After deciding to vote early in last year’s election, my wife and I stood in line for more than three hours at a Charleston shopping center early voting facility. The first hour was spent huddling in line under an umbrella to ward off the rain.

What is now proposed in our legislature is the state spending more than $500 million for new voting machines that would include a paper trail for every vote that is cast. A far better alternative would be a vote-by-mail system, as already proven in Oregon, a vote-by-mail pioneer in 1998, and since adopted by the states of Washington and Colorado.

When you’re voting at home, there’s no standing in line or having to rush to the polls after getting off work. This explains in part why the

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