Louisiana: Voters and advocates sue Louisiana officials over COVID-19 election plans | David Jacobs/The Center Square

Four voters and two advocacy groups have sued Louisiana officials, alleging the state is not doing enough to protect the right to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic. State lawmakers have approved an emergency voting plan crafted by Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin and Attorney General Jeff Landry meant to address public health concerns related to in-person voting. But the plan applies only to a presidential preference and municipal primary election currently scheduled for July and a municipal general election planned for August, not the federal elections set for the fall. Even for the summer elections, Louisiana’s plan doesn’t allow enough people to vote by mail, the four voters, the Louisiana NAACP and the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice argue. The plan temporarily adds being subject to a medically necessary quarantine, experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or awaiting a diagnosis, caring for someone who is quarantined, or having a chronic health condition that imparts a higher risk of serious COVID-19 complications as valid reasons to use an absentee ballot. It also temporarily waives the usual requirement that first-time voters must vote in person.

Michigan: Blind voters use electronic absentee ballots for first time | Grant Herme/ClickOn Detroit

Blind voters and advocates celebrated this week after Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was forced to allow the use of electronic absentee voting normally reserved for men and women overseas. The technology allowed many blind voters to cast their ballots independent of help for the first time. The process is simple. The ballot appears on the screen and a person who is blind can have it read to them like any other text through a text-to-speech program. It can also be run through a braille system for the deaf-blind. After a ballot is filled out it’s print, sign and send. Michael Powell, with the Michigan chapter of the National Federation for the Blind, is one of the men suing the state for wider use of the electronic system on behalf of blind voters. “Why should they risk going to a polling location and, and especially if they go to one and they find they can't use it because the people don't know how to use the machine or if there's some kind of issue, and they've risked their lives for nothing,” Powell said.

Montana: 600K primary election ballots are in the mail to Montana voters | Jonathon Ambarian/Missoula Current

On Friday, election offices around Montana began sending out ballots for the June primary election, as they do every two years. However, there was a big difference this year: Mail ballots weren’t going just to those who asked for them, but to all active registered voters. In March, Gov. Steve Bullock directed that counties could decide to hold the primary election by mail, to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19. All 56 counties took that option. That means traditional local polling places will not be open, though people will be able to vote in person at county election offices. Election officials estimate about 600,000 ballots were mailed out across the state on Friday. About 94,000 more registered voters are considered “inactive,” and will need to contact officials in order to receive a ballot. In Lewis and Clark County, about 40,500 active voters are having ballots mailed to them. Audrey McCue, the county’s elections supervisor, said they have usually had 50% to 60% of their voters request absentee ballots, so it was not as big of a change as it might have been. “That number has gone up, but it’s not a drastic increase for us,” she said.

New York: Democrats file appeal to stop presidential primary | Associated Press

Democratic members of the state’s Board of Elections filed an appeal Wednesday of a federal judge’s reinstatement of the New York presidential primary. The appeal by board Commissioner Andrew Spano and other members comes a day after the June 23 primary was reinstated by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan, who said canceling it would be unconstitutional and deprive withdrawn presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang of proper representation at the Democratic convention. Torres said there was enough time before the primary to plan how to carry it out safely. She acknowledged that the reason it was canceled — to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — was an important state interest but said she was unconvinced it justified infringing rights. She noted that no other state had canceled its primary.

Ohio: Ohio’s election was a mess. It would be a disaster at the national level. | Stephen Stromberg/The Washington Post

The nightmare scenario for the November presidential vote is a larger repeat of Wisconsin’s chaotic and dangerous April state Supreme Court election, in which state Republican leaders risked the health of voters in search of partisan electoral advantage. The result was interminable polling-place lines and untold numbers of people deterred from voting. These consequences were widely predicted, and the voter suppression seemed to be the point. But there is another, perhaps more likely, model of pandemic election failure: that of Ohio, which completed its primary process on Friday. State officials fumbled into the vote, recognizing that covid-19 would force changes in voter behavior but failing to prepare for the strain those changes would put on their system. They failed to account for how preexisting problems with absentee-voting systems and antiquated voter rules would be amplified. The result was voter confusion, accounts of effective voter disenfranchisement and rock-bottom voter turnout.

