Mail-In Voting

I saw someone ask when people will find it unbearable to be stuck inside and ignore the rules. This has been going on for about a month and the rules are mixed.  It is not like I, who am in an area particularly hit (NY) must stay at home like a prisoner 24/7.  Yes, this morning, I was waiting outside with my non-medical mask ($2.50 at the corner discount store, which appears to be a sizable mark-up given one can get a box for not too much) on to get into the supermarket.  The person in front of me might have had an Eastern European accent -- was it nostalgic for her?  Ha ha.

Really, it seems a bit soon to deem it impossible to bear or something. Part of this might be how sudden it all was -- early March, it seemed like a mild problem really (John Oliver had a segment cautioning us to be moderately concerned).  Then, he is taping from home. There was evidence that the problem would come (both NYT and Washington Post has long articles on how Trump et. al. screwed up) earlier, but still.  Then, mid-March both the NYPL and public schools closed. Such was a big red flag.  The mayor today said the schools will not open for the rest of the year.  The governor, pissing contest, said that is the state's (aka HIS) call and for now officially it will be the end of April and wait and see. 

Anyways, maybe we can calm down -- people have had to deal with extended periods of crisis in the past and we can too.  This is a long lead in to the intended subject of this entry -- vote my mail.  The Alaska primary was all vote by mail.  New York will no excuse absentee voting in June, when local primaries and the now more symbolic than before presidential primary will take place.  We cannot simply change the voting to that given constitutional issues but there is room to do so to deal with a specific emergency and so the governor did by executive order as the legislature was probably ready to deal with it anyhow.

There is push for national action here (Rick Hasen, Election Law Blog, in the past wary of complete vote by mail):

Most immediately, in light of the uncertain time frame for disruption of life and political activities due to the coronavirus, Congress should pass a law requiring states to offer no-excuse absentee balloting for the November elections. Congress has the power to do so, and it should fully fund the efforts. The bill has to be drafted carefully to protect all voters. But time is short. For this to happen, it must happen quickly.

Congress has clear authority to provide rules for congressional elections, can provide funds for elections in general and has some degree of power for the rest per enforcement powers in the 14A and so forth.  States have broader power over presidential elections though how much power (especially without the Democratic governors in certain places to veto) to change it at the last minute is less clear.  The process is touchy as noted in that article as well as others:

A law requiring each state to offer a mail-in balloting option would have to be carefully crafted. It has to deal with the language provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which require language assistance for voters whose first language is not English. As Dale Ho argues, the rules for processing those absentee ballots have to be fair so voters are not disenfranchised by administrative error. And as Dave Daley argues that vote by mail is not without its problems for minority voters and other vulnerable voters, meaning the congressional legislation should address issues like reaching voters who are not regularly served by the postal service. Sen. Ron Wyden’s bill is a good start in thinking about what final federal legislation should look like. 

I have seen some people who basically think national voting by mail, full stop, is so f-ing obvious.  A few states completely have it in some form, many more have no-excuse absentee voting.  There are, all the same, some pro/con things here.  The pluses is that it is generally easier, seems to expand turnout (see Alaska, perhaps) and is cheaper (imagine all those poll workers).  This doesn't mean it will be easy right away -- it will require a lot of money and resources to have it so much more broadly in the short term.  Plus, many -- especially many African-Americans apparently, are used to it and would be wary of change.  Trump and Republicans are demonizing it but even some  support some form.

The U.S. Election Commission is working to help handle the greater influx of mail-in ballots, which already are used by tens of millions of people a year.  Two videos on the page, e.g., suggest the various complications.  See also, the ACLU "keeping calm" page.   Anyway, back to the pro/cons.  There are cons.  One might seem trivial but there is the traditional practice of in-person voting to have a sense of civics and engagement.  I would not handwave this even if it is a sort of emotional subjective thing on some level.  There is some financial concerns.  Concerns about the ballots being received on both ends, perhaps delaying the results (something of a new ethos to get used to -- see how the Wisconsin results were "embargoed" for like a week).  There is some security concerns including worrying about others filling out ballots or pressuring you to do so.

