Voting During A Pandemic (by Catelin Adams)

As Americans prepare to vote in 2020 Presidential election, the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the U.S., leaving politicians to develop creative solutions to prevent the further spread of covid-19 while still giving Americans the chance to fulfil their civic duty to vote in local and national elections. Many states are looking to mail-in voting as a solution however, not all states have a mail-in voting system or do not have a system that is capable of handling a mass scale of mail-in votes. This has led Democrats to call for reform in the American voting system, in order to make voting more accessible for voters during the pandemic, while many Republicans are hesitant, and prefer Americans to vote in person using social distancing, mask, and other covid-19 related measures. Although both parties want to provide safe options for their voters.

The President and many Republicans are concerned that if states were to instate mail-in voting on a mass scale the U.S. would see a major increase in voter farad.  However, there has been only 44 cases of voter fraud out of 1 billion votes cast since the year 2000,[1] and  voters are actually more likely to have their ballot throughout due to mistakes such as, sending the ballot late, a missing signature, or the ballot is not post marked. NPR found that in primary elections, that have been held so far this year, around 65,000 or more mail-in ballots have been rejected due to late arrival[2]. While the concern for voter fraud is important to take in consideration when making or changing laws about voting, the chance of voter fraud alone is not a strong enough reason to delegitimize mail-in voting.

Although Democrats have been pushing for the use of mail-in voting, they also raise concern for potential issues that will be caused by mass mail-in voting, such as financial considerations and the ability of the U.S. postal system to deliver the votes on time. This has led to many lawsuits led by the democrat party for states to pay for the stamps used to mail in ballots and to extend the voting period in which ballots will accepted.  However, in April the Supreme Court overturned a federal judge’s decision to extend Wisconsin’s window for accepting mail-in ballots, during the state’s primary election.[3] This decision will most likely have a large impact on the November’s election, as states decide how long they will accept mail-in ballots.

Mail in ballots are proving to be an essential tool in the American voting system, as the U.S. continues to fight against the spread of covid-19 and will most likely have a large impact on how the U.S. conducts its elections later on. Hopefully with the use of mass mail-in voting more Americans will feel more comfortable about voting for elected officials amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

[1] PBS Arkansas, “By the Numbers: Voter Fraud”, October,2016, URL: https://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/numbers-voter-fraud

[2] Pam Fessler, “NPR Analysis: Thousands of Mail-In Ballots Rejected For Arriving Too Late”, NPR, July 13, 2020, URL: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/890558084/npr-analysis-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-arriving-too-late

[3] Emmett Witkovsky-Eldred and Nina Totenberg, “As Concerns About Voting Build, The Supreme Court Refuses To Step In”, NPR, July 25, 2020, URL: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/25/895185355/as-concerns-about-voting-build-the-supreme-court-refuses-to-step-in