Ohio: Secretary of State: General election will include in-person voting | Liz Skalka/Toledo Blade

On the last day for local elections boards to receive outstanding absentee ballots from Ohio’s upended primary, the state’s top elections official on Friday said he’s planning for a general election in six months that will include both absentee and in-person voting.

Looking ahead to November, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose is lobbying lawmakers to make changes that would expand access to voting by mail, while preserving in-person voting, even if there’s a resurgence of coronavirus in the fall.

“There will still be a portion of the population that will want to vote in person,” he said, arguing that grocery stores and pharmacies have remained open and managed the flow of people.

Friday was the last day for primary ballots postmarked by April 27 to arrive at elections boards in time to be counted. Ohio had nearly 200,000 outstanding ballots as of election day. Mr. LaRose said he didn’t have an estimate for how many he thought will be returned.

The secretary of state will certify the election results later this month. The final tally will also include some 44,000 ballots cast provisionally, which includes those from voters who requested but didn’t receive a ballot in the mail.

To make the process smoother in the fall, Mr. LaRose wants lawmakers to allow voters to request ballots online, instead of printing out a form to mail; to provide postage-paid envelopes for ballots; to move the deadline for requesting a ballot to a week before the election; and to release federal funds to the state’s 88 boards of elections to buy equipment and hire workers needed to process a large number of absentee ballots.

The planning for the Nov. 3 election may also include consolidating or changing voting locations, he said.

Mr. LaRose said time is running out — early voting begins Oct. 6, 150 days from now — but the changes aren’t so big that it can’t get done.

“These are unusual times, and we need to get some improvements made from the situation we currently find ourselves in,” he said.

He said the Ohio Association of Elections Officials is on board. Voting-rights advocates have also backed similar measures to expand absentee voting access.

But Mr. LaRose will need to convince state lawmakers to approve his changes, and may face pushback. Along with Gov. Mike DeWine, Mr. LaRose had proposed holding the primary with in-person voting on June 2, but lawmakers weren’t receptive to their plan.

The state’s primary was extended from March 17 to April 28 because of the onset of coronavirus, after a public-health order closed the polls at the eleventh hour. The election went off without any major issues, but some voters said the process was confusing and complained about missing ballots and slow mail.

“We certainly appreciate the secretary of state is getting the conversation going, because our vote-by-mail system proved to be wholly inadequate during the primary,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, who says she supports paid postage and would also like to see more than one early vote center per county.

Pennsylvania: GOP groups, nonprofits in fight over mail-in ballot deadline for Pennsylvania primary, general election | Julian Routh/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Warning that pandemic-induced bureaucratic delays could prevent many Pennsylvanians from submitting their mail-in and absentee ballots on time before the 8 p.m. cutoff in the state’s June 2 primary and November’s general Election Day, a group of nonprofits are asking the state Supreme Court to step in and force the state to extend its deadline. State and national Republican groups, meanwhile, are trying to get the case thrown out. The Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Republican National Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee filed a motion this week asking the court to let them intervene in the matter, insisting that if the court were to compel a change to the ballot deadline, it would upend the “orderly” administration of the election, alter the competitive landscape and undermine laws that protect their voters and candidates. They also allege that the original lawsuit’s dire warnings of voter disenfranchisement are based not on facts, but on “wild guesses dressed up in soaring rhetoric,” according to their court filing. If approved, the Republican apparatus would get to intervene in a case where the nonprofits — led by one that represents more than a million Pennsylvanians with disabilities — want ballots that were sent or postmarked by the Nov. 3 Election Day and received by county elections offices within the following seven days to be considered valid.

Verified Voting Blog: Groups continue to urge Puerto Rico Governor Vázquez Garced to veto internet voting bill

Today, key members from Verified Voting, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Brennan Center for Justice, and Protect Democracy met virtually with the Puerto Rico Governor’s office to urge Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced to veto P.S. 1314 before it becomes law on May 16. If passed, the bill would establish a pilot program for online voting during the 2020 election cycle, and ramp up to making online voting the default option for Puerto Rican voters by 2028. ICYMI, on March 19, three dozen experts joined Verified Voting in sending a letter to Governor Vázquez Garced outlining the dangers of internet voting  Read our blog post from March 20, or view the letter here:

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Dear Governor Vázquez Garced,

