POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek
35○ Republicans are resisting a Democratic push for voting by mail because of Covid-19
Wisconsin Signals
Voting Battle Ahead
Jarring scenes on April 7 in Milwaukee—where
long lines of masked voters waited outside polling
stations—could repeat nationwide in November,
as the Republican Party digs in against a growing
Democratic consensus that the presidential elec-
tion should be conducted primarily by mail if the
novel coronavirus persists.
Republicans and Democrats have been divided
for years over how easy it should be to vote.
Democrats push for wider access through sim-
ple registration. Republicans, citing the risk
of fraud, call for stricter voter ID rules. (Five
states mail ballots to all voters. An additional
28 allow mail voting without a special reason,
but they require voters to apply for a ballot.)
Now the public-health response to Covid-19
appears to support the Democrats’ approach, and
Republicans are fighting back.
Wisconsin’s Republican Party and a Republican-
majority legislature pushed voters into the streets
on April 7 despite public-health warnings and a
state order to stay home. On April 3, Democratic
Governor Tony Evers had called the legislature in
to vote to delay the election. It adjourned in 17 sec-
onds instead. Republicans then successfully sued to
stop Evers from delaying the election himself and
to overturn a federal court order easing absentee
ballot requirements.
The Wisconsin situation mirrors a fight in
Washington, as Republicans decry mail-in voting
and Democrats seek to bolster it with federal stim-
ulus outlays. “Republicans should fight very hard
when it comes to statewide mail-in voting,” President
Trump tweeted the day after the Wisconsin specta-
cle. “Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous
potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason,
doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”
Even state Republicans who’ve endorsed
mail-in voting during the pandemic have resisted
making it too simple, adding extra steps or limit-
ing its scope. In Ohio, the Republican legislature
approved a mostly mail-in April 28 primary but
not mailing absentee ballot applications to voters.
In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brian
THEBOTTOMLINE ThepartisanshowdownthatsentWisconsin
voters to the polls in early April—despite the coronavirus—is part of
a larger battle that could shape the November election.Raffensperger did mail out applications,though
not to inactive or newly registeredvoters.Fellow
Republicans were furious that hemailedthemat
all, to the exasperation of Francys Johnson, chair-
man of the New Georgia Project, a voting-rights
group. For years, he says, the state Republican
Party has routinely sent absentee ballot applica-
tions to likely GOP voters.
Claims that absentee voting allows fraud are
not groundless. One example unfolded in North
Carolina in 2018, when a Republican-funded
operative was caught collecting and tamper-
ing with ballots from a Democratic-leaning area.
But if absentee voting is more susceptible to
fraud than in-person voting, the risk of either is
extremely low, says Wendy Weiser, director of
the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center
for Justice at New York University Law School:
“You are more likely to be hit by lightning.” She
says the risk this year is even lower, with the virus
deterring would-be fraudsters.
So far, the GOP fight against easy mail-in vot-
ing has been fiercest in Wisconsin, where the party
was focusing on a close race for a state Supreme
Court seat. Nervous citizens had swamped the
state’s absentee ballot process, submitting almost
1.3 million applications. The volume led to a federal
court ruling allowing an extra week for the absen-
tee count and lifting a requirement that mail-in bal-
lots include witness signatures. The GOP appealed
and won in the U.S. Supreme Court the day before
the election. Despite its efforts, the party’s favored
judge lost.
Mail-in voting has disadvantages, including an
increased likelihood that a mail-in ballot will be
tossed, which leads to litigation, says Edward Foley,
a professor at Ohio State University’s law school.
But he says to expect a massive amount of mail-in
voting come November, whether Republicans like
it or not: “In a pandemic, the voter’s choice is likely
to be a mail-in ballot.” —Margaret Newkirk○ Number of absentee
ballot applications
for Wisconsin’s April
election1.3m
April20, 2020ations though