Editor’s note: This commentary is by John Freitag, of Strafford, who has long been active in civic and town affairs. He is currently serving as the town recreation areas manager, lister, secretary of the Strafford Area Lions Club, and treasurer of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Strafford.
Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “When I was young, I admired intelligent people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
Well, when I was young, I was wrapped up in the political heat of the moment. Now that I am old, I am more concerned about the process itself and the longer-term health of our democracy. It was for that reason that some months ago I wrote a commentary urging people to consider running for office where there were uncontested incumbents of either party. Now, I wrote, is the time and the place for a vigorous exchange of ideas and to allow people to choose the direction they wished our state to go in the future. While I was not all that eager to be a candidate myself, I did state then that I would run if there were no opposition to the incumbents in my district. Turns out there was no opposition and true to my word I filed and sent in my papers shortly after July 26, the date when independent candidates could file.
Unfortunately, I live in a mid/eastern part of Vermont where it turns out the mail sent from my post office in South Strafford ( about 60 miles from Montpelier) no longer goes to White River Junction to be sorted. Instead, as I found out, it goes all the way down to southern New Hampshire to a large regional sorting operation in Nashua. It was there the envelope containing my election papers was most likely lost. In normal times, I would have sent the envelope with the election papers with a return receipt requested. However, I knew that those in the Secretary of State’s Office were working remotely. This seemed chancy as it would be quite possible that no one would be there to sign for it during the short 12-day window of opportunity for independent candidates to file.
There was of course the option to file online. Again, Covid-19 influenced my decision as the high use of my DSL internet service has made this service unreliable at times and as a hard paper copy needed to be sent anyway and I had little idea of how much mail service has changed in recent years, using the postal service seemed a reasonable option.
I have to say that the Secretary of State’s Office was very sympathetic and understanding of my frustration when I was able to get in touch with one of the staff who worked from home. However, there was nothing they could do.
So, what are the lessons here?
1. The postal service in Vermont has changed and for many of us, it is far less reliable than before. I would urge people not to count on the mail in the general election in November, but to deliver the ballots yourself to the town office before the election or to the polling place on Election Day.
2. If you can, get better internet service. I have since been able to switch to ECFiber thanks to the recent expansion of their system and would urge people to push for similar type service in your area if you do not have it.
3. Never give up. Despite setbacks and flaws in our system, it is what we have to deal with and far better than most either currently or historically. It is critically important for us to take advantage and use this incredible gift of choosing our own leaders and debating the future direction of our state and nation.