We, Verified Voting, the undersigned computer scientists and cybersecurity experts, write to urge you to veto Senate Bill 1314 which proposes implementing a system of internet voting in Puerto Rico. Under the provisions of this bill, Puerto Rico would phase in internet voting as the sole option for Puerto Rican citizens. As explained more fully below, internet voting cannot be accomplished securely and provides no meaningful way to verify that the computers captured or counted votes accurately. This concept is settled science, notwithstanding efforts to increase internet voting use in some areas. In the current climate when nation states have sought to interfere in other nations’ elections, Puerto Rico’s bill is a risky move. Indeed, last year the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate made bipartisan recommendations, among them that “states should resist pushes” to move their elections online because in their words, “no system of online voting has yet established itself as secure.” [1. See Report of The Select Committee On Intelligence United States Senate On Russian Active Measures Campaigns And Interference In The 2016 U.S. Election, Vol. 1: Russian Efforts Against Election infrastructure with Additional Views, at 59 (July, 2019) available here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf]

South Carolina: Lawmakers face pressure to address June 9 primary voting | Maayan Schecter/The State

Poll workers are on short supply in some counties, candidates are spending money pushing voters to cast absentee ballots, and lawsuits against the state in federal and state courts aim to settle the question: Can someone vote absentee to avoid going to the polls and potentially catching the novel coronavirus? These are the realities S.C. lawmakers face as they return to work Tuesday, weeks after the state’s Republican governor and some legislative leaders said they saw no reason to take the legislative action required to expand the reasons for voting absentee or postpone the primary entirely. Though turnout for statewide primaries tends to be low, preventing crowds, the COVID-19 outbreak in South Carolina has made state officials turn their attention to how to make voters feel safer at the polls, even into November. At the same time, in fear of catching the virus, hundreds of poll workers — many of whom fit the age most vulnerable to the disease — have told county election officials they’ll pass on working this election, putting officials in a bind over whether they’ll have enough people to man polling places for the state’s June 9 primary. Candidates have traded in traditional door-knocking for an increase in mailers, phone calls, a flurry of social media activity and virtual town halls, and candidates — particularly those trying to knock down incumbents — are encouraging voters to ask for an absentee ballot even though currently there is no pandemic excuse among the qualifications to vote absentee in the state.

Texas: Legal fight: Is vote by mail a coronavirus option in Texas? | Chuck Lindell /Austin American-Statesman

With two months until the next elections and the pandemic’s future murky, a legal battle is underway to determine if most Texans will have to cast ballots in person or if they can skip the crowds and vote by mail. The fight will determine how Texans vote July 14 in the primary runoffs and a special election for the seat vacated by state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin — and likely in the November presidential election as well. It’s a fight that has split along party lines. Democrats, arguing that Texans should not have to choose between protecting their health and exercising their right to vote, have filed two lawsuits to greatly expand opportunities to vote by mail. The state’s Republican attorney general, backed by other GOP and conservative leaders, opposes the effort, arguing that it is contrary to a state law that reserves mail-in ballots for specific groups of voters, such as those who are 65 or older or have a disability. "My office will continue to defend the integrity of Texas’ election laws," Attorney General Ken Paxton said. Texas is not alone in the battle. The Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s campaign have lined up to fight similar Democratic efforts to expand remote voting in other states, arguing that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud.

Wisconsin: What would it take for Wisconsin to hold a mail-in election? | Briana Reilly/The Cap Times

In Wisconsin, some harbor a lofty goal when they look at the remainder of the 2020 cycle: implementing a system by which voters cast their ballots almost entirely by mail. But with both chambers of the Legislature controlled by Republicans who have signaled they’re not interested in a plan pushed by a handful of Democrats, the idea is essentially dead on arrival. Even if the proposal had the backing of both political parties, though, there are a series of hurdles to putting it in place just three months before the August primary and six months before the November general election. It’s no easy task to transition to a vote-by-mail system. Five states have done so, but it’s a big undertaking that, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission, includes more than 100 tasks that states would have had to begin last month to be on track for Nov. 3, according to a recent EAC project timeline. And an election security expert with New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice said Wisconsin “already has a great framework” in place given that it, like 29 others, allows voters to cast ballots by mail without providing a reason why they can't vote in person on election day.

