Editorials: Trump is wrong about the dangers of absentee ballots | Richard L. Hasen/The Washington Post

President Trump has recently come out against expanding voting by mail, despite the fact that he regularly votes by mail himself. He tweeted that it has “Tremendous potential for voter fraud and, for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” Given that expanded mail-in voting is going to be an inevitable piece of the November election because of the coronavirus pandemic, it is important that Americans understand what risks come from voting by mail and what can be done about those risks before November, so that voters can have confidence that the election can be fairly conducted, in part, through mail-in balloting. To begin with, election fraud has been rare in this country for decades. Impersonation fraud, where one person shows up at the polling place claiming to be a voter who died or moved, is practically nonexistent, yet it has formed the excuse for some Republican-led states to pass strict voter-identification laws that many Democrats believe are motivated by a desire to deter their likely voters.

Arkansas: Republican opposition defeats Joyce Elliott’s proposal for no-excuse absentee voting in November. | Max Brantley/Arkansas Times

Elliott said she’d circulated her idea to the governor and others and got no negative feedback. She said it was a common-sense thing to do given the possibility of a continuation of coronavirus in November. Any qualified elector could request a ballot. It would allow voters to vote safely without encountering virus dangers, she said. She noted the recent experience in Wisconsin when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to delay the election and voters gathered in close proximity to cast ballots. “There’s no reason for that to happen here.” She also said this change would be temporary. It would go away Dec. 31. Elliott said she’d tried to win bipartisan support. But that wasn’t possible. Instead, Rep. Jim Dotson of Bentonville filed a competing amendment that would allow no-excuse absentees only if the governor still had an emergency declaration in effect.  His amendment also said that those who request an absentee ballot would give up a right to vote at the poll. Sometimes people lose their absentee ballots and go to the polls. Dotson’s amendment would make that impossible. After Elliott’s proposal was defeated amid fervent Republican opposition, he withdrew consideration of his proposal.

Editorials: We run elections in Arizona. An all-mail option for 2020 wouldn’t ruin the process | Virginia Ross and Lisa Marra/Arizona Republic

On April 2, an opinion piece by Rep. Shawnna Bolick (“All-mail voting would only compromise the integrity of elections”) included inaccurate and often misleading information about ballot-by-mail elections. As election professionals, we are committed to ensuring that the rest of the elections in 2020 are accurate, secure and safe for voters, anticipating the COVID-19 pandemic could continue requirements around social distancing for the remainder of the year. On behalf of the Arizona Recorders Association and the Election Officials of Arizona, we believe it is crucial that the Legislature extend our ability to hold ballot-by-mail elections for state and federal elections, a practice already authorized for jurisdictional elections. It is the best way to ensure Arizona voters are safe during this pandemic and have the certainty of the continuity of our democracy. We are requesting this change only for 2020, during this unprecedented pandemic.

Florida: Hurricanes, cyber risks and virus imperil Florida vote | Bobby Caina Calvan/Associated press

As if hurricanes and cyberthreats weren’t enough, Florida elections officials are now also contending with a viral pandemic as they prepare for elections in August and November’s crucial presidential contest. Elections supervisors from across the state are asking Gov. Ron DeSantis for an executive order that would loosen some election rules so local officials can have more flexibility in where they put polling places and when people can vote. “It’s going to be a different election from any other. We’ve done so much to prepare for cybersecurity and hurricanes,” said Tammy Jones, the chief elections officer for Lee County and the head of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, a group of elections officers encompassing the state’s 67 counties. “This is a new thing for us — for all states across the country who are facing the same problems we are facing today,” she said. “We are trying to do our best to keep voters safe.”

