National

Democrats are pushing hard to include a huge expansion of voting by mail in a mammoth coronavirus stimulus bill being crafted on Capitol Hill, arguing the nation is ill prepared to ensure the November contest is conducted safely and securely. If the virus is still active on Election Day, they worry that could devastate turnout, leading to widespread doubt the outcome reflects the will of the people and damaging faith in the electoral process even more than potential Russian hacking and disinformation. Concerns are rising as seven states have already delayed their presidential primaries because of worries about the health of voters and elderly poll workers. But, as with the fight against Russian election interference, the move to allow states to hold elections by mail is sparking an ideological battle between Democrats who want to require that states dramatically increase such capabilities and Republicans who consider such top-down mandates government overreach. The battle over election funding is just one of many sticking points holding up the unprecedented $1.8 trillion rescue package as lawmakers scramble to respond to the pandemic. Senate Democrats blocked a vote on the bill last night out of concern it tilted too far in favor of businesses and lawmakers will be negotiating again this morning. The price tag for a nationwide vote-by-mail system would likely land between $982 million and $1.4 billion, according to a Brennan Center for Justice analysis. The center estimated it would cost about $2 billion to also make other election improvements such as expanding early voting, maintaining safe in-person voting and making online voter registration easier.

National: Senators urge Congress to include election funds in coronavirus stimulus | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Chris Coons (Del.) urged the leaders of the House and Senate on Friday to include election security funding in an upcoming coronavirus funding package. “As Congress prepares additional legislation to protect the American people from COVID-19 and provide financial relief, we also must protect our elections,” Klobuchar and Coons wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). “Americans are facing unprecedented disruptions to their daily lives, and we need to make sure that in the midst of this pandemic people do not lose their ability to vote,” the senators emphasized. Klobuchar, the lead Democrat on the elections-focused Senate Rules Committee, and Coons highlighted a report released by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice that called on Congress to appropriate around $2 billion to states to allow the November elections to go forward following the coronavirus pandemic.

National: States Begin Prep for Mail-In Voting in Presidential Election | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

States have begun reshaping election policies to expand access to mail-in voting. Election officials in states with restrictive absentee requirements are looking for ways to allow as many voters as possible to use absentee ballots, a safer alternative to in-person voting in a global pandemic. If this crisis continues into November, however, some experts warn that a pivot to voting by mail could strain state resources and disenfranchise certain voters if not handled properly. U.S. elections have been in flux since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland and Ohio all delayed their Democratic primaries. New York officials also are considering delaying that state’s April 28 primary. But many states are taking their responses to COVID-19 further. Voting by mail looks different in each state. While most states allow all voters to cast a mail-in ballot, 17 states restrict absentee voting to people who have disabilities, who are ill or who would be out of town on Election Day.

National: Coronavirus Spurs Vote-By-Mail Push, But Barriers Remain | Carrie Levine, Center for Public Integrity/Time

The coronavirus pandemic has already prompted state after state to delay their primary elections, including a chaotic last-minute scramble in Ohio last week and depressed turnout in states that went ahead. The disruptions are prompting widespread calls for expansion of absentee ballot and vote-by-mail options before the November election. But there are no magic fixes in a country where the rules governing elections make up a confusing patchwork from state to state. Expanding universal vote-by-mail options for November’s election will require either the passage of federal legislation or a series of changes to state laws, especially in the states that now require an excuse for absentee ballots. On March 18, U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, both Democrats, introduced legislation requiring, among other things, 20 days of early in-person voting, as well as no-excuse vote-by-mail options in every state. The federal government would reimburse states for the costs of putting the measures in place, though the bill doesn’t specify an amount and the tab could be high. Money and momentum matters, though states would still quickly have to make a series of decisions governing how such ballots would make their way into voters’ hands and be returned, handled and counted securely; the deadline to return ballots to be counted; as well as how to verify them and give voters the chance to address problems — questions different states answer in different ways.

National: The Lessons of the Elections of 1918 | Dionne Searcey/The New York Times

Across the country, citizens were ordered to hunker in their homes to avoid catching a deadly virus even as some people thought it was nothing worse than a seasonal cold. In the midst of fear and sickness, politicians had to decide how to hold scheduled elections, and the global pandemic was subject to political spin. The year was 1918 when a deadly flu outbreak gripped the nation, infecting about a third of the world’s population and killing 675,000 people in the United States alone. That crisis, which was known as the Spanish flu, took place in a completely different time technologically and politically. But the reaction then, where local governments took charge and made decisions on how to proceed with voting, offer some guidance for the situation today as the pandemic arrives in a federal election year. In the 1918 election — midterm contests, where President Woodrow Wilson’s Democratic Party was fighting to keep control of Congress — keeping polling places open was a patchwork of decisions by local officials. “Everything became this kind of wheeler-dealer hustle,” said Kristin Watkins, an expert in pandemics and director of grants at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs whose studies involved reviewing 1918 elections.

National: Nationwide changes needed to make election coronavirus-ready could cost $2 billion: study | Marty Johnson/The Hill

Costs for the federal government to make it safe for voters to participate in the general election could add up to $2 billion, should the coronavirus still be a concern in November, a new study by an independent think tank shows. The study, which was conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice, outlines several sweeping nationwide changes to the current voting system such as universal mail-in voting, easier online voter registration and more. According to study, the process of mailing and receiving ballots would cost between $413 million and $593 million alone. For example, costs would be incurred in many states from ballot box construction — a place where voters could go and drop off their mail-in ballots. At least four states — California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — already have drop-off ballot boxes. Another big chunk of the cost — approximately $270 million — would go to maintaining and bolstering in-person polling places.