National: More than 800 public health experts call on Congress to fund mail-in voting | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A group of more than 800 public health experts on Tuesday called on Congress to fund mail-in voting amid rising concerns about in-person voting related to the coronavirus pandemic. The experts — made up of professors, phycologists and doctors led by the Center for American Progress — sent a letter to the House and Senate asking that states be given $4 billion to address moving to mail-in voting. These funds would cover the mailing and printing of ballots, securing ballot request systems and staffing, among other issues. “In order to ensure the integrity of the electoral process and protect the public health at the same time, it is incumbent on our leaders to prepare for a Presidential election by mail, in which ballots are sent to all registered voters, to allow them to vote from home and ensure their health and safety in the event of a new outbreak of SARS-CoV-2,” the public health experts wrote. The experts used the recent Wisconsin primary elections as an example of how COVID-19 can spread if Americans are forced to vote in-person, after dozens of individuals there tested positive for the coronavirus in the weeks since the election.

National: States worried about mail-in ballot access consider online voting options | Matthew Vann/ABC

Some states, predicting challenges around expanding paper ballot access in time for the November general election amid the COVID-19 pandemic, are weighing the use of Internet-based voting platforms. The considerations come as election officials across the country brace for what will likely be a record year of mail-in paper ballot usage amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. ABC News has confirmed that Delaware, New Jersey and West Virginia will permit groups of eligible voters across their states to use online voting platforms for upcoming local elections and presidential primaries as several other states consider wider usage for elections this fall. The use of online and mobile based voting platforms introduces significant cybersecurity risks, that many election experts warn have the potential to be used by foreign actors looking to influence election outcomes. Ahead of the 2020 primary season, former senior government officials and private sector executives warned of computerized voting equipment as particularly vulnerable at a House Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Innovation subcommittee hearing in 2019 leading some states to drop plans they may have had in motion.

National: Experts worry push for 2020 mail voting could leave Native American voters behind | Alisa Wiersema/ABC

As many election officials across the country move to bolster vote by mail efforts in their states amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, some leaders in Native American communities are worried their voters could be left behind if voting by mail becomes the overwhelming norm for conducting the 2020 election. Their concerns are largely rooted in existing hurdles facing some Native Americans living in rural communities and who, as a result, would not be able to easily access the resources necessary to register and vote in a predominately all-mail election. As outlined by the Native American Rights Fund, an organization that provides legal assistance to tribes and Native American individuals, the potential obstacles range from issues with access to traditional mail services, to a lack of broadband connectivity, and in some cases, cultural communication barriers. Experts also point out that high poverty rates and some states’ voter identification requirements create even more potential roadblocks for Native Americans seeking to cast their ballots. “We've tried to point out to people -- you got to stack all of these things on top of each other,” Natalie Landreth, a senior staff attorney with Native American Rights Fund said in an interview with ABC News.

National: Postal Service Pick With Ties to Trump Raises Concerns Ahead of 2020 Election | Alan Rappeport/The New York Times

The installment of one of President Trump’s financial backers and a longtime Republican donor as the postmaster general is raising concerns among Democrats and ethics watchdogs that the Postal Service will be politicized at a time when states are mobilizing their vote-by-mail efforts ahead of the 2020 election. The Postal Service’s board of governors on Wednesday night selected Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and veteran of the logistics industry, to lead the struggling agency, which faces insolvency and has frequently drawn the ire of Mr. Trump. The president has been pushing the post office to increase prices on companies that use it to deliver packages, such as Amazon, and has threatened to withhold funding if sweeping changes are not enacted. Those changes have failed to get off the ground, but with Mr. DeJoy at the helm there are growing concerns that the nation’s mail carrier could be weaponized. Mr. Trump declared last month that “the Postal Service is a joke” and assailed it for taking steep losses on packages it ships for big e-commerce companies at low rates. He suggested that the service increase the price it charges companies by four or five times the current rates.

National: Postal Services Struggles Could Hurt Mail-In Election | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

An unprecedented shift in American democracy is underway, as more states and counties turn to voting by mail. But as jurisdictions prepare for a pandemic-riddled presidential election, the threat of a financial crisis at the U.S. Postal Service looms over that alternative to in-person voting. If Congress does not pass a $75 billion bailout, the Postal Service says uninterrupted mail service may not last past September. That’s when local election officials plan to send out mail-in absentee ballots, letters with polling place information, voting booklets, new voter cards and federally mandated voter registration confirmation postcards. Because so much U.S. election infrastructure relies on mail, some state officials of both parties are sounding the alarm about the prospect of a financial crisis at the Postal Service. “I can’t understate how disastrous this would be to our democracy and our economy,” said Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat. “Mid-election year is not the time to risk the dependability of the Postal Service.” State and local officials depend on the agency to run smooth elections, they say.

