6 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020Tracking an OutbreakThe New Normal
WASHINGTON — Evelina
Reese has been a poll worker for
40 years. And for the last six dec-
ades, she says, she has never
missed a chance to vote.
“We’re all dedicated citizens as
far as voting goes,” Ms. Reese, a
retired social services worker
from the Atlanta suburb of River-
dale, said this past week.
But this year, out of concern
about the coronavirus, Ms. Reese,
79, skipped her routine of visiting
an early-voting site and instead
requested one of the absentee bal-
lots that the state promised to all
who wanted one. Georgia’s June 9
primary came and went, the ballot
never arrived, and Ms. Reese’s 60-
year streak was broken.
After Tuesday’s votes in New
York and Kentucky, 46 states and
the District of Columbia have
completed primary elections or
party caucuses, facing the fero-
cious challenge not just of voting
during a pandemic, but voting by
mail in historic numbers.
The task for November is not
just to avoid the errors that disen-
franchised Ms. Reeves and many
others, but to apply lessons
learned since the Iowa caucuses
ended in chaos on Feb. 3.
Despite debacles in some
states, votes have been counted
and winners chosen largely with-
out incident — a feat, some say,
given that many states only had
weeks to scrap decades of in-per-
son voting habits for voting by
mail.
But the challenges and the
stakes will be exponentially
higher in November when Ameri-
cans choose a president and much
of Congress.
Postal and election workers
overwhelmed by 55 million-plus
primary-election voters now face
triple that turnout in November.
States must recruit armies of poll
workers to replace older ones de-
terred from working because of
the virus. Election offices will
have to process millions of ballots
packed in millions more envel-
opes — that only a handful of com-
panies are capable of printing.
And they will have to do it all
with enough skill and transparen-
cy to reassure Republicans told by
President Trump that mailed-in
votes will be rigged, and Demo-
crats convinced that their votes
are being suppressed.
“We were fortunate that the
pandemic hit during the prima-
ries rather than the general elec-
tion,” said Barry C. Burden, the di-
rector of the Elections Research
Center at the University of Wis-
consin-Madison. “It provided a
sort of training ground for states
to turn the corner on voting by
mail.”
November, he said, could be like
the pandemic itself: manageable,
but vulnerable to unpredictable
hot spots. “And we only need it to
go badly in a few places for the
whole election to feel like it’s in
trouble,” he said.
Kentucky would seem to be one
of those places. On average, only
about 1.5 percent of voters cast ab-
sentee ballots. Yet Kentucky’s pri-
mary last Tuesday might be a tem-
plate for success in November.
Backed by Republicans and
Democrats, election officials ef-
fectively held two elections at
once — a massive mail vote of per-
haps 760,000 ballots and 270,
in-person votes.
Officials eased pressure on in-
person polling places by making
absentee ballots easy to apply for
and get. A crash effort sent coun-
ties mailing labels for ballots the
day after voters requested them.
In the state’s two major cities, lo-
cal officials designed large-scale
voting centers that handled heavy
in-person voting with a minimum
of delay.
One consolidated voting center
experienced some lines, but Elec-
tion Day voting was largely prob-
lem-free, and turnout is expected
to smash the 2008 record for a
Kentucky primary election.
Ninety percent of the 848,000 bal-
lots sent out are likely to be re-turned.
Yet what worked well in Ken-
tucky may not be easy to replicate
in November. Here’s why:November’s election money is
almost spent.
In Georgia, the Macon-Bibb
County elections board com-
plained on Tuesday that it already
was short of cash, with an August
runoff and the November general
election still to come.
In Wapakoneta, Ohio, the
Auglaize County elections board
faces similar problems. “We al-
ready used November’s election
money for March,” said the
board’s director, Michelle Wilcox,
referring to the state’s all-mail pri-
mary. County officials still could
cut spending 20 percent, she said,
but “I’m not buying for November
yet.”
And turnout in November, she
said, could be almost four times
the 22 percent turnout in the pri-
mary election.
Ms. Wilcox, who serves on a
state task force preparing for the
November vote, said the cost of
postage and a staff to process bal-
lots pushed the average cost of an
absentee ballot to $5 in one smallcounty.
Federal coronavirus stimulus
legislation allotted some money
for elections — Ohio received
$12.9 million — and Congress set
aside $400 million more in an ear-
lier bill. But election experts say
more is needed, and a $3.6 billion
election package, part of a $3 tril-
lion stimulus bill approved in May
by the Democratic House, re-
mains stalled in the Republican-
controlled Senate.There aren’t enough poll workers.
Although mail voting will surge
this fall, many voters will still cast
their votes in person, experts say.
But poll workers are in critically
short supply.
