States Must Take Bold Action To Protect Our Elections From COVID & Suppression

As America continues to battle the public health and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, another crisis looms: how to ensure a free and fair election in 2020. Despite urgent calls for nationwide vote-by-mail, Congress has fallen short in providing necessary levels of funding to protect the 2020 elections and has failed to require states to take action through online registration, no-excuse mail in voting, and expanded early voting.

We should not hold our breath for a broken Congress to act. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump clearly believe that easing voter restrictions puts their party at a strategic disadvantage. In the absence of federal leadership, states and local governments must step up now and enact reforms to protect the right to vote.

To protect the 2020 elections, state and local government leaders must take urgent action to address the patchwork of arcane rules and woeful under-investment that have led to shameful disparities that plague our elections. Increasingly in recent years, people of color, students, and non-native English speakers face unfair obstacles to voting such as unconscionably long lines, voter registration purges, onerous identification requirements, and outright voter suppression.

Our democracy is under assault.

For years, Trump and those like him have weaponized lies about voter fraud to justify raising obstacles to registration and voting. Trump has called on foreign powers to assist him in his election — on live television from the White House. And this year, there is a clear danger that Trump and his allies will use the COVID-19 public health crisis as a pretext for closing polling locations and sowing confusion and doubt about rules and requirements. Add that to a woefully complex and under-resourced patchwork of election rules, and the danger to this year’s elections is crystal clear.

There is still time for states and local communities to act to ensure free and fair elections, but the time to act is now — not months from now.

Here are four things every state should do right away.

1. Ensure that every eligible voter can register to vote. States that do not offer online voter registration, automatic voter registration, and Election Day registration should amend their laws to offer them immediately. Too many people are prevented from voting because of arbitrary voter registration cutoff rules. With many states still dealing with coronavirus-related stay-at-home orders, states must act right away to make it easier for eligible voters to register to vote.
2. Allow every eligible voter to vote by mail without needing an excuse. While some states offer mail-in voting to everyone, too many states still require an “excuse” for voters to vote absentee. States should amend laws to eliminate these “excuse” requirements, and state officials should use their powers to make it clear that the public health emergency around coronavirus provides ample “excuse” under existing laws for anyone who wants to do so to vote absentee. States must allocate new resources now to process additional mail-in votes. States should automatically mail every eligible voter an absentee ballot application and provide free postage for everyone to vote. States should count any valid ballot postmarked by election day, not just received by election day. And states should increase the number of drive-through drop boxes for absentee ballots. Voting by mail should be an alternative to traditional in-person voting, rather than a total replacement.
3. Provide more early voting resources. In addition to no-excuse vote-by-mail options, early voting is one of the best ways for states and local governments to make it easier for people to vote without having to wait in line. States should take steps now to ensure that every community has at least 15 days of early voting hours, providing voters with more options and decreasing lines on election day.
4. Increase the capacity of polling sites so that there are shorter lines and everyone can vote near where they live. There is a recent trend towards consolidating polling places. This year, there will be pressure to close polling sites that are not suitable, such as at senior centers. To fix this problem, states should focus on creating more, smaller polling places to reduce the number of people voting in one place. Even before coronavirus hit, voters in early primary states like Texas and California often waited in lines for many hours to vote. States and communities need to devote more staff and more resources to make sure that voters in every community can vote quickly, near where they live, without having to wait in long lines. States should also increase the availability of curbside voting.

Adding the coronavirus-related public health crisis to our already-broken election system has created a perfect storm of threats to the 2020 election. Rather than wait for a broken Congress to swoop in to fix the problem or naively hope elections will return to business as usual this fall, states and local governments should take bold action right now to protect our elections.

The future of our democracy depends on it.