Dems push for vote by mail
In Wisconsin, Democrats sued elections officials to extend voting deadlines. In Rhode Island, the secretary of state wants all 788,000 registered voters to receive absentee ballot applications. In Maryland, a special election to replace the late Rep. Elijah Cummings will be conducted entirely by mail.
As the coronavirus outbreak upends daily life and tears at the social fabric of the country, states are rapidly searching for ways to protect the most sacred institution in a democracy: voting.
With gatherings of people suddenly presenting an imminent health threat, state officials and voting rights activists have begun calling for an enormous expansion of voting by mail — for both the remaining Democratic presidential primary race and, planning for the worst-case scenario, the general election in November.
“The DNC is urging the remaining primary states to use a variety of other critical mechanisms that will make voting easier and safer for voters and election officials alike,” Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, said in a statement late Tuesday. “The simplest tool is vote by mail, which is already in use in a number of states and should be made available to all registered voters.”
While rules vary somewhat state to state, 33 states and the District of Columbia currently collect ballots by mail or permit “no excuse” absentee voting, in which people can vote absentee for any reason. Colorado, Washington state and Oregon have all-mail elections.
The next three nominating contests in the Democratic primary race — Hawaii, Wyoming and Alaska — are all run by the state Democratic Party, not the state government. All three have had extensive vote-by-mail operations in place for months; Wyoming even canceled its in-person caucuses and went to a full vote-by-mail system.
But given the decentralized structure of U.S. elections, which are governed by states, counties and even municipalities, shifting to a federally mandated, completely vote-by-mail system for the general election could be impossible both logistically and legislatively. Gaining access to the ballot box has increasingly become a partisan issue, with some Republicans, citing reports of voter fraud, adding hurdles that include purging voter rolls and instituting voter ID requirements, while Democrats promote ideas like same-day registration and early and mail voting options.
Democrats in Congress have pushed to expand voting by mail amid the coronavirus pandemic, with the possibility that it can still be wreaking havoc in November. A bill by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the former presidential candidate, would require all states offer a mail-in or drop-off paper ballot option if 25 perecnt of states declared a state of emergency related to the coronavirus or another infectious disease or natural disaster, and requests for a ballot could be made electronically.
Efforts to introduce all-mail voting have had plenty of detractors. “I’ve known about the opposition in the past,” Wyden said. “But if they’re faced with the question of how do you actually hold an election this fall, I think they’re going to have trouble defying common sense and making arguments for why you shouldn’t do it.”