Nearly six in 10 poll workers
were 61 or older in 2018, according
to an analysis by the Pew Re-
search Center. In Kentucky, al-
most nine in 10 refused to work in
this month’s pandemic-plagued
primary, the major reason polling
places were slashed to a handful.
The District of Columbia lost
1,700 of its 2,000-odd poll workers
for its June primary, according to
a post-election report, and poor
planning led to hourslong lines.
Accommodating tens of mil-lions of voters in November with a
skeletal staff of experienced poll
workers could lead to long lines
that discourage voters and raise
charges of voter suppression. One
solution, said Mr. Burden, of the
Election Research Center, is a
push to recruit young poll workers
who often have computer and lan-
guage skills that modern polls
need. Some states like North Car-
olina already are taking that tack.On paper, there could be a paper
shortage.
“If you were to walk into my office
today,” said Tina Barton, the city
clerk in Rochester Hills, Mich.,
“I’d bet I have one and a half walls
that are stacked six feet high with
nothing but secrecy sleeves” —
the paper covers into which ab-
sentee ballots are inserted before
being sealed in envelopes. Those
envelopes then are sealed in other
envelopes, again for security, be-
fore being sent to election offices.
And that is just part of the forest
of paper that accompanies an ab-
sentee ballot, much of which can
only be prepared by specialty
printers. During Michigan’s pri-
mary, she said, printers often
pushed deadlines to the lastminute. Before the Ohio primary,
said Ms. Wilcox of Auglaize
County, election officials “were ac-
tually borrowing off each other” to
secure enough envelopes to mail
ballots to voters.
And that was when states’ pri-
mary elections were spaced out
over nearly six months. Now, one
state election official said, “we’re
all starting to turn to what Novem-
ber looks like, and we’re saying,
‘You used the same vendor I did,
and they barely got it done for the
primary. How are they going to
get it done for the general elec-
tion?’ ”The Russians are coming. So are
Americans.
Among election experts, the
prospect that voters will be gulled
by misinformation to dismiss
November’s results as invalid or
rigged is a top concern. Increas-
ingly, Americans, not foreigners,
are seen as the greatest threat.
Mr. Trump and some Republi-
cans have ratcheted up baseless
charges that voting by mail is rid-
dled with fraud, and many on the
left assume voter suppression is
baked into every element of vot-
ing.
Kentucky’s election, generally
viewed as one of the bigger suc-
cesses of the year, has faced un-
substantiated complaints from
partisans that Election Day turn-
out would be suppressed.
Experts worry that delays in
counting mail ballots will encour-
age some people to sow charges of
fraud and suppression that are
amplified by foreign adversaries.
Experts are especially concerned
that Americans accustomed to
getting election results before
bedtime will embrace conspiracy
theories and disinformation if the
November vote takes days to sort
out, as seems likely.
Steve Connolly can speak to
that. Mr. Connolly, who bills him-
self as the longest-running Elvis
impersonator in Las Vegas, ar-
rived at his polling place at 6:
p.m. on June 9 and cast his vote at
3:09 a.m. on June 10, the last voter
in Nevada’s Clark County. He was
not happy, but he thinks he may
have a solution.
“It made me want to run for
mayor so I can fix the system,” he
said. “I’ve been Elvis for 25 years.
Maybe it’s time for another ca-
reer.”2020 ELECTION
47 Primaries Offer Primer
On Voting in a Pandemic
By MICHAEL WINESA row of chairs divided two precincts, with four voting machines for each one, in Atlanta.AUDRA MELTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESbeing seen — by everyone.
“It’s something that’s so central
to our identities as L.G.B.T.Q.
folks,” said Fred Lopez, the execu-
tive director of San Francisco
Pride. “To remember that time
when we were able to walk hand in
hand with a boyfriend or a crush,
even amongst hundreds or thou-
sands or hundreds of thousands of
people, is really inspiring.”
In place of the marches, pa-
rades and parties that have de-
fined Pride in the United States,
there will be small gatherings as
cities begin to reopen, along with
virtual celebrations this weekend.
World leaders, human rights ac-
tivists, musicians and drag
queens will participate in a 24-
hour online celebration that will
be streamed on YouTube and the
Global Pride website this week-
end starting on Saturday.
But the importance of Pride as a
public event that transforms city
streets was underscored by read-
ers who responded to The New
York Times when asked what the
loss of the large gatherings meant
to them.
Susanna Yudkin said she had
been to Pride marches in the pastColin Beresford was looking for-
ward to the summer of 2020, and
for the first time celebrating Pride
among the crowds of people in
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Mr. Beresford, 23, grew up in a
conservative Michigan town and
described a slow process of com-
ing to understand that he was bi-
sexual, to acknowledge that
within himself, and finally to take
pride in it.
“For me, it has been scary to ac-
cept myself,” he said. “I thought
this year could be the year that I
go and show myself, and everyone
else, who I am. But just like count-
less other things, that will have to
wait.”