Florida: A full vote-by-mail election in Florida isn’t happening in 2020, despite coronavirus, state leaders say | Steven Lemongello/Orlando Sentinel

Voting by mail in Florida has in the past been beset by problems ranging from signature mismatches, delivery delays and tight deadlines. Now, it could be the key to holding full elections if the state is still in the middle of a pandemic and to avoid scenes like what happened in Wisconsin on Tuesday, where thousands lined up for hours wearing face masks after the state and U.S. Supreme Court rejected postponing a vote there. Democrats and voting rights groups in Florida and across the U.S. are pushing hard to make vote-by-mail as widespread as possible, especially after poll workers for the March 17 state presidential primary tested positive in Broward and Duval counties. Congressional Democrats included billions of dollars for expanded vote-by-mail in their version of the coronavirus stimulus, most of which did not end up in the final bill but is still on the table for future ones. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed 72% of all U.S. adults, including 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, supported universal mail-in ballots. Meanwhile, President Trump and many Republicans are openly hostile to voting by mail, even as Republican governors and legislatures in states such as Ohio are moving forward with it and after Trump cast a mail-in ballot in Florida himself.

Georgia: Some absentee ballot request forms list wrong return address | Mark Niesse, The/Atlanta Journal-Constitution

About 60,000 Georgia voters recently received absentee ballot request forms with the wrong return mailing or email address. Election officials said Wednesday that the absentee ballot requests will be delivered to their correct destinations, even if voters send them to the erroneous pre-printed addresses.The misprints occurred among absentee ballot request forms mailed to Georgia’s 6.9 million active voters by the secretary of state’s office last week, an effort to encourage voting away from precincts during the coronavirus pandemic.The issue affected voters in Troup County in west Georgia and Dawson County north of Atlanta. In Troup County, the return address for the local elections office listed the post-office box number as the street number, according to the county’s Facebook page. The U.S. Postal Service told the county it will deliver the forms to the correct address.

Georgia: Athens-Clarke County elections board ran up $40K legal bill in failed paper ballot move | Lee Shearer/Athens Banner-Herald

Athens-Clarke County commissioners have voted to pay $41,633 in legal fees for the county’s runaway Board of Elections, but most were not happy about it in a Tuesday commission meeting. In early March, the elections board voted 3-2 to switch to paper ballots in the now-delayed March 24 presidential primary, even though Athens-Clarke County Attorney Judd Drake warned them that the state would likely challenge the local board’s action, and that the local board would lose that challenge. After a day-long hearing in Athens, the state Board of Elections, which includes both Democratic and Republican party members, voted 5-0 to overturn the Athens-Clarke Board of Elections move to use paper ballots instead of the state’s new electronic voting system. Drake authorized hiring government law specialist Thomas Mitchell to defend the local board in the hearing, but the board in addition hired another lawyer, Bryan Sells, who submitted a bill for $23,617.72.

Ohio: Should Ohio plan for a vote-by-mail election in November, just in case? | Andrew J. Tobias/Cleveland Plain Dealer

The strife over Ohio’s 2020 primary election, converted at the last minute last month to a largely vote-by-mail election over the coronavirus pandemic, has cast a new light on whether the state elections system is capable of handling an all-mail election in November if need be. Models currently project the worst of the coronavirus outbreak will recede by the summer. But past pandemics have seen a second wave break out. And with a widespread vaccine not likely to be available for more than a year, there is a distinct possibility that elections officials could be confronted with a similar scenario in November. Voter advocates, elected officials and elections workers say Gov. Mike DeWine and other leaders need to begin planning soon just in case. They want to prevent a repeat of what happened in March, when DeWine canceled Election Day, citing public health reasons, just hours before in-person voting was to have begun. The decision set off public confusion, a flurry of lawsuits and eventually, a new election plan, unanimously approved by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, that sets an effectively all-mail vote through April 28.

Wisconsin: Liberals say they were shut out of court’s debate | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Wisconsin Supreme Court this week heard from conservatives who argued Tuesday’s election should be kept in place, prompting one attorney to cry foul that liberals were not granted the same opportunity to say it should have been delayed.  “There are rules that the Supreme Court requires all people who appear before them to follow — except when they don’t enforce the rules,” Madison attorney Lester Pines said. “It does certainly lend an appearance of favoritism.” But Rick Esenberg of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty argued all sides had a chance to weigh in on the case. He said he followed normal procedures in quickly getting his arguments before the high court. “If Mr. Pines wanted to be heard, he needed to get his submission done immediately because the court is under no obligation to wait for him,” Esenberg said by email. “He could have done what we did. He did not.” The filings came in a fast-moving case that was filed and resolved within hours Monday after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers tried to postpone Tuesday’s election over fears more people would become infected with the coronavirus. The court ruled 4-2 that Evers didn’t have the power to halt the election.

