Election costs soar as virus multiplies voting challenges
WASHINGTON — The demand for mailin ballots is surging. Election workers need training. And polling booths might have to be outfitted with protective shields during the COVID19 pandemic.
As officials prepare for the Nov. 3 election, one certainty is clear: It’s coming with a big price tag.
“Election officials don’t have nearly the resources to make the preparations and changes they need to make to run an election in a pandemic,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program. “We are seeing this all over the place.”
The pandemic has sent state and local officials scrambling to prepare for an election like few others, an extraordinary endeavor during a presidential contest, as virus cases rise across much of the U.S.
COVID19 related worries are bringing demands for steps to make sure elections just four months away are safe. But longpromised federal aid to help cashstarved states cope is stalled on Capitol Hill.
The money would help pay for transforming the ageold voting process into a pandemicready system. Central to that is the costs for printing mailin ballots and postage. There are also costs to ensure inperson voting is safe with personal protective equipment, or PPE, for poll workers, who tend to be older and more at risk of getting sick from the virus, and training for new workers.
Complicating matters is President Trump’s aversion to mailin balloting. With worrisome regularity, he derides the process as rigged, even though there’s no evidence of fraud and his own reelection team is adapting to the new reality of widespread mailin voting.
“As cases of coronavirus in this country rise, it’s vital that all voters be able to cast their ballots from home, to cast their ballots by mail,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DMinn.
A COVID19 response bill passed by the House in May contains $3.6 billion to help states with their elections, but the Senate won’t turn to the measure until late July. Republicans fought a $400 million installment of election aid this March before agreeing to it.
But key Senate Republicans seem likely to support more election funding, despite Trump’s opposition, and are even offering to lower a requirement that states put up matching funds to qualify for the federal cash.
“I’m prepared not only to look at more money for the states to use as they see fit for elections this year but also to even consider whatever kind of matching requirement we have,” said Roy Blunt, RMo., chairman of the Senate panel with responsibility for the issue.
As negotiations on the next COVID19 relief bill begin on Capitol Hill, the final figure for elections is sure to end up much less than the $3.6 billion envisioned by the House. That figure followed Brennan Center recommendations to prepare for an influx of absentee ballots while providing more early voting options and protecting neighborhood polling places.