Getting insurance coverage for mental health services is difficult. So is talking about mental illness. That is why state Senator Julian Cyr, a Democrat from Truro, and other legislators are “coming out” about their personal issues.

Cyr, who attended the Nauset regional schools, where he said he was bullied, suffered anxiety attacks. Now he has led the senate to pass the Mental Health ABC Act. As chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery, Cyr joined Senate President Karen Spilka in talking about why the mental health reform bill matters to them personally. Spilka’s father suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder after World War II. Following her lead, Cyr opened up about his problems getting therapy covered as he changed jobs.

“I couldn’t get my insurance to pay for mental health services — and I’m a 34-year-old state senator who worked in health care policy,” he told me on Friday. Imagine how hard it is for everyone else.

The ABC Act would set the stage for mental health to be treated the same as physical ailments. That is, it aims to make health insurance companies pay for therapy just like they are required to pay for doctor visits. By getting insurance to pay decent rates to therapists, more people would be encouraged to become therapists (even people of color who speak languages other than English — because right now about 90 percent of therapists are white and non-Latino, Cyr said).

For those who need treatment, a check-up from the neck up should be just as routine as getting an annual physical exam.

But it’s not, and that isn’t just because this state doesn’t force insurers to abide by the parity laws that have existed for years. It’s also because people are afraid to admit they need a therapist. Calling one is often fraught with embarrassment and shame.

That’s why Cyr coming out about his mental health struggle is so important. Like most LGBTQ teenagers, he was bullied, beginning at Nauset Regional Middle School. In high school and college, he suffered anxiety attacks and night terrors and developed an eating disorder.

But starting in high school, Cyr got help, and then he doggedly sought and received therapy at N.Y.U. After college he found treatment in Washington, D.C. and Boston. Sometimes, he had to fight to get insurance to cover it, but he did it.

Meanwhile he won a seat in the state senate at age 30. He ran a campaign, made public speeches, and stood up for his beliefs. Just like anyone else with a health problem, he dealt with it so he could go on with his life. The ABC Act will create a better mental health care system. Cyr’s example encourages us to use it.

There’s a lot of irony in the news these days.

On Jan. 28 the Truro Select Board voted to replace the town’s 56-year-old hand-crank ballot boxes with the ImageCast electronic vote tabulator, manufactured by the Dominion Voting Systems Corporation.

According to a 2018 New York Times report on election security, more than 80 percent of the machines in use today are sold by just three companies — Dominion is one of them. The voting-machine industry, according to the Times, is an estimated $300-million-a-year business that is troubling for its secrecy and political ties.

The same salesman who persuaded the Wellfleet Select Board to junk their 95-year-old ballot boxes in October told the Truro board that the electronic counter was much more reliable than human beings, and they apparently believed him.

Six days later a combination of faulty and wholly unnecessary technology and the resulting frustration and anger its failure generated turned the Iowa caucuses into a fiasco. The spectacle in Iowa embarrassed the Democrats and added to the widespread distrust of our entire system of elections.

Our select boards are dedicated, public-spirited citizens. They are obviously inclined to trust what people, even salespeople, tell them. My own philosophy is: trust — but verify.

The guy who sold the machine said it couldn’t be hacked because it wasn’t connected to the internet. As we reported on Nov. 14, however, electronic voting machines can be compromised even if they have no internet connection.

“Many voting machines that elections officials insist are disconnected from the internet — and therefore beyond the reach of hackers — are in fact accessible by way of the modems they use to transmit vote totals on election night,” the Times reported. Without robust audits, “there’s a good chance we simply won’t know if someone has altered the digital votes in the next election.”

Times business columnist Kevin Roose wrote, “When it comes to the actual business of registering and counting people’s votes, many of the smartest tech experts I know fiercely oppose high-tech solutions…. Every piece of technology involved in the voting process is a possible point of failure. And the larger and more interconnected the technical system, the more vulnerable it is to an attack.”

What really gets me in this story is that no one is complaining about the old wooden box with the crank that goes Ding! when your ballot slides in. People love that old box. And they like being part of the crew that counts the votes, even if the job goes on long into the night. Hand-counting is a “well-loved tradition,” says Provincetown Town Clerk Darlene Van Alstyne.

Provincetown is now the last town on Cape Cod to count by hand. But it’s not too late, Truro and Wellfleet, to change your minds. Why fix something that’s not broken?