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How do we hold the election in Novem-
ber? Not whether,” said Edward Foley,
an election law professor at Ohio State
University, who suggested a robust ab-
sentee-ballot effort and more states al-
lowing vote by mail. Thirty-three states
currently do, but in 23 of them, voters
must request the mailed ballot.
“We had elections during World War
II. We held elections during the Civil
War. We’re going to hold an election
this year,” Foley said. “We’ve got to fig-
ure out how to do it and to do it in a way
that gives us a result that conforms to
the idea that it’s the ‘will of the peo-
ple.’ ”‘Choice between their health
and constitutional rights’Voting presents issues with the so-
cial-distancing practices that health
experts are begging the public to fol-
low. Long lines spill out of election
sites. Poll workers, who are often elder-
ly, flip through books to verify address-
es. Voters step into the same booths
one after another.
Arizona, Florida and Illinois are vot-
ing Tuesday despite the health risks.
Ohio had planned to as well. But in a
twist Monday, the state filed a lawsuit
to try to delay until June 2. A judge de-
nied the effort, saying it would set a
“terrible precedent” to change the elec-
tion code at the last minute. Gov. Mike
DeWine later declared a “health emer-
gency” to close voting, a move upheld
by the Ohio Supreme Court.
DeWine, a Republican, said the
state could not conduct 13 hours of in-
person voting Tuesday and conform to
Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention guidelines. He said he heard
from many voters torn on whether they
should go to the polls to vote.
“We should not force them to make
this choice – a choice between their
health and their constitutional rights
and their duties as American citizens,”
he said, singling out seniors 65 or older,
people who are immunocompromised
and others the state has urged to stay
home. “Further, we should not be in a
situation where the votes of these indi-
viduals who are conflicted are sup-
pressed.”
The drama in Ohio came after Geor-
gia Secretary of State Brad Raffen-
sperger over the weekend moved his
state’s March 24 primary to May 19.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards
signed an executive order moving his
state’s primary from April 4 to June 20.
The Puerto Rico Democratic Party has
asked that its primary be moved from
March 29 to April 26. Gov. Andy Be-
shear postponed Kentucky’s primary,
originally set for May 19, to June 23.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan moved his
state’s primary from April 28 to June 2.
Each exercised state power over pri-
maries to make the changes.
Contests in other states that vote
April 4 – the Alaska and Hawaii prima-
ries, and the Wyoming caucuses – are
still on, although Wyoming has can-
celed the in-person portion of its cau-
cus.
The Wisconsin primary is scheduled
for April 7, but with new rules including
that residents in nursing homes vote
absentee.
Democratic National Committee
Chairman Tom Perez, in an interview
on MSNBC on Monday night, called for
universal vote-by-mail provisionswhen pressed on the possibility of
more states delaying its primaries.
“Let’s make it easier,” Perez said.
“The challenge we have is that in so
many Republican states that don’t
want to make it easier for eligible peo-
ple to vote, they want to make it hard-
er.”
The next major day of voting is
April 28, when New York, Pennsylva-
nia, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut
and Rhode Island are scheduled to
vote. New York election officials have
discussed moving the primary to
June 23, The New York Times reported,
to coincide with another statewide pri-
mary. None of the the other five states
has announced proposals to delay.
DNC rules say no caucuses or prima-
ries can be held after June 9. But party
leaders are expected to waive that rule
for states that hold off on voting be-
cause of health concerns.
“Will there be bumps on the road to
getting to a nominee? There are already
are,” Foley said. “But I don’t think it’s
any reason to think that somehow the
right of voters would be completely
taken away from them to choose who
their nominees are.”‘Unconscionable’ election plans
for pandemic not in placeDelaying elections for unexpected
emergencies is not unprecedented, but
not at this scale in the U.S. in recent
history.
The 2001 New York mayoral primary
was pushed back in the aftermath of
9/11. A decade later, following Hurri-
cane Sandy in 2012, New York Gov. An-
drew Cuomo granted special accom-
modations for voters affected by the
storm.
The best recent example globally: In
2016, the Democratic Republic of Con-
go delayed its elections for more than
two years amid an Ebola epidemic and
the political turmoil that followed. It
fueled some charge that the govern-
ment used the health crisis to deny
people’s right to vote.
“I think it’s right to ask the question:
How long will this outbreak continue
and will this disrupt the elections?”
Matthew Kavanagh, a political scien-
tist and assistant professor of global
health at Georgetown University, said
of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S.
“Even disrupting primaries is problem-
atic because it disrupts our democratic
process and undermines the norms
and institutions of democracy at a time
when people are scared. And that’s
never a good thing.”
Kavanagh, director of Georgetown’s
Global Health Policy and Governance
Initiative, said he’s concerned about
the U.S. maintaining those democratic
norms and civil liberties in the face of
“authoritarian measures” to combatthe outbreak.
He said the U.S. must think about
how to “deepen democratic practice”
this year including voting by mail. It
could be a challenge because of the
mistrust of government institutions
that many Americans hold.
“It is unconscionable that we are at
this moment facing this pandemic
without a plan for how to conduct elec-
tions. This pandemic was completely
foreseeable,” Kavanagh said, pointing
to reports that predicted its likelihood.
“I am beside myself that elections offi-
cials have not put in place smarter, bet-
ter ways to actually engage people in
electioneering during an outbreak.