Wisconsin: State supreme court orders primary to move ahead | Sam Levine/The Guardian

The Wisconsin supreme court ordered the state to move ahead with in-person voting on Tuesday, hours after Governor Tony Evers called it off, capping weeks of chaos and criticism as the state scrambled to try and hold an election amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Evers, a Democrat, had delayed in-person voting in the state until 9 June and ordered the legislature into a special session on Tuesday to consider a new date for in-person voting. But in a 4-2 ruling, the state supreme court accepted a request from the Wisconsin legislature to allow voting to proceed. The legislature argued Evers lacked the authority to move the election. Evers had resisted calls to move the election for weeks, saying he did not have the authority to unilaterally call off the election. On Friday he had called on Republicans who control the state legislature to delay in-person voting and move to an all-mail election. Republicans swiftly rejected that request.

Wisconsin: State is discovering problems with absentee ballots, including hundreds that were never delivered | Patrick Marley, Alison Dirr and Mary Spicuzza/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Attention turned to missing absentee ballots Wednesday as state officials reported three tubs of them were discovered in a mail processing center and the Milwaukee Election Commission called for an investigation into a separate set of undelivered ballots.  And Fox Point officials said 100 or more ballots a day were returned to the village as undelivered in the week leading up to the election.  The discoveries emerged as would-be voters across the state expressed a host of frustrations about trying to obtain absentee ballots so they could avoid going to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic. Many have said ballots they requested long ago did not arrive by Tuesday, the deadline for getting their ballots postmarked.  “I learned today that the (Wisconsin Elections Commission) received a call from a postal service worker informing them 3 large tubs of absentee ballots from Oshkosh and Appleton, were just located,” Republican Sen. Dan Feyen of Fond du Lac said on Twitter.  Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Elections Commission, said she had been talking to the U.S. Postal Service about the situation but so far has not determined whether the ballots had been on their way to voters or already filled out and on their way back to clerks. 

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting releases COVID-19 election security recommendations

Download Verified Voting’s guidance here

The COVID-19 epidemic has impacted many aspects of American democracy. Primaries have been rescheduled, processes for absentee ballots changed, and polling sites relocated, often with less than 24 hours’ notice. Throughout it all, election officials have been and will continue to be essential workers on the front line of protecting our democracy amidst this pandemic. People have risked their lives to ensure that others can cast their ballots. Given Verified Voting’s mission, these recommendations center on election security and verification, but they can only be implemented if election officials are safe and supported. 

COVID-19 and Trustworthy Elections

Election security and verification must remain a priority as election officials and policymakers around the country respond to the COVID-19 epidemic. Even with changes in procedures, the measure of a successful election is public confidence that the election was conducted fairly. Hostile nation-states and others will strive to raise doubts: Were some voters denied a chance to vote? Were some votes cast illegally? Were some votes cast inaccurately? Were some ballots added, removed, or altered? Were the ballots miscounted? How do we know? 

Providing reassuring answers after the election requires careful planning before the election by many stakeholders. Election officials will need time, resources, technical assistance, and support to do the work needed to secure the election.

Wisconsin: Governor suspends in-person voting in Tuesday’s elections amid escalating coronavirus fears | Amy Gardner and Elise Viebeck/The Washington Post

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order Monday suspending in-person voting in Tuesday’s elections, citing the intensifying health threat of the coronavirus pandemic. The abrupt move came after the GOP-controlled state legislature refused to postpone the vote during a special session Evers (D) called on Saturday. Evers’s order Monday postpones in-person voting and the receipt deadline for mail-in ballots to June 9. The governor said the fresh urgency to postpone voting resulted in part from dire warnings by the White House over the weekend, when several Trump administration officials predicted that the coronavirus pandemic will worsen dramatically during the coming week. “At the end of the day, this is about the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said in an interview Monday. “They frankly don’t care much about Republicans and Democrats fighting. They’re scared. We have the surgeon general saying this is Pearl Harbor. It’s time to act.” Whether Evers has the authority to unilaterally postpone the election has been the subject of heated debate in Wisconsin, and the governor acknowledged that a Republican court challenge is “likely.”

