With the uncertainty of Covid and the possibility that it will still be an active problem for many months, now is the time for Florida to plan for how Covid might impact election days.
Wisconsin just had a nightmare election. Forced by the court to be held on a technicality they had locations refuse to be voting locations. If you ran a nursing home do you want voters there? They had so few of the volunteer poll workers show up, most being senior citizens that polling places were shut down.
Milwaukee normally has 180 voting locations. On Tuesday
they had 5. Yes, just 5. All but one county had to use the National Guard in their locations as workers.
Politician wearing a mask and PPE told voters “You are incredibly safe to go out.” to vote perhaps not understanding his visual message was a mismatch to his words.
Attempts to expand vote by mail were denied. There were multiple stories of counties bungling those vote by mail requests they did receive.
Quote:
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Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele is one of thousands of residents in Wisconsin who requested but did not get an absentee ballot by Tuesday
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It is entirely possible but not certain that people caught Covid voting in person or acting as poll workers. I know who I'd hold responsible for that.
So let's not have it happen in Florida. The primary election is August 18th. The general election is Nov 3rd. In recent years the number of days to early vote has been
cut back meaning more people vote each of the remaining dates. Also the number of locations is limited.
Florida has no excuse required vote by mail. That's great. One would think it would be easy to, if needed, send a ballot to every voter to vote by mail.
Oregon does this for every election.
A detailed article in the
Miami Herald inspired this post. It reports that the Florida Supervisors of Elections representing every county in the state has written a letter to the Governor and the Sec of State asking for modifications in state requirements for the upcoming elections. The article mentions that after the recently completed Presidential primary on March 17th, two poll workers in Dade tested positive for Covid. The first positive test result in Dade county was March 12th.
I believe that the state should authorize and require each county to print and be prepared to mail a ballot to every registered voter whether or not they have requested a vote by mail. That those ballots should be able to be returned without requiring the voter pay for postage. If Covid is persisting or returning a trip to buy a stamp should not be needed to vote. Many people do not have stamps at home. And no one should be forced to pay to vote regardless.
Additionally the opportunity to vote early needs to be expanded both as to the number of dates and the locations. This will decrease exposure risks in the situation where Covid is diminished to the point we are no longer under stay at home, but there remains a risk of gathering in groups, especially indoor.