Editorials: Why We Need Postal Democracy | David Cole/The New York Review of Books

Nothing symbolizes democracy like long lines at the polls on election day. They represent a collective act of faith, as chances are virtually nil that any one of the votes we cast over our lifetime will determine the outcome of an election. They remind us that many of our fellow citizens have had to fight to stand in such lines. And because long lines are also often a sign that election officials have failed to provide sufficient voting opportunities, they illustrate the tenacity of citizens who insist on casting their ballots even when the government seems more interested in obstructing than in facilitating the franchise. Not since the civil rights era, when African-Americans in the South braved death threats to exercise their right to vote, has a voting line embodied this commitment more profoundly than on April 7 in Milwaukee. People lined up around the block, trying to maintain six-foot social-distancing intervals, to vote in what was a relatively unimportant election. At issue were only the all-but-concluded Democratic presidential primary, a single state supreme court seat, and a small number of lower state and local offices. At a time when their governor and mayor—both Democrats—had instructed them to shelter in place, these Milwaukee citizens had come out to stand in public for hours in order to exercise their constitutional right. The city, which ordinarily operates 180 polling places, opened only five, as poll workers balked at showing up. At least forty voters and poll workers may have contracted the coronavirus as a result.

Delaware: State postpones presidential primary for second time amid coronavirus | Sarah Gamard/Delaware News Journal

Delaware's presidential primary election has been postponed for a second time. The new date for the presidential primary is Tuesday, July 7. Gov. John Carney announced the move shortly before noon on Thursday. Along with the date change, all registered Democrats and Republicans who didn't already request an absentee ballot will now get an absentee ballot application in the mail so they can vote from home. A spokesman for Carney said the date was postponed again so that the Department of Elections can issue the applications in time. Only registered Republicans and Democrats can vote in the presidential primary, which is when they choose their respective presidential nominees. The deadline to register for this election has been pushed back to Saturday, June 13. The last day to request an absentee ballot for the presidential primary is Friday, July 3. The deadline to pick up an absentee ballot at your local elections office is now noon on July 6, which is the day before the election.

Editorials: Kentucky has it right on voting in the age of Covid-19 | Joshua A. Douglas/CNN

There must be something in the water in Kentucky. At a time when partisanship still runs rampant, despite a pandemic, Kentucky's leaders have found a way to come to a bipartisan agreement on how to administer the upcoming primary on June 23. That agreement -- which expands vote-by-mail for all voters, permits in-person voting for those who need it, and allows the state to begin the process of cleaning up the voter rolls -- pales in comparison to the debacle in Wisconsin, where partisan bickering and court decisions that fell along ideological lines led voters to face an unfathomable choice between their health and their fundamental right to vote. Officials in other states should copy Kentucky's lead. Senator Mitch McConnell should look to his own backyard to see how working across the aisle can actually produce positive results for the people. Maybe if McConnell emulated his state's leaders—and learned how to work in a bipartisan manner -- he would not be so unpopular.

Louisiana: Emergency election plan draws lawsuit over limits on mail-in voting during pandemic | Coronavirus | Sam Karlin/The Advocate

An emergency election plan aimed at addressing voting during the coronavirus pandemic, which Republican lawmakers altered to limit the expansion of mail-in ballots, has drawn a federal lawsuit seeking a more robust expansion of absentee voting. The lawsuit, brought by the NAACP, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and four individual voters, says the reasons voters can access mail-in ballots under the plan fall short of protecting voters of the coronavirus, which has taken an outsized toll on Louisiana. It calls the plan “unduly restrictive” and seeks to repeal the requirements that voters present an excuse to receive an absentee ballot, thereby expanding them to everyone. “Risking your health, and the health of your family, should not be a requirement to partake in the electoral process,” Catherine Meza, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a statement. “We are hoping this lawsuit not only increases access to absentee voting but also makes in-person voting safer, so that Louisianans can exercise their constitutional right without putting their lives at risk.” The lawsuit also asks for other rules on absentee ballots to be suspended and for early voting to be expanded, among other things, all while the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing in Louisiana. The lawsuit argues the election plan would particularly impact black voters, because the virus has taken a disproportionate toll on minorities.

