Letters: I was an election judge. It was a no-drama day.

On Election Day, I was an election judge, and it was a great experience. Getting up at 4 a.m. to be at the polling place by 5 a.m. wasn’t so great, but helping more than 400 people cast ballots was.

I was a member of a team of six election judges with three from each political party. We spent zero time with political issues and instead focused our efforts on making the election go smoothly for the voters. There were a few somewhat snarky comments from voters, but those were far outweighed by voters thanking us for volunteering. We had some poll watchers, and they behaved themselves. The county sheriff stopped by and reminded us to mark the 100-foot electioneering line from the polling place. One guy showed up, stayed outside the line and handed some materials out. In other words, people behaved with no drama.

I did quite a few same-day voting registrations for people who had been recently naturalized or kids who recently turned 18. They all came to the polling place with their required documents.

The process to get a ballot is well thought out. You have to do signature verification to move through the process. The voters can see you are looking at a digital copy of their signature. Most people with complex names or street addresses just hand you their driver’s license to make things easier. I had two people give me their licenses to confirm their identity after signature verification. I set up and took down the ballot box and reader with a partner from the other political party. This process is well structured to protect against vote fraud. There’s too much voter information you need to possess and way too many people who would have to be involved to significantly affect vote tallies. The decentralized precinct structure provides more process protection.

The vast majority of people want to just cast their votes. They are respectful of the process and each other. They are calm, rational and, quite honestly, behave a lot better than some of the candidates on the ballot. Politicians creating fear about elections are doing so for their personal gain. Creating doubt is poison for democracies.

If elections are deemed too corrupt, then what is the alternative? Probably something none of us want. So for the small number of people creating doubt, we all need to tell them to sit down and shut up.

— Chris Donahue, Naperville

As an African American, I am of course bothered and hurt that a noose was found at the Obama Presidential Center construction site. But it’s ridiculous that work may be shut down now for days, weeks or months because of it. That actually gives power to the person who put it there.

And to post a $100,000 reward to catch the person when rewards to catch killers are often less is also ridiculous. Yes, the incident was terrible, but it’s a piece of rope. These are tough construction workers. No reason not to keep working.

If a federal lawsuit couldn’t stop construction, why let a piece of rope stop it?

— Malcolm Montgomery, Flossmoor

Which is worse? The reprehensible act of planting a noose at the Obama Presidential Center construction site or the noose that Jussie Smollett wore after his phony altercation?

— James Burke, Northbrook

Our community’s seniors rely on Medicare to pay for their health care services, but newly finalized cuts are threatening to jeopardize their access to care.

On Jan. 1, a severe, nearly 4.5% Medicare cut to physical and occupational therapy services will go into effect. This drastic measure will undoubtedly threaten our local physical therapy centers’ ability to stay open, making it more difficult for seniors to access the safe, effective and vital therapy services they need to recover from injury, manage pain and prevent costly falls.

I hope our lawmakers will support the Supporting Medicare Providers Act (H.R. 8800) to stop these Medicare cuts before it is too late.

— Mark Cassidy, New Lenox, Illinois

The old-timers liked to ask: If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? I’d like to ask Elon Musk: If you’re so rich, why aren’t you smart?

— David Passman, Chicago

With regard to the letter from the writer in Evanston who was pleased with the election results (“Happy with results in Illinois,” Nov. 11): Thanks for the suggestion to move, but I’m already way ahead of him. The house here went up for sale recently, and the moving truck is coming Nov. 28.

Glad he’s happy with his choices. I’ll look forward to his letter to the Tribune in four years to see how happy he is with the people running Illinois. Enjoy!

— Bill Mauck, Willowbrook

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