How to prevent an election fiasco

The primaries are over and we can now look ahead to the November general election.

It’s not a pretty sight.

Predictions abound that we’re headed for a fiasco. Much of it is based on the surge of mail-in voting prompted by coronavirus.

Millions of people plan to avoid voting at a polling station. The U.S. Postal Service has warned it might not be able to process their ballots under the deadlines set up in 46 states, including Florida.

With both political parties lawyering up, that could be a breeding ground for charges of fraud, voter suppression and conspiracy theories as election officials sift through ballots making sure they arrived on time and have valid signatures.

If it’s close, don’t expect Donald Trump or Joe Biden to give up without a fight. As the nation agitates, the race might eventually be decided by judges, not the voters.

Think Florida 2000, only bigger and more toxic.

How can we avoid the chaos?

For starters, if you’re planning to vote by mail, do it on time. Repeat — on time.

That seems simple enough, but it’s not. Prior to Tuesday’s primaries, about 65,000 mail-in votes had been rejected nationwide. Rejection rates range from 1% to 2%. That doesn’t sound terribly consequential, but the 2000 presidential election was decided by a .01% difference in Florida.

Thomas Marshall, the USPS’s general counsel, sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee on July 29, warning of a significant risk some ballots won’t meet deadline requirements. Things could get worse if President Trump’s postal-service mischief is successful.

Some deadlines could be relaxed, but the onus will remain on voters. If you’re planning to vote by mail, carefully sign your ballot and closely follow mailing instructions.

Then track your ballots through the Division of Elections’ Voter Information Lookup website or county election supervisor’s website.

Government should considering other measures to ease the expected strain. Most could be enacted by executive orders from Gov. Ron DeSantis or directives from Lee and county supervisors of election. For example:

■ Extend the application deadline for mailin ballots. Florida law allows citizens to request a mail-in ballot up to 10 days before an election. It can take between two and 10 days for the mail to arrive. Then it could take that long for it to returned by the Election Day 7 p.m. deadline. The state should change the request deadline to 15 days before the Nov. 3 election. It’d be a small step, but every uncontested ballot will ease the counting crunch.

■ Max out early voting days and hours. Early voting currently runs from 10 days before the election to three days before the election, though county supervisors can — and should — offer more days and longer hours. That might further thin out the crowd and and attract people who want to vote in person but are concerned about exposure to COVID-19. That would also give more time for voters to use the mail-in drop boxes, which are located at early-voting sites and monitored by election officials.

■ The deadline for accepting overseas ballots is up to 10 days after the election. DeSantis has the authority to extend a similar deadline for domestic mail-in ballots.

■ An aggressive education campaign, much of it geared toward non-English-speaking citizens. The Puerto Rican population in Orange and Osceola counties increased 12.5% after Hurricane Maria. More than 100,000 Hispanics registered in 2019 and are voting for the first time this year.

■ Deliver all mail-in ballots via first class mail.

■ Establish a bipartisan election review commission. It could be headed by respected figures like Jeb Bush, Bob Graham, Alex Sink and Bill McCollum, and staffed with election experts from both parties. It would quickly investigate charges of fraud and pledge to stand together against unsubstantiated claims the election has been stolen.

■ Move back the Electoral College deadline. States now have until Dec. 8 to finalize their results. Congress could extend it two or three weeks to deal with potential challenges in certifying mail-in ballots.

Elections are messy in the best of times, and 2020 so far has looked more like the worst of times. With the rise of social media, it’s easy for bad actors to spread disinformation and undermine confidence in the results.

Problems extend beyond mail-in voting, but that’s a major source of potential trouble. The measures listed above would help, but they are hardly a silver bullet. And it’s far from certain the government would enact them.

The best way to defuse is for individual citizens to take control to the extent that they can. Don’t procrastinate. Vote on time. Do it correctly.

If Americans don’t, Nov. 3 could be the start of a historically ugly scene.