After four long years of incompetence, illegality, and immorality, capped off with nine months (so far) of complete leadership function, we finally get to have our say in who runs our country. Although I’m a very diligent voter and have rarely missed a vote, I have never looked forward more to exercising my civic duty.

We received our ballots on Thursday, and I immediately started filling it out.

I know a blizzard of misinformation and lies about mail-in voting has obfuscated the truth: that mail-in voting is not only safe and reliable, but makes voting more accessible to all citizens.

When voting, I spend a lot of time not only reading our voter pamphlet, but doing my own research online, reading various election endorsements (I prefer The Seattle Times endorsements for a more centrist viewpoint and The Stranger endorsements for a more left-leaning view). On a particularly long ballot, with perhaps a number of initiatives as well as people filling different positions, I could spend several hours before I finish.

I haven’t heard people extolling the the opportunity to do careful research and take plenty of time to make each decision as a benefit of mail-in voting, but I’ve definitely found that to be the case for me.

It actually didn’t take me that long to vote this time — maybe a couple hours. We dropped our completed, signed ballots in the drop box near us. Our county — just one county! — offers something like 70 drop box locations, many of them at local libraries.

I cannot overstate the value of mail-in voting with ample drop boxes available. In fact, I’d like to take a moment to speak as a person who’s used mail-in voting for years to describe my experience: Mail-in voting for everyone has resulted in higher turnouts in our state, with no appreciable increase in voter fraud. As I mentioned, it gives voters time to research and think carefully about their votes. There’s no taking time off to stand in line and vote; do it on your own time. I do it in the evenings after kiddo goes to bed. Secure ballot boxes give us a safe and easy way to turn our ballots in somewhere conveniently close to home.

In short, I really love living in a state where mail-in voting is the standard.

That said, I can’t help but notice that my county Elections “does not grammar.” I’ll cut ’em some slack; at least they got the ballots and voter pamphlets out to us.