That is a huge failure of leadership.”Why moving the November
election likely isn’t an optionSo, what if the COVID-19 outbreak
doesn’t improve in the weeks before
the Nov. 3 general election and social-
distancing is still the norm? Could its
date be pushed back as well?
Don’t count on it.
“For practical purposes Nov. 3 is a
fixed date for appointing electors,” Fo-
ley said.
In the electoral college system, elec-
tors – not citizens directly – vote for the
president. Congress sets the date when
the electors meet, Dec. 14, and the date
for states to choose its electors, the first
Tuesday after the first Monday of No-
vember.
Delaying the election would there-
fore require Congress changing federal
law – but it isn’t so simple.
The U.S. Constitution requires con-
gressional elections every two years.
To hold congressional and professional
elections together, a delayed presiden-
tial election would still need to take
place in 2020.
Regardless, the four-year term of a
president, in this case Trump, ends at
noon Jan. 20, according to the 20th
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Therefore, if the presidential election
were somehow not held, Trump would
not simply continue to hold office, ac-
cording to Foley.
Instead, the new speaker of the
House, or Nancy Pelosi if the Demo-
crats maintain control, would be first in
line to be acting president. But if the
congressional election were not held
either, Pelosi’s term would end Jan. 3.
That would make the president pro
tempore of the Senate, Sen. Chuck
Grassley, R-Iowa, the acting president,
according to federal law.
“The November election is months
away. And so, the better response is to
plan for it,” Foley said. “Add absentee
ballots if necessary. But changing it
from Nov. 3 to Dec. 3 is probably not
much of a difference, at least from to-
day’s perspective.”November
Continued from Page 1AStates including Ohio have postponed their primary elections, but it’s highly
unlikely the general election will change.JOSHUA A. BICKEL/THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Former Vice
President Joe Biden won the statewide
vote in Washington’s vote-by-mail
Democratic presidential primary, main-
taining the narrow lead he’s held over
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders since last
week as additional results were counted
Monday.
Biden’s victory means he won five of
the six states that voted last Tuesday:
Washington, Michigan, Missouri, Mis-
sissippi and Idaho. Sand-
ers won North Dakota’s
caucuses.
In Washington, Biden
led by more than 21,
votes after more than 2.
million votes were count-
ed, and was winning in 25
of the state’s 39 counties.
Of the state’s 89 pledged delegates, only
31 are allocated based on the statewide
result. The remaining 58 are determined
based on the results of the state’s 10
congressional districts.
Democrats are using the vote-by-
mail presidential primary — moved up
this year from May — for the first time to
allocate delegates instead of the smaller
caucuses used in previous years.
The Washington ballot had 13 candi-
dates on it, along with an uncommitted
option. But because almost all of the
candidates had dropped out by last
week, it was essentially a two-person
race between Biden and Sanders. Presi-
dent Donald Trump was the only candi-
date listed for Republicans. Trump re-
ceived more than 666,600 votes, and
more than 11,000 Republicans wrote in
an alternate candidate. More than
391,000 Democrats voted for candidates
other than Biden or Sanders.
In 2016, Sanders won more than two-
thirds of the delegates from the Wash-
ington caucuses, which were attended
that year by about 230,000 Democrats.
More than 800,000 Democrats sent in
ballots for the primary later that year —
which Hillary Clinton won — even
though their vote didn’t count for the
nominating process.
The state Democratic Party’s central
committee voted last year to start using
a hybrid system that uses the state’s
vote-by-mail system for a presidential
primary to apportion delegates to can-
didates, and caucuses and conventions
to select which delegates will represent
the state at the national convention in
Milwaukee in July. Also last year, Wash-
ington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a measure
moving the state’s presidential primary
from May to the second Tuesday in
March.
Biden wins
mail vote
in state of
Washington
Former VP won five of
six primaries last week
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Biden
A decades-old grenade on display
for almost two years at a national his-
toric site in Pennsylvania may have
been live during that time, staff said.
The Eisenhower National Historic
Site said in a news release that a Mark
II Fragmentation Grenade with a
M10A3 Fuse, commonly referred to as a
“pineapple” grenade because of its ap-
pearance, was destroyed off site last
month after a national park museum
survey of historic armaments.
“During that survey, Eisenhower
National Historical Site staff identified
that the grenade in question could not
be conclusively proven to be active or
inactive,” staff said in a statement last
Tuesday.
The grenade was on display inside a
case since March 2018 as part of the
“Eisenhower’s Leadership from Camp
Colt to D-Day” public exhibit at the
nearby Gettysburg National Military
Park Museum and Visitor Center.
The artifact dated to around 1944and was found buried in the sands of
either Utah Beach or Omaha Beach in
Normandy, France.
Eisenhower National Historical Site
is the home and farm of former Presi-
dent Dwight Eisenhower.
“It was unfortunate that a WWII era
artifact had to be destroyed, but visitor
and staff safety is paramount,” parksuperintendent Steven D. Sims said in
a statement.
The Eisenhower National Historical
Site and Gettysburg National Military
Park Museum are currently closed
amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the park
says on its website.
Contributing: Hanover, Pa., Evening
Sun staffMuseum may have displayed live WWII grenade
Ryan W. Miller
USA TODAYThis grenade was safely destroyed after it was found to possibly still be live
ordinance at the Eisenhower National Historic Site.SUBMITTED