National: States plan to expand mobile voting amid coronavirus pandemic, despite security concerns | oseph Marks/The Washington Post

Some states are planning to dramatically expand their use of mobile voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic – even as cybersecurity experts warn such systems are unproven and too vulnerable to hacking. Two states will soon announce that they’ll offer voters who have disabilities the option to cast ballots using mobile phones in upcoming primary elections so they don’t have to risk going into polling places, said Sheila Nix, president of Tusk Philanthropies, which is funding the efforts. The option will extend to voters in the military or state residents who are based overseas. “With coronavirus and the uncertainty about what the situation will be in November, a lot of states and jurisdictions are looking for a solution,” Nix told me, but declined to name the states or the mobile voting vendor they’ll be using, because memorandums of understanding aren’t complete yet. Those states will join West Virginia, which became the first to try statewide mobile voting for military and overseas voters in 2018 and has already announced it will expand to voters with disabilities during its upcoming primary June 9. Nix said she’s also talking with about half a dozen other states about potentially using mobile voting for some residents, which would be a significant expansion for a system that has otherwise been tried for just a handful of counties since 2018 and typically just for military and overseas voters.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin Is Set to Vote on Tuesday After Court Overrules Governor’s Postponement | Nick Corasaniti, Reid J. Epstein and Lisa Lerer/The New York Times

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the governor could not postpone Tuesday’s elections because of concerns about the coronavirus, a decision that throws into chaos a presidential primary and nearly 4,000 local contests. The court ruled 4-2, along ideological lines, that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, could not use emergency powers to unilaterally change the date of the election, which he sought to do to circumvent Republican opposition to the move. Mr. Evers had previously said he lacked the legal authority to delay the election and had called upon the Republican-controlled Legislature to reschedule it. But on Monday Mr. Evers argued that a postponement was necessary to protect voters and slow the spread of the virus. Within minutes of the order, Republican lawmakers called his move unconstitutional, instructing clerks to move forward with voting.

The Legislature’s leaders then challenged the order in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is controlled by a conservative majority. Mr. Evers had expressed confidence on Monday that the court would not reverse the postponement. “This is it,” he said during a live-streamed news conference. “There’s not a Plan B, there’s not a Plan C. We believe the Supreme Court will support us on this.”

Wisconsin: ‘Over our heads in chaos’: Wisconsin on edge of election fiasco amid pandemic | Sam Levine/The Guardian

As states across the US delay their primary elections in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Wisconsin has decided to stay the course – and it is in complete disarray. Some 111 jurisdictions don’t have enough poll workers to staff a single polling location for the Tuesday vote, and the governor has enlisted Wisconsin’s national guard to help run them. One election official said he feels “sick” asking people to work the polls, knowing it could kill them. Others have advised some voters to isolate their mail-in ballot envelopes for 24 hours before getting a witness to sign it to avoid spreading the virus. And Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for the election to be delayed. In Milwaukee, home to around 300,000 registered voters, there will be just five election day polling locations, instead of the usual 180. Days ahead of the election, Neil Albrecht, executive director of the city’s elections commission, didn’t know where those sites would be or who would staff them. The city usually requires 1,400 poll workers, but had just 400 earlier this week. “We are over our heads in chaos right now,” Albrecht said. “The level of public confusion will be so rampant and the access to voting will be so limited.

National: Voting by mail: Why states will have a hard time setting it up | Amber Phillips /The Washington Post

The safest way to hold an election during the coronavirus pandemic is to not. But canceling elections, especially in a presidential year, isn’t an option. So 15 states have moved their primaries back to the summer, and nearly every state is considering how it can have more people vote in November by mail instead of in person. That means they could either expand absentee balloting while keeping fewer polling places open, or they could mail ballots to all voters. But easier said than done. Only five states have the ability to hold a statewide by-mail election, and it took them years to set it up and work out the kinks. The states considering it now have months, if that, which means they need to decide in the next few weeks whether to push for all-mail elections for November and hope it can be done. Here are the biggest hurdles to having more people vote by mail in November. The equipment that states have to conduct in-person elections won’t work for mail-in elections. The scanners many states have to count ballots in each polling places can’t handle counting ballots en masse from the whole county or state. The kind of scanner that can do that heavy work costs $500,000 to $1 million, said Wendy Underhill, an elections expert with the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.

