal service.
Louis DeJoy, recently appointed postmaster general and Trump campaign donor, advocates for eliminating overtime and hiring freezes and with reports of mail-sorting machine removal or deactivation, Hobbs believes mail delays will result.
Timely mail service is essential for mail-in ballots, especially since their use continues to increase as documented in the August Arizona election.
Hopefully Arizona voters will advocate for fair and equal voting access as well as pandemic voting safety concerns.
Keep up the good work, Secretary of State Hobbs.
Roger Shanley
East side
Trump’s interference is staggering
Come on boys and girls, the president of the U.S. is clearly and in plain sight doing everything he can to interfere with not only the U.S. census but the upcoming presidential election by stifling the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to deliver ballots.
Which he thinks may not favor his reelection.
During a pandemic. So how long will you put up with this treasonous behavior by this oppressive administration? Or are you just about buying and selling guns and ammo to make a buck? Show yourselves in the light folks.
Mike Judd
East side
Save the post office
In 1775, Benjamin Franklin was appointed as our first postmaster general. Even before the United States formally was a country, our forefathers recognized this vital means of communication and commerce. Now one man, Donald Trump, is threatening the postal service for blatantly political reasons. He has admitted this shameful motive.
This must not be allowed to happen. The postal service is the means by which many of our most vulnerable citizens receive payments through Social Security or medications that allow them to live.
It is the means by which many small businesses receive payments from customers that allow them to keep their doors open. It is the means by which many citizens, particularly older people, receive news from magazines or communicate with friends and family, enhancing their lives.
This attempt to politicize and destroy an institution that has served the citizens of our nation for 245 years is despicable. Please keep our post office operating as it should.
Sarah Simmons
Foothills
Bishop right to ban politics from property
Kudos to Bishop Edward Weisenburger who wrote to priests of the Tucson diocese earlier this month, reflecting on the upcoming election season.
No political organization, the bishop said, can “be allowed to meet or advertise on parish property.
Likewise, they may not share their communications through any parish or Catholic-sponsored entities in the Diocese of Tucson.”
“In short,” political organizations “may not be on our property,” Weisenburger wrote.
Brian Burch, CatholicVote president, told the Catholic News Agency he respects Weisenburger’s concerns and decision.
But in Arizona, he said, there might have been some misunderstanding about his organization’s work.
Brian Burch knows exactly what he is doing — no misunderstanding — he wants President Trump to win and is trying to lead Catholics to believe Trump should win and that all Catholics should vote for him.
Richard Williamson
South side
McSally seems blind to USPS issues
I contacted Martha McSally about the Postal Service. I was shocked the USPS was not among the topics to be selected for comment or concern.
Does this mean she’s unconcerned about the current administration’s attempts to dismantle a service that’s critical to many of her constituents who rely on the Postal Service for their medications, Social Security checks and election ballots?!
The assault on the USPS could cripple efforts to keep people from endangering their health while exercising their civic right and duty to vote this fall!
If Trump can gut the USPS, literally removing sorting machines, collection boxes, and firing all the experienced management, all these efforts could be for naught.
Trump admits that he is doing this because he is afraid if people can vote by mail, he will lose. Is McSally supporting this demagogue?
This is urgent! So is relief for those without jobs or losing their homes. We need leaders to get back to Washington and the work of Congress, not hold town halls.
Margaret Nichols
Oro Valley
Solar slammed by TEP
In the article by David Wichner, in which TEP denied a solar application to a person who wanted to do his part in saving the planet, it is obvious that the “new state rules” set by the staff (read Corporation Commission) are designed to assist Tucson Electric Power in maintaining its superiority and its push against solar energy.
Now Chris Knutson has to fork over $10,000 if he wants to continue his plan. That’s highway robbery in my book.
We should be assisting people who want to change their energy use for the better rather than punishing them. Nothing could make it plainer than this type of disguised nonsense that we need to elect Democrats Bill Mundell, Anna Tovar, and Shea Stanfield to the Arizona Corporation Commission in November!
Patricia Bergen
Northwest side
There’s no secret to Trump’s game
Contrary to the president’s pronouncement, there is no logical reason that mail-in voting would favor Democrats.
Mail-in voting would, however, make it more difficult for Republicans to interfere with the voting rights of immigrants, the low-income, minorities and health-challenged elderly by forcing them to long lines, fewer polling places, exposure to COVID-19, and right-wing harassment.
It is not a coincidence that Trump wants to defund the post office.
Craig Wunderlich
West side
