The election: Will it be disrupted?
“The coronavirus pandemic is presenting a singular test for American democracy,” said
Isaac Stanley-Becker and Amy Gardner in The Washington Post. If social-distancing mandates and lockdowns extend into November—or are removed and reinstated in a second wave of infection in the fall—it “could present unprecedented obstacles to voting.” It’s a challenge for which “history offers little guidance.” There’s an answer, said The New York Times in an editorial: mail-in ballots. We need “to make voting by mail a clear and free option for every eligible voter in the country.” Five states, including Utah and Colorado, already have a majority of ballots cast by mail, showing it can be done. But printing tens of millions of ballots and setting up a process to count them is a daunting undertaking, and “preparations must begin today.”
That means Congress needs to step in, said Donald Hasen in Slate.com. About a third of American states allow voting by mail only for those who have a reason why they can’t show up in person. To ensure that this obstacle is removed, Congress should require all states to offer no-excuse absentee balloting. A bill proposed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is a good start. It would require states to expand access to early and mail-in voting if a quarter of the states declare a state of emergency, and would provide some funding to help pay for it. There’s one problem, said Ian Millhiser in Vox.com: Republicans usually oppose mail-in balloting, which they believe increases turnout among people likely to vote for Democrats. But with the health crisis most likely to hinder seniors, who disproportionately vote Republican, “the coronavirus could scramble the GOP’s ordinary incentives.”
A “nightmare scenario” looms over the debate, said Jon Meacham in The New York Times:
“the possibility that President Trump might take advantage of the unfolding health crisis to delay the November election” in defiance of the law. If you think that’s alarmist, you haven’t “paid even glancing attention to the president’s will to power and contempt for constitutional convention.” He wouldn’t get away with it, said Hans von Spakovsky in FoxNews.com. The Constitution is clear that only Congress can delay a federal election. And with Democrats controlling the House, that’s not about to happen. “We are having a federal election on Nov. 3 no matter what.”