National: The new coronavirus funding battle over the November election | Marianne Levine and Burgess Everett/Politico

Consensus is growing that Democrats and Republicans will soon hash out a new coronavirus emergency package in the coming weeks. But a major obstacle is emerging: the November election. Democrats are making a push to expand funding for vote-by-mail efforts in a fourth emergency rescue package, citing the need to help states prepare to hold elections during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a public health issue, Democrats argue: That elections carried out as usual could spread the virus this fall. But new vote-by-mail funding is facing stern resistance from Senate Republicans and the Trump administration, who argue against imposing federal guidelines on states. The issue may be a sticking point to any relief package as the U.S. faces mass unemployment and a plummeting economy. “We are getting more and more bipartisan support from secretaries of states across the country,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) in an interview, who is leading a bill with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) to expand early voting as well as vote-by-mail. “In a worst case scenario communities may be facing the choice of either voting by mail or not voting at all,” added Wyden. “We’re already going in this direction and now we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I think this is a very different time.”

National: Trump, GOP challenge efforts to make voting easier amid coronavirus pandemic | Elise Viebeck, Amy Gardner and Michael Scherer/The Washington Post

President Trump and a growing number of Republican leaders are aggressively challenging efforts to make voting easier as the coronavirus pandemic disrupts elections, accusing Democrats of opening the door to fraud — and, in some cases, admitting fears that expanded voting access could politically devastate the GOP. Around the country, election officials trying to ensure ballot access and protect public health in upcoming contests face an increasingly coordinated backlash from the right. Much of the onslaught of litigation has been funded by the Republican National Committee, which has sought to block emergency measures related to covid-19, such as proactively mailing ballots to voters sheltering at home. “I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,” Trump, who voted absentee in New York in 2018, said at a news conference Friday, offering no examples. “I think people should vote [in person] with voter ID. I think voter ID is very important, and the reason they don’t want voter ID is because they intend to cheat.” Democrats and their allies in the civil rights community are also seizing the moment, arguing that the current crisis has created an urgent need for many of the voting policies they have pushed for years, including mass expansion of mail balloting and relaxation of voter ID, signature and witness requirements.

National: Trump campaign declares war on Democrats over voting rules for November | Alex Isenstadt/Pölitico

“This is about making sure that we’re able to conduct our democracy while we’re dealing with a pandemic. We can do both,” Biden said. “There’s a lot of ways to do it, but we should be talking about it now.” Trump advisers say they are open to certain changes, such as automatically sending absentee ballot applications to voters over age 65. But they’re opposed to other moves Democrats are pushing, such as sending every voter a ballot regardless of whether they ask for one, which Republicans argue would open the door to fraud. Trump has long been fixated on voter fraud. He has repeatedly claimed without evidence that he lost New Hampshire in 2016 because out-of-staters cast ballots, and after the election the president set up a since-disbanded voter fraud commission. Following the disastrous 2018 midterms, Trump said that after voting, some people “go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.” During an appearance on Fox News this week, Trump pushed back against an effort by House Democrats to secure billions of dollars for election assistance in the coronavirus relief package. The bill Trump ultimately signed included $400 million, a fraction of what Democrats had been seeking.

National: Some cash-strapped states turn to election security funds to fight COVID-19 | Matthew Vann/ABC

With the country in crisis mode responding to the coronavirus, several states are now turning to their election security funds from the massive stimulus package signed by President Trump amid plans to cover unanticipated costs stemming from the virus. ABC News has confirmed that several states— including the political battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as Rhode Island, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Alabama—are either now using or intend to use election security funds, including coronavirus stimulus money designated to protect the 2020 elections from malicious cyber activity, to fight their own statewide battles against COVID-19. “We are assessing all election security and administration needs and will allocate accordingly,” said Wanda Murren, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. The National Association of Secretaries of State issued guidance to states on how best to prepare for the elections amid concerns about the virus, but says decisions about how to spend election security money in a time of national crisis is up to each state.

