Voting should be done in person only
There should be in-person voting only. The period of Oct. 14-29 is ample time (or maybe add a week) for early voting. Mail-in ballots are going to lead to fraud and take weeks to count. This is unacceptable.
Absentee ballots are not the same; these you have to apply for and be approved.
If people really want to vote, they will get to the polls. It's as simple as that, virus or no virus.
Beverly Bowman, Hixson
Vote-by-mail option is safe way to cast ballot
The postal service is not a partisan issue. It's one of America's most beloved institutions. People of all political persuasions rely on the postal service.
Don't allow the president to sow doubt in the upcoming election. Mail-in voting works. A high percentage of Republicans use it. States have relied on it long before this pandemic. Safeguards are built in. The Trumps use it.
We know what this is all about. Mr. Trump wants to lie and cheat to tilt the election in his favor. In the process, he's disenfranchising millions of Americans and forcing them to risk their lives to cast a ballot. Voter suppression.
Put your fears and doubts aside. If you are a registered voter over 60, or have an underlying health condition threatened by COVID - or meet any of the other dozen valid reasons for a mail-in ballot, request one at elect.hamiltontn.gov. Get it early, send it back early.
To our seniors waiting for their Social Security checks, our veterans waiting for their medication, and our small business owners waiting for deliveries, vote for a better day.
Kerry Lansford, Signal Mountain
The virus and our nation
So much talk about this virus has centered on what this or that governing body didn't, should've or could've done.
Have we fallen that helpless as a society where some house colored white thousands of miles away is to blame for our problems? Or a state capitol somewhere is not doing enough?
Are we not a nation of individuals capable of caring for one another without the assistance of some distant (or even nearby) government entity telling us how to do so?
Some citizens hold their own rights over those of others and act accordingly. Some are willing to sacrifice all freedom and self-reliance to a central controlling body for the general good. Both arguments have some merit and both mean well. Some compromise between the two is probably ideal.
However, I think this has traditionally been a nation of individual choice. That has led to disaster, as well as great achievement. That was the challenge laid out in the Constitution given to us by some privileged men in a room many, many years ago. What we do with it is still to be decided. Virus or no virus.
Mike Wolford, Hixson
We should save our natural resources
Again, Republicans will ravage the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and at a time we do not need its fossil fuel.
Measure the thin volume of extant animal wildlife against human and domestic animal volume. It is almost equivalent to the volume of drinkable water to putrid, salinated water in the world.
Why this onslaught when we know its effects on life? "Right to Life" becomes cruel. Force more babies to live the miserable existence your political choice dooms them to live because you think God wills it. Were God the creator of our planet, would its ongoing ravage be pleasing?
Do golf courses, resorts, high-rise apartment towers, McMansion suburbs and big-box stores built over our wetlands that had sustained fresh waterways, marine life, oceans and us make sense now even in the short run, much less our children's long run?
Lucy Taylor