MANSFIELD ─ With the temperature rising, Richland County voters masked up and went out to cast their ballots Tuesday.
Despite concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, doubts about a mail-in ballot motivated local voters to exercise their right in person.
Delaine Osborne, a retiree, said she does not trust the mail-in ballots after voting at Crossroads Church in Mansfield.
“I’m thinking it’s gonna take forever for them to check and make sure all those people (voters) are living, for one thing, and to check against their names,” she said.
Debra Reynolds can relate to that. She has had other people’s mail delivered to her address and has not received some of hers.
“I don’t trust it ever,” Reynolds said.
Even some first-time voters have no confidence in the system before casting the ballot.
Katie Morgan, 21, voted at Shelby Alliance Church Tuesday. She said the world is a little “messed up” so that she cannot really trust anybody.
“It feels great. I feel like an adult,” Morgan said of her first voting experience.
She watched the presidential debates on TV while knowing right from the beginning it would be easy to choose her president.
Some people also said voting in person is their tradition or habit. They enjoy meeting other voters at the polling place.
For Mason Weiner, a student at North Central State College, it is necessary to cast his first ballot in person.
He did much homework for his first vote. He said for a few weeks, he spent couple of hours each day keeping up with policies of the main candidates. He wanted to make sure those were the right people who he wanted to vote for everything.
Weiner, who just turned 18 in March, said the voting process was very easy and comfortable.
“I’m glad to know that my vote matters,” he said.
With every state has different rules for handling mail-in ballots, when the presidential election result would come out is up in the air. Everyone has their guess.
Reynolds said she hopes it would be late Tuesday night.
“Hope it’s a landslide,” the Trump-supporter said.
Janet Herdman, who voted with her husband on Tuesday, said the result might take until next year to be confirmed. She referred to the 2000 presidential election between former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore, which wasn’t decided until December.
However, she is optimistic.
“We are Christians. We know the Lord is in control,” she said.
Jennifer Rutledge, a paralegal working in Mansfield, has a “theory” without any base about when the result would be out. She said it would be Friday.
“They will announce who’s the winner (on Friday) because that gives us two days for people to cool off. And if they’re gonna burn and pillage and do all the things that they have already been doing. They may get it out of their system in two days and people will be safe at home,” she said.