National: New election security funds won’t come easy for hard-hit states | Paul M. Krawzak/Roll Call

Cash-strapped states, which Congress just pumped $150 billion into, will nonetheless have to pony up in order to access new election security grants in the massive new coronavirus aid package signed by President Donald Trump last week. The $2.3 trillion aid bill contains $400 million to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, for the 2020 Federal election cycle.” The Election Assistance Commission, an independent, bipartisan commission established in 2002, will administer the grants. But consistent with past practice, and EAC guidelines, the money comes with strings attached: States need to put up matching funds equal to 20 percent of their federal aid. Previous election security grants required a state match, most recently the 20 percent state match required for $425 million provided in regular fiscal 2020 appropriations last December. But some election security experts were taken aback that the matching funds requirement wasn’t waived in the latest round of aid, and House Democrats are already planning to include a fix in the “phase four” COVID-19 bill they are prepping.

National: Democrats press Trump, GOP for funding for mail-in ballots | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Democrats and voting rights groups on Thursday pressed President Trump and Republicans to support more funding for elections this year, saying it was crucial to include money ensuring people could cast ballots as part of the next coronavirus stimulus package. Lawmakers and voting advocacy groups took part in what amounted to a sustained campaign calling for the country to ensure people could cast votes either in person or by mail despite the coronavirus crisis. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) argued on one press call Thursday that at least $1.6 billion more was needed to guarantee Americans could vote in November. “This next month is critical for our democracy, I can’t think of another time when we faced something quite like this in terms of our limitations,” Klobuchar told reporters. “I think we can do this, I really do, we simply must make sure that people have the right to vote.”

Editorials: How Republicans are using the coronavirus to suppress votes | Richard L. Hasen/Los Angeles Times

Even in a pandemic, some Republicans are looking to suppress the vote for partisan political advantage. But the biggest power plays may come in November, and they could threaten our democracy. With most of the country under a stay-at-home order, in-peson voting right now is perilous. We don’t know what the situation will be like in November, but vote-by-mail is one way to help ensure that millions of Americans will be able to vote safely. Yet, across the country, some Republican legislators and leaders are opposing efforts to make voting safe and widespread. In Wisconsin, Republican legislators have refused to postpone Tuesday’s scheduled primary despite the serious health risk posed by in-person voting. Some have suggested Wisconsin Republicans are happy to have depressed turnout to help a Republican-backed state Supreme Court candidate win election. On Friday, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, called the Legislature into special session on Saturday to consider an election delay and shift to a mostly vote-by-mail election. But the Republicans immediately rejected any change to the election. In Georgia, Republican state House Speaker David Ralston has opposed sending absentee ballots to every Georgia voter for the upcoming primary, claiming that such a change “will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia. Every registered voter is going to get one of these. … This will certainly drive up turnout.”

Georgia: GOP House Speaker says vote-by-mail system would be ‘devastating to Republicans’ | Aras Folley/The Hill

Georgia state House Speaker David Ralston (R) is coming out against a recent effort taken by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to mail absentee ballot request forms to all voters in the state amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the move could be “devastating” for Republican candidates.. Last week, Raffensperger announced the state would be mailing absentee ballot request forms to its nearly 7 million voters “in an effort to allow as many Georgia voters as possible to exercise their right to vote without leaving their homes.” The move came a week after the state postponed its presidential primary from March 24 until May 19, as officials nationwide have urged the public to stay indoors as much as possible and to avoid large gatherings in a bid to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.  During an interview released on Wednesday, Ralston was asked about concerns he had regarding Raffensperger’s move.

Georgia: Counties work to keep in-person early voting safe despite coronavirus | Amanda C. Coyne/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The coronavirus pandemic has forced elections officials to reexamine how to conduct voting while preventing the spread of disease. Potentially long voter lines, touch-screen voting machines and a high likelihood of more than 10 voters and poll workers in an indoor polling place present a challenge for election directors: They must conduct in-person balloting while trying to minimize voters’ and poll workers’ exposure to disease.Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett are each still nailing down the details of how voting will go forward.“These circumstances are unique — they are unprecedented, actually — and I think public health takes precedence,” said Rick Barron, Fulton County elections director. Georgia’s presidential primary was postponed to the May 19 general primary. Although early voting had begun throughout metro Atlanta, it was suspended on March 19 due to the coronavirus. More than 275,000 people had voted by then, twice the amount that had at the same point in 2016. Early voting is expected to resume April 27. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is encouraging residents to vote by mail, and the state is sending every registered voter an absentee ballot application. The secretary of state’s office began mailing those applications Monday, March 30. However, each county is still required under state law to offer at least one early voting location in the three weeks before election day.