Disparate effect on some populations—Mail delivery is not uniform across the nation. Native Americans on reservations may in particular have difficulty with all-mail elections. Many do not have street addresses, and their P.O. boxes may be shared. Literacy can be an issue for some voters, as well. Election materials are often written at a college level. (Literacy can be a problem for voters at traditional polling place locations too.) One way to mitigate this is to examine how voter centers are distributed throughout counties to best serve the population.

This is touched upon above and in various of the linked accounts. There is a need to balance dealing with something like the Native Americans issue with security concerns (Rick Hasen is wary about unregulated mass collection of votes, which in some fashion screwed up a North Carolina election).  There has to be a means to deal with the likely increase of errors on ballots.  You are not there in person to fix various issues or to address some sort of confusion.  That concerns me too.  But, I have also heard good things about the states that already do this.  Even National Review had a well received op-ed supporting mail-in and curb-side voting. 

(Talk about change -- New York City will have there form of instant run-off voting for local municipal elections this primary season.  Get that election hotline ready for those calls!)

That state legislature page summaries:

Five states currently conduct all elections entirely by mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah. At least 21 other states have laws that allow certain smaller elections, such as school board contests, to be conducted by mail. For these elections, all registered voters receive a ballot in the mail. The voter marks the ballot, puts it in a secrecy envelope or sleeve and then into a separate mailing envelope, signs an affidavit on the exterior of the mailing envelope, and returns the package via mail or by dropping it off.

Also, one number to get a sense: "Of the more than 47 million voters who cast ballots early in 2012, 29 million ballots were cast by mail."  I saw reference earlier that there is a general idea that there should be some ability to drop off ballots somewhere too (those people who need language help, perhaps, or who need one of those diverse devices the NYC polling place had for disabled voters, perhaps).  I might be wrong, but do not think various Democratic leaning states lack all mail voting merely out of misguided conservatism.  There is likely some logic to a mixed system. There might be a trend all the same.

For instance, though the problem still was only very limited, I saw in the past the usual liberal suspects note that Republicans in various places hypocritically supported absentee voting which was much more likely to have some sort of voting fraud than in person voting which they harp on.  I do wonder the likelihood of third parties filling out voting forms.  Some people will be confused, others would not mind giving someone a sort of "proxy."  Maybe, that is okay on some level -- it is done in legislatures to some degree.  But, again, will it be totally consensual and aboveboard? 

The bottom line, at least in the current primary season and maybe November, is that there is just a wider special reason for being concerned about people showing up at the polls. Normally, there are reasons to allow people to vote absentee, especially if the alternative is that they do not vote and/or have to wait on line at time for hours.  Not everyone has a polling place a few blocks away [back in the day, it was around 10 minutes away!] usually with like no wait without any worry about making the times.  But, again, that is not total vote by mail either.  Note "option."

Can be different during a pandemic or some other emergency. Lots of polling places simply were not open during the Wisconsin Primary/Travesty.  It very well might have been best to simply have  an all mail-in primary there with perhaps certain designated spots to deal with people with special needs.  This is the rule for one or more of the "all mail" states at any rate to my understanding (Colorado?).  And, again, I have heard some people downright bragging about how good it is.

Calm down. Let's have an option, funds for special electoral needs and plan ahead.  Wisconsin should have been something that was legislatively set so that a certain danger clearly gave electoral officials and/or the governor clear power to delay and use mail with the financial and so forth backing that would have made it possible.  We need to be ready for the special needs and tricky situations of November.  It is very well possible we simply will not know on Election Day night who won.  That should be fun.

But, so be it.  It's my birthday, after all, so who doesn't like "fun."  Anyway, like talk of the baseball season coming back via some curious Arizona based scenario (Gary Cohen is dubious at the moment as am I), it is a tad premature to worry about that with so much more to worry about now. And, yes, that would include the basics of voting now and the days to come.  Can I vote for Warren in June?  No really, I'm all-in for Biden, just want that.