I am determined to vote Donald Trump and all of these sycophantic Republicans out of office. I already filled out and sent my absentee ballot request form through the U.S. Postal Service to my county auditor. We can now request absentee ballots in Iowa.

I was glad that Logun Buckley at the Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans was able to print out a ballot request form for me and assist me in filling it out correctly. We all need to include our phone number and email address on the form just in case so that the auditor can reach out to us. Republicans in the Iowa Legislature like Ashley Hinson voted to make it harder to vote from home in the middle of a pandemic. Our county auditors won’t be able to fill in missing information (that they already have access to) on request forms without calling or emailing us, and the secretary of state can’t just send every registered voter a ballot request form.

We need to call Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and demand they fully fund the U.S. Postal Service so that we can all safely vote by mail in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

– Jennifer Reef, Waterloo, Iowa

This Letter to the Editor was originally published in the Waterloo – Cedar Falls Courier on July 12, 2020.