IT’S NOT BAD IF COVID-19 CHANGES HOW WE VOTE

…This line of Milwaukee, Wisconsin voters shows the distance-difficulties of voting during a virus pandemic.

Republicans feel that 100% of 'voting-by-mail" would disadvantage them, by making it easier to vote.

Unfortunately, the two major political parties sharply disagree on how to plan for November’s election, as the threat of the coronavirus continues into the fall.  They disagree most sharply over efforts to expand access to voting by mail.  The data shows that Democrats have hoped for increasing voting by mail, while the Republicans fear any such expanded access to voting.

The Wisconsin’s election revealed just how difficult it will be to stage traditional, in-person voting.  Voters, such as those in the above picture, came into close contact with one another as they waited in line and for their checking in.  In addition, the polling workers are also disproportionately, senior citizens, which is a group that is especially susceptible to getting seriously ill from Covid-19.  Together, these two factors meant there were many fewer polling places open Tuesday, and those people who did want to vote in person, often had to stand in line for hours.

Democrats want to avoid these problems by requiring that all states allow people to vote by mail in the fall election.  While many states already offer any voter to absentee vote by mail, many do not.  And that includes the important swing state of Pennsylvania.

The proponents believe making this mandatory will ensure that all people will have the ability to vote this fall. Many also believe this will help Democrats, as mail balloting could make voting easier for groups that tend not to vote.   Racial, ethnic minorities and young adults are part of these groups.

But most of the Republicans are resistant to this idea. They rightly worry about ballot security in mail-in elections, especially if they are to allow what conservatives call “ballot harvesting”.   This is the practice that allows people to collect ballots from strangers and deliver them to the polls or the post office.  Republicans fear that this could give rise to other illegal mail-in practices. But their larger concern is that mail-in voting would raise the voter turnout which would harm their chances of winning for the same reasons that Democrats think mail-in ballots would be to their advantage.

Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias says states and Congress need to act now to ensure all votes count during the coming general election. These changes are overdue.

Elias says the partisan concerns are most likely overblown. The United States is not that far behind similar countries in voter turnout. Neither Canada nor Britain force people to vote, nor do they hold elections on weekdays. They had elections last year and their turnouts: 66% for Canada, 67% for Britain, that wasn't much higher than the 60% in the 2016 US presidential election.  Studies also show that easy mail voting only increases overall turnout by a few percentage points. Even if those new voters tilted Democratic, the overall gain would only change the outcome in the closest of races.

But there’s also good reason to believe Republicans could benefit as much from higher turnout as Democrats. That’s because the post-Trump GOP gets the bulk of its votes from whites without four-year college degrees, and they turn out at much lower rates than whites with college degrees.  Battleground states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have large numbers of non-college-graduate whites and relatively few nonwhites and culturally liberal youths.  Even Southeastern swing states such as Florida and North Carolina have large numbers of nonvoting, non-college whites. In those places, a mail-in-ballot-induced turnout hike could actually benefit President Trump and the Republicans.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t genuine concerns to be raised with respect to mail in voting. It states were to allow the “ballot harvesting”, that provides serious temptation for bad actors to engage in voter fraud.  In the 2018 midterm elections in North Carolina, a Republican operative was charged with collecting unmarked mail ballots from unwitting voters and he cast those votes for a Republican congressional candidate. That example alone should cause all voting-rights advocates in all mail-in states to reject such methods.

Members of both parties should be able to reach a compromises for coming up with a plan to prevent the coronavirus from impacting the fall election, and that should go beyond only using mail-in voting.

Some have suggested that National Guard troops could be trained in advance to be emergency poll workers.  In addition, the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE’s) can be purchased so that poll workers are protected from the virus.  

Early in-person voting could be encouraged over using their mail-in ballot as an alternative.

There are other new technologies such as thumb-print identification which is already available on newer smartphones.  That technology can be ramped up and applied for newly registered voters to remove any concerns about fraud from late or same-day voter registrants.

November’s event is already likely to be a highly contested election. That makes it critical that both sides prepare to ensure the process itself is ultimately trustworthy.  Both parties should ensure that a secure voting method is produced, before it’s too late.

This is only the basis for this continuing our country as a democratic nation.  It’s not that it’s that important….it’s just the foundation for the greatest nation on earth.

Copyright G. Ater 2020