Letter: An idea for addressing distrust in elections

I know a lot of people distrust our elections and their results. I am certainly confused. I live in McHenry County. Wouldn’t it be nice for the clerk of McHenry County to take an aggressive approach to put more trust in our elections other than the worn phrase that “our elections are safe, secure and accurate.”

How about this: Hold a series of town hall meetings at several of the high schools throughout McHenry County. Record them, posting the video to the county clerk website. For the topics, post the presentation used and any questions and answers from each meeting also to the website.

The topics (start with the most obvious but the list should be expanded):

• How does the county prepare for an election (judge training, machine testing, etc)?

• Provide a description for ballot listed below. What are the steps when I “vote” for each of the ballot types? And which type of ballot is more susceptible to fraud: in-person, mail-in, absentee, military, college student, provisional?

• Vote security: How do the voting machines “send” results? Are they linked to each other and why? Are they ever linked to the internet or some other system? What are the checks and balances used to verify or validate that the votes for each candidate are accurate?

This is only a start, but it could help everyone feel better about one of our most important rights as an American.

Arthur Nystrom

Johnsburg