I keep seeing articles about the health risks of voting in person during a pandemic and how some people seem hellbent on making it hard for people to mail in their votes. But why does this have to be an either/or situation? 1/9

We can easily set up polling places so that people can vote in person without risking their health. The answer is as simple as drive-thru banking, which people have done securely for DECADES. Why can’t we use the same system for voting? 2/9

Think about it: There are few things people value more than the security of their $$. And we happily go through drive-thru teller lines and show our IDs to make deposits and withdrawals. 3/9

Most major cities have at least one shuttered bank building with existing drive-through lanes, just sitting around unused. Turn the power on for a week, add a few cameras and monitors, and voilà: drive-thru voting. 4/9

(Or hell, use actual banks; just add poll-workers next to the tellers in the lanes that aren’t currently open for banking.) Super secure, and nobody ever has to leave their cars! 5/9

People can send their ballots and IDs through the vacuum tubes, just like we do our deposits. Cameras & monitors could help poll-workers check IDs and even allow voters to watch their ballots be fed into machines. 6/9

Want people to feed their ballots into the machines themselves? Repurpose a fast-food drive-thru instead of a bank. Show ID at the first window, and feed your ballot through at the second. 7/9

To keep traffic moving through the drive-thrus, ballots could be mailed out in advance. We already mail out sample ballots based on people’s party affiliations; just add real vote-in-person style ballots to the same envelope. 8/9

People should absolutely be able to vote by mail. But if they’d rather vote in person, why not make it as safe as possible to do so? The greatest risk comes from long lines in & outside of packed buildings. The drive-thru model keeps everyone apart. 9/9