Minnesota: Legislature agrees on measures to make voting safer | Brian Bakst/MPR

The Minnesota Senate has approved election changes meant to provide extra safety during the coronavirus pandemic, but the bill stops short of expanding voting by mail. The Senate voted 66-1 Thursday to follow the House lead in approving the election bill, although minor changes mean it needs one more vote in the House before it goes to the desk of Gov. Tim Walz. The bill permits candidates to file electronically, extends the counting period for absentee ballots and releases $17 million in federal election money. Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, said her bill also provides more flexibility around polling place locations. “The ability to relocate polling places away from sites that might not be safe for those who are vulnerable, in particular nursing homes, assisted living, congregate living-type situations,” she said. Authorities would have had to make any location changes by the start of this year under current law. While some had called for an expansion of vote by mail in light of the coronavirus pandemic, Minnesota law already allows people to use absentee ballots for any reason if they don’t want to vote in person.

Nevada: Clark County election changes shrouded in mystery | Rory Appleton/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Clark County will offer more voting options in the June 9 primary election as part of sweeping changes revealed Tuesday, but how and when those decisions were made remained a mystery. Most members of the Clark County Commission and several county staff members did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment on the changes. Two commissioners applauded the new measures but said they either could not share or did not know how the changes were made. Meanwhile, Republicans feel the changes were the result of either pressure from or a deal with the Democrats and are threatening a new lawsuit of their own to block them. This week’s news came after Clark County Counsel Mary-Anne Miller submitted a court document Monday in which she said that the registrar of voters, Joseph Gloria, “at the direction of local county officials” was setting up two additional in-person voting sites in the county.

Oklahoma: Governor signs bill to reinstate notary requirement for absentee voting | Carmen Forman/The Oklahoman

Gov. Kevin Stitt on Thursday signed legislation to reinstate the requirement that absentee ballots be notarized. The legislation that reverses an Oklahoma Supreme Court order from Monday that incited a fierce partisan battle in Oklahoma’s Legislature. Citing concerns that not requiring absentee ballots to be notarized would lead to voter fraud, the Republican majority in both chambers supported legislation to bring back the notary requirement, but include some exceptions while the state is dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. “Oklahomans need to have confidence that our election process is secure and free from fraud,” said Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City. “This measure upholds the integrity of our absentee ballot process while also making it easier to vote absentee during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic all in an attempt to protect the health and safety of voters and election workers.”

Pennsylvania: State allows big reduction in poll workers for 2020 primary election to help counties during pandemic | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania’s county election officials are receiving some relief from state requirements. Counties will be allowed to run the June 2 primary election with fewer than half the normal number of poll workers, the Pennsylvania Department of State said Wednesday evening, with a minimum of five workers per polling place regardless of how many precincts it serves. That will help relieve pressure to fill poll-worker slots. While recruitment has been a challenge for years, the older average age of poll workers makes them vulnerable to the coronavirus. Across the state, counties have heard from poll workers scared to work the primary because of health risk. (State officials have even considered deploying the National Guard to serve as poll workers.) “Poll worker recruitment is always hard, but it is especially hard when whole election boards are telling us that they will not be working due to COVID-19, like they are doing this election,” said Lisa Deeley, chair of the Philadelphia Board of City Commissioners, which normally has to recruit, train, and oversee thousands of poll workers. “Under these circumstances, every little bit that makes running election day easier is helpful.”

Pennsylvania: As Poll Workers Worry About Safety, Staffing For June Primary Will Be A Challenge | Katie Meyer(WHYY

This week, after much deliberation, Nancy Nylund decided that she’s staying home this primary. “It was actually quite agonizing because I love working at the polls,” she said. Nylund, 68, has served as an inspector of elections in her Plymouth Meeting precinct for several years. But she is also on immunosuppressant medication for her rheumatoid arthritis, and so she decided she didn’t want to risk coming into contact with someone infected with COVID-19. As a retired nurse, she knows what would be at stake. “Of course it makes it more risky, since I’m considered immunosuppressed, to be sitting three feet from people checking the books,” she said. Across Pennsylvania, other poll workers are facing the same dilemma as the primary election approaches. Poll workers have to decide whether to disregard pandemic best practices and commit to sitting in a polling place for an entire day, and county and state officials have to figure out ways to keep those workers and voters safe while not infringing on anyone’s rights.

Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission approves new voting system | Bill Dries/The Daily Memphian

Shelby County election commissioners approved a new voting system for Shelby County Thursday night, May 7, that will include machines with a paper audit trail. The 4-1 vote came at the end of a 4.5-hour special meeting that all five election commissioners attended in person at their operations center at Shelby County, along with staff, as an online audience watched and commented. On the advice of its attorneys, the election commission did not disclose the name of the vendor or the cost of their proposal. The attorneys and county purchasing officials said the commission couldn’t disclose any of the information until after it made its decision and a formal letter of intent was issued. It was one of three proposals made in the formal “request for proposal” process and the one that county elections administrator Linda Phillips recommended. The decision goes next to the Shelby County Commission, which will vote on appropriating the funding necessary to buy the machines. That is when the details of the proposal, including the name of the company and the price as well as the offers of competitors, are to become public. The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government has questioned whether the secrecy surrounding what the election commission voted on is a violation of the state’s open meetings law.

Vermont: Governor pushes back on mail-in ballot disagreement | Kit Norton and Grace Elletson/VTDigger

Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday he is not opposed to moving toward a mail-in voting system for the general election, but he would prefer not to make a decision now that will change how people vote in November. Scott’s remarks came a day after VTDigger reported on his reluctance to immediately support expanding the state’s mail-in voting system. “I had preferred not to do this through the media, but it appears that is no longer viable,” the governor said. The Republican governor said he has asked Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat, if the state could set up the infrastructure for expanding mail-in voting, but not decide what to do until after the Aug. 11 primary election. Condos has said that his proposal does not force any voter to cast a ballot by mail, but authorizes the Secretary of State’s office to send ballots to all active voters in Vermont, at which point the individual can decide if they would rather go to the polls or vote-by-mail.

Wisconsin: Madison logs over $100,000 in extra costs for April 7 pandemic election | Abigail Becker/The Capital Time

Madison spent an extra $108,000 to help voters cast ballots in the spring election as local officials statewide worked to secure supplies and cover sometimes heightened labor costs for contests held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s around 21% higher than the $504,000 originally budgeted for pulling off the April election, city finance director Dave Schmiedicke wrote in an email. Madison logged 56% turnout among absentee and in-person voters. But while Madison’s costs soared, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said the county’s expenses for setting up the elections were not as affected by the pandemic. Municipalities, which are responsible for mailing absentee ballots, faced the brunt of additional expenses like postage, staff time and safety equipment like Plexiglass shields.  “April expenses were not too out of line for the county as we were already planning on large turnout due to the Democratic primary,” McDonell said, noting the county ordered extra ballots. It’s still unclear how Madison’s figures compare to other large municipalities in the state, which saw increased requests for absentee ballots and, in some cases, large lines on Election Day as polling locations were consolidated amid staffing shortages and other concerns.

National: States Grapple With Germ-Ridden Voting Machines Amid Coronavirus | Gabriella Novello/WhoWhatWhy

Election officials have long dealt with faulty and vulnerable voting machines, but this year, they are also grappling with the risk of spreading a deadly virus to hundreds of thousands of individuals who will cast a ballot in person this November. While some states are beginning to make changes before the general election, a number of others will still require voters to use voting machines made with surfaces on which researchers say the coronavirus can linger for a number of days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has even taken the rare step of wading into the debate on US elections. For the first time ever, the agency laid out on its website a number of public health guidelines for cleaning election equipment. But it is unlikely that a majority of voters are aware that some products, such as standard alcohol wipes, should not be used to clean a potentially contaminated voting machine. Indeed, while alcohol wipes may give the voter a sense of safety, they actually can jeopardize the entire voting process.

National: States blast EAC for slow-walking voting standards | Derek B. Johnson/FCW

Officials at the Election Assistance Commission say they are eager to approve updated federal standards for the nation's voting machines that will introduce new technical and security requirements, but the agency faced harsh criticism from several state election officials at a May 6 public meeting for its sluggish pace. The federal government's voting system standards are voluntary, but most states require the machines they buy to comply with them. Virginia Elections Commissioner Christopher Piper called the current federal certification process "an obstacle to a more secure system" and griped that election officials have been waiting years for the newest version of the standards to work its way through the EAC approval process. "The process is not fast enough to adapt to the changing security environment or to address the accessibility needs of many voters," Piper said, later adding "The fact is the delay has proven to be a convenient excuse in all sectors not to update our voting systems."