Pride marches and events have
been canceled or postponed
throughout the country because
of the coronavirus, and many peo-
ple like Mr. Beresford in the
L.G.B.T.Q. community are miss-
ing out on an important moment
of visibility and acceptance: their
first Pride.
The Pride celebrations are not
alone in being called off, but few
other events are as much about
as an “ally,” but last year went for
the first time as an openly queer
woman. “Attending Denver Pride
with my pride of fellow queer lion-
esses was nothing short of exhila-
rating,” she said, describing a
newfound sense of belonging, as
well as deep gratitude to those
who came before her to make mo-
ments of open celebration possi-
ble.
Gregory Antollino said he still
remembered what his first Pride,
at the age of 23 in 1988, meant to
him. He had just moved to New
York City, had not yet connected
with the gay community and un-
knowingly stumbled into a Pride
parade.
“I made it a holiday,” he said.
“Pride was joyous.”
He has since attended Pride in
London, Lisbon and Amsterdam,
and he said each experience was
as “magical as those in my first
years in New York.”
Neil Wu-Gibbs said his first
Pride in 2013, when he marched
with the Gay Asian & Pacific Is-
lander Men of New York, gave him
“a sense of belonging” that helped
him decide to move back from
Britain. “It was like a homecom-ing,” he said.
Though most Pride events were
canceled in the spring over fears
of large crowds spreading the co-
ronavirus, mass gatherings have
returned since Memorial Day in
the form of protests in response to
the deaths of George Floyd, Bre-
onna Taylor, Tony McDade,
Rayshard Brooks, Layleen
Polanco and many others.
At many demonstrations, peo-
ple have waved the rainbow
L.G.B.T.Q. flag to honor Pride
month — a reminder that the first
Pride march 50 years ago was it-
self rooted in protest and followed
the uprising against police brutal-
ity at the Stonewall Inn a year be-
fore.
And this month in Brooklyn,
more than 15,000 people — wear-
ing all white — rallied for a Black
Trans Lives Matter demonstra-
tion, bringing attention to dispro-
portionately high rates at which
black trans people are killed and
incarcerated, and highlighting the
point that they do not always feel
fully included in the Black Lives
Matter movement.
For many in the L.G.B.T.Q. com-
munity, proclaiming their identi-ties is not an easy undertaking.
Many choose to come out in a pub-
lic way, while others share who
they are only with close family
members and friends, and some
never openly identify themselves
as gay.
By her own account, it has taken
Jennifer Depew, 23, a long time to
accept herself as bisexual. She
came out this month, she said,
first to a friend and then to her
family.
“I was looking forward to being
able to celebrate Pride this year as
someone fully comfortable with
my identity, fully a member of the
community,” Ms. Depew said. “To
lose out on that opportunity this
year is a true disappointment —
another melancholic note of 2020.”
In countries where same-sex
relationships are criminalized or
homophobia is endorsed by the
state, coming out publicly or cele-
brating Pride can come with
grave risks.
The poet and essayist Chibuihe
Obi Achimba, 27, grew up in a
small village in southeastern Ni-
geria and for a long time struggled
with being open about his sexu-
ality.In 2017, he wrote an essay titled
“We’re Here, We’re Queer,” in
which he detailed his experience
with homophobia, spoke out
against Nigeria’s laws that crimi-
nalize same-sex relationships,
and described his longing to find
positive L.G.B.T.Q. presentation
in Nigerian literature.
After the essay was published,
Mr. Achimba said, he became the
target of abuse and physical vio-
lence. He left Nigeria and came to
the United States in 2019 as a fel-
low in the Harvard University
Scholars at Risk program.
So 2020 looked like the year he
had been waiting for all his adult
life, and he was eager to join Pride,
calling it “this global celebration
of resistance, love, freedom, hap-
piness and hope.”
“I planned to enact my own de-
liverance from the chokehold of
my country’s state-sanctioned op-
pression and the sharp cudgels of
my countrymen’s homophobia at
this year’s Pride,” he said. “But
now, we need to wade through the
murky waters the coronavirus
has stirred up.”
“It feels like a personal loss,” he
added.CHIBUIHE OBI ACHIMBA The march was to be his self-emanci-
pation from his “country’s state-sanctioned oppression.”
HANNAH REYES MORALES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
JENNIFER DEPEWTo lose “that opportunity this year is a true
disappointment — another melancholic note of 2020.”LAUREN JUSTICE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
COLIN BERESFORD“I thought this year could be the year that
I go and show myself, and everyone else, who I am.”SYLVIA JARRUS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESL.G.B.T.Q. COMMUNITY
Anticipating Their First Pride, Cancellations Are a ‘Personal Loss’
By PIERRE-ANTOINE LOUIS