John Froschauer/AP Photo
A King County election worker collect ballots from a drop box in the Washington state primary, March 10, 2020, in Seattle. Washington is a universal vote-by-mail state.
When the Iowa Democratic Caucus failed to deliver prompt and trustworthy results last February, voters grew exasperated and journalists freaked out—some on live television. When the state party chair said there were inconsistencies and more time was needed to count, recount, and recount yet again the ballots, no one was prepared for the time lag between Election Day and the announcement of reliable results to be so long.
If the coronavirus is still with us come fall, November’s general election—which will likely feature many millions more mail ballots than have ever been cast before—may test people’s patience yet again.
“We have to give election officials the time they need to make an accurate count. And the scrutiny that election officials are under is intense. I’ve been there in 2016. It’s the wrong kind of pressure,” says Marian Schneider, president of Verified Voting and former deputy secretary of state in Pennsylvania, in an interview with the Prospect.
When it comes to elections in the United States, the pandemic has illuminated the vast state-by-state differences in the country’s decentralized election system, especially regarding alternatives to voting in person at the polls.
Despite these differences, Election Day and the vote count usually come together smoothly on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of every November (with the recent exception of 2000’s hanging chads). But if the pandemic’s physical-distancing limits extend into November, there could be a situation where voting by mail increases to record numbers and states are faced with an unprecedented labyrinth of logistical problems.
Planning for November needs to start now, according to voting-law experts, especially in states that don’t typically vote by mail in high numbers. Only five states in the U.S. have universal vote-by-mail election procedures, and it took each of them many years and multiple elections to transition from voting in person to voting by mail. The rest of the country only has some degree of vote-by-mail accessibility, and 11 states only allow voting by mail if the voter’s excuse is one of those on the government’s list of permissible excuses.
A global pandemic isn’t on any of those excuse lists.
The pandemic has illuminated vast state-by-state differences in the country’s decentralized election system, especially regarding alternatives to voting in person at the polls.
In having to tally mail ballots, election officials will need more time to do the counting, which entails matching voter signatures with the signatures on their registration forms. This will require more money for both staff and technology.
Schneider says that if the coronavirus concerns lead to vote-by-mail requests in record numbers, everyone will need to adjust their expectations when it comes to results. Exit polls and unofficial results will likely still be available, she says, but there needs to be an understanding that it takes more time and manpower to count votes that come in by mail. “As far as elections go, we’re going to need more time … That doesn’t mean anybody is interfering in the election. It means that election officials are dealing with a lot right now and need time to get it right.”
“Let’s give them the time and space they need to get it right,” Schneider adds.
States will need more funding from the federal government to pay election workers and invest in more high-speed tabulators or ballot scanners. To keep the registrars’ tasks manageable, Schneider stresses that these machines should be an addition to existing technology, not new machines or software programs.
“By our estimate, state and local officials need at least $2 billion to prepare, an amount that would cover the equipment, supplies, staffing, training, and the other costs of adapting our voting processes to withstand the coronavirus,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, said in a statement. “That funding is not partisan and it is not a luxury. Time remains of the essence.”
Congress’s coronavirus bailout bill allotted $400 million in funding for states to prepare their election infrastructure, well short of the $2 billion Waldman estimated was necessary.
States that are particularly important to the Electoral College mathematics will be under an additional layer of pressure. Michigan and Pennsylvania are two states that have expanded their accessibility to vote-by-mail since the 2016 presidential election. Wisconsin, which went ahead with its election on April 7 amid a severe shortage in volunteers, won’t be releasing vote totals until April 13.
Michigan held its primary on March 10, so Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is now focusing on November. Her planning includes the basics that election officials around the country already know they’ll need: “It’s time and resources,” she said in an interview with the Prospect.
Only five states have universal vote-by-mail election procedures, and it took each of them many years and multiple elections to transition from voting in person to voting by mail.
Election law in Michigan prohibits election officials from processing absentee ballots as they arrive in the mail. Officially, nothing can be done to prepare the ballots for counting until physical polls open on Election Day. Benson is hoping that law will be changed to accommodate the high number of absentee ballots that are expected to come in.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia have similar laws. Thirty-two states allow for processing, and some even counting, in advance of Election Day. Four other states, however, only start processing mail ballots when polls close: Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
“That’s key: more time. And then more resources,” Benson says. “By that I mean, more high-speed tabulators to count more ballots and more people to staff those tabulators. That’s pretty much it. That’s the prescription.”
In addition to the logistical needs of state election officials who are trying to keep up with the public-health concerns, the upcoming presidential election will also be up against President Trump’s questioning of any voting or vote-counting process he thinks could end in his defeat. On numerous occasions, President Trump has said that he questions the authenticity of the democratic process when it comes to ballots that arrive in the mail. In the 2018 midterms, he went as far as to say that ballots counted after midnight on Election Day shouldn’t be counted at all—since he feared those ballots were going against the Republicans.
During his April 4 press briefing, Trump repeated his worries about cheating through mail-in ballots, without providing any evidence of that, and insisted there should be in-person elections in November.
These comments were already adding pressure to election officials from secretaries of state down to county clerks and volunteers, especially those in states not typically used to large vote-by-mail requests.
“I think it’s exactly that kind of language that undermines the confidence in our democracy,” Schneider says of the president’s statements. “People need to understand what this process is. That’s another goal for the press: [To help people understand that] the ballots that come in after the election are perfectly legal and election officials need time to count the votes. That the [official] canvass doesn’t start until this many days after the election, so anything before that is unofficial. We need to do everything we can to ensure confidence that people’s ballots will be counted.”
