P O L I T I C S
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March 30, 2020Edited by
Amanda Hurley○ The pandemic has added
momentum—and urgency—to
efforts to expand voting by mailto expand mail-in voting, a trend that has been
slowly building over the last two decades. A bill
introduced on March 18 by Oregon Senator Ron
Wyden—the first U.S. senator elected in a state-
wide mail-in election—and Minnesota Senator Amy
Klobuchar would require states to allow mail-in and
early voting during a pandemic or natural disas-
ter and would provide funding for the cost of bal-
lots and postage, among other things. The stimulus
bill passed on March 25 includes $400 million for
states to allow vote by mail, expand early voting
and online registration, and hire more workers, but
it doesn’t include a mandate.
Even apart from such efforts at the national level,
there are signs of an avalanche of mail-in ballots in
November. In 2016, the 33 million ballots cast by
mail amounted to almost one-fourth of all votes.
This year, experts say tens of millions more voters
could request mail-in ballots, even without changesThe coronavirus outbreak that has forced Americans
to retreat to their homes and brought the economy
to a standstill also threatens to upend the presiden-
tial election. Multiple states have rescheduled their
spring primaries as the number of confirmed cases
of Covid-19 keeps climbing. Some polling places in
states that held primaries on March 17 were hastily
closed; at others, workers scrambled to disinfect vot-
ing machines and keep people 6 feet apart in line.
Voters were encouraged by officials to avoid the
health risks of in-person voting entirely—by casting
their ballots by mail.
The pandemic has prompted new attemptsIs Thisthe Future of
U.S. Elections?