Iowa: Election officials pushing vote by mail for June primary | Erin Murphey/Sioux City Journal

There will be a June 2 primary election in Iowa, state and local elections officials pledge. But those officials are encouraging Iowa voters to submit their ballots early through the mail in order to sidestep voting in-person on Election Day while the state may still be dealing with the novel coronavirus pandemic. So serious is he about encouraging Iowans to vote by mail that Secretary of State Paul Pate, the state’s top elections official, plans to mail every registered Iowa voter an absentee ballot request form for the June primary. Pate even considered going to a 100 percent vote-by-mail election. He shelved that idea for the June primary, but it remains on the table for the November general election, if the virus is still spreading in Iowa this fall. “We’ve had to adapt,” Pate said. “It’s very fluid.” Iowa’s June 2 primary election features multiple competitive federal races. Five Democrats seek their party’s nomination in the state’s U.S. Senate race — the winner will face Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst. In western Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, four Republicans are challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King. And in eastern Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, two Republicans seek the nomination in what will be an open-seat race in the fall.

Maryland: Election board reverses course on mail-only June primary, recommends limited in-person voting | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Yielding to pressure from voting rights advocates, the Maryland Board of Elections reversed itself Thursday, recommending the state offer at least one in-person voting center in each county for the June 2 primary despite concerns about the new coronavirus outbreak. The board’s new plan still needs the approval of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. It calls for a minimum of one voting center and a maximum of four in each of Maryland’s 24 counties. The centers would be offered on primary day only at sites typically used for early voting centers, subject to approval by the state. The reversal came just a week after the board recommended against offering such an option, a decision influenced by remarks from Webster Ye, director of the Maryland Department of Health’s office of governmental affairs. Ye warned board members that protective gear would not be available for poll workers and cautioned the outbreak wouldn’t peak until around July 4 — more than a month after primary day. A day later, Hogan dismissed Ye’s statements as “personal opinion.”

Michigan: May 5 elections are still on, but some want them postponed due to coronavirus concerns | Lauren Gibb/mlive

With COVID-19 continuing to spread in Michigan, voters are being encouraged to cast their ballots absentee in upcoming May elections – but some are calling for them to be postponed entirely out of concern for election worker safety. Local jurisdictions in 55 counties had May 5 elections scheduled before the coronavirus pandemic hit Michigan, most of which were for school and local government millages or bond proposals. Locals were given the option to reschedule any May ballot measures to the Aug. 4 election under a recent executive order from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and many took up the offer. In Washtenaw County, all three May ballot proposals were postponed, and a Jackson Public Schools millage was also bumped to August. Other ballot measures will move forward as scheduled, including a school millage put forward by the Kalamazoo Regional Education Service Agency.

New York: Two Covid-19 Deaths At New York City Board of Elections, And More Than A Dozen Sickened | Brigid Bergin/WNYC

When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last Saturday that he would postpone the April presidential primary, staff at the New York City Board of Elections breathed a sigh of relief. Some hoped the delay meant they could stop going into the office to protect their health and the health of people still entering them. BOE staff have paid a high price for showing up to work during the pandemic. To date, 15 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at the BOE’s main office in lower Manhattan, according to sources at the Board of Elections. Two people from the borough offices have died from the virus, with a third death that has not been officially linked to the disease.  While Board of Elections staff were not explicitly deemed essential workers under the governor’s earlier executive order calling for a PAUSE, the city BOE’s Executive Director Michael Ryan told Gothamist / WNYC that they had been given guidance by the State Board of Elections to continue operations. “We at the Board have a legal mandate to conduct our jobs. The continuity of government depends in part on some of the work that we’re doing,” Ryan said.