National: HBO’s ‘Kill Chain’ reveals scary reality: U.S. voting system under attack | Nadine Matthews/New York Amsterdam News

Is America’s voting process broken? Recent developments aren’t encouraging. For instance, in May of 2019 Sen. Kamala Harris along with twelve other senators, introduced the Protecting American Votes and Elections (PAVE) Act in the senate. It sought to mandate that states secure elections by use of a paper ballot and new cybersecurity standards for federal elections. Republicans, though, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have proven to be better at blocking bills than Hakeem Olajuwon was at blocking shots; the PAVE Act was just one of five election security bills Republicans didn’t even allow to come to the floor. They also give no indication of allowing any such bill to the floor, even in the face of reports by U.S. Intelligence just last month that Russia is currently attempting to interfere with the 2020 elections. Harris and the other senators introduced the act after reports, from both Former FBI Head and Special Counsel Robert Mueller and members of the nation’s intelligence apparatus, found that Russia had, in fact, tried to influence the 2016 elections via electronic means, and continues to do so daily.

National: ‘We Need To Go To Paper Ballots’: Director Sarah Teale Talks 2020 Presidential Election Ahead Of HBO Doc ‘Kill Chain’ | CBS

The 2020 presidential election is less than eight months away and there are still major concerns about the country’s election technology. A new documentary from HBO called “Kill Chain: The Cyber War On America’s Elections” follows hacker and cyber security expert Harri Hursti as he travels around the world to expose the issues with America’s voting system. Director Sarah Teale has been following this issue since the mid 2000s and not much has changed since her first documentary “Hacking Democracy.” “We did the first film in 2005 and it came out in 2006. It got nominated for an Emmy and thought it would institute and awful lot of change and nothing changed,” said Teale in an interview with CBS Local’s DJ Sixsmith. “In 2016, here we were facing attacks from outside the US, which was very scary, and still wide open. Coronavirus presents its own particular challenge because potentially for the primaries, people are not going to be able to go to their local precinct. In a way, it’s quite good because it would lead to paper mail in ballots.”

National: Everything to know about states moving and changing their primaries over coronavirus | Zach Montellaro/Politico

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown America’s electoral system into shock, prompting officials in six states so far to move presidential primaries as the federal government urges people not to gather in large groups. Connecticut became the latest state to push back its vote on Thursday, and even more states are considering delays. Meanwhile, election officials are also gaming out the changes they can make to voting systems to allow Americans to participate in elections while keeping themselves safe and preventing the spread of the virus. Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has urged states not to postpone their primaries and instead embrace expanded voting by mail. But Perez has little authority over how individual states conduct their elections. 23 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and other territories have yet to vote in the presidential contest, and we are tracking developments in every one as the calendar shifts and states puzzle through when — and how — people can vote. Here’s what has happened so far in all the states that were scheduled to vote from mid-March through the end of April.

National: Coronavirus threatens the November election, can vote by mail save it? | Evan Halper/Los Angeles Times

As states scramble to postpone presidential primaries, election workers abandon their posts, and voters worry about the risk of contagion in crowded polling places, the question of how the nation is going to pull off a general election in November has generated increasing anxiety. Some states are much better prepared than others. In a significant swath of the nation, however, most voters still lack the one viable option for casting ballots that doesn’t put their health at risk in a time of pandemic: voting by mail. Now the decades-long push by advocates and many lawmakers to make that alternative universally available has gained new momentum amid a public health crisis. Backers are racing to overcome longstanding political barriers so that states that have resisted can start confronting the huge logistical challenges involved in a quick shift away from in-person voting. “Ohio, Louisiana, Georgia and other states are showing that without vote-by-mail, states might not be able to hold elections at all,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said in an email, referring to states that have postponed scheduled primaries. He and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are rallying colleagues behind their bill that would require all states to allow citizens to vote absentee. “I understand that standing up a new election system will be a heavy lift, but in the face of this pandemic, vote by mail is the best choice we have to keep our democracy running,” Wyden said.

National: Coronavirus pandemic makes U.S. more vulnerable to serious cyberattack, lawmakers warn | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

The United States is increasingly vulnerable to a cyberattack targeting hospitals, food supplies or other vital functions during the coronavirus pandemic, lawmakers and experts say. They’re calling on the Trump administration to take bold action to keep adversaries at bay. Already during the outbreak, unidentified adversaries launched what appears to be an unsuccessful digital attack aimed at overwhelming computer networks at the Health and Human Services Department. A separate effort spread misleading claims that President Trump planned to impose a nationwide lockdown over text message, encrypted apps and social media platforms. “There are actors out there in cyberspace that think we’re vulnerable,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R- Wis.), who co-chaired the recent Cyber Solarium Commission on the future of U.S. cybersecurity, told me. “At a minimum, we need to impose costs on whoever did this. We don’t want the signal to be that now is a good time to take advantage of the U.S.” The pandemic has heightened concerns among cyber hawks that the United States hasn’t done enough to deter digital attacks from adversaries such as Russia and China. And they worry a lack of serious consequences now could embolden adversaries to target vital services such as medical care or food supplies and cost people’s lives.

National: Coronavirus contingency plans may also pose election security challenges | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Coronavirus is dealing election officials across the country a serious curveball even as they strain to keep the 2020 contests secure against another threat: Russian hacking. Officials are now forced to contemplate contingency plans to potentially overhaul their voting systems so Americans can still cast their ballots in a pandemic – and still ensure the process is secure. “Cybersecurity of elections is still a very real concern, so we have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told me. “We need to make big changes to ensure everyone can vote safely while we still have our eyes on the issue of cybersecurity.” One major option surfacing now is surging vote-by-mail programs so citizens can avoid the polls. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called for states to shift to widespread mail-in voting “wherever practicable” on MSNBC last night. “That’s how you can solve the problem,” he said. But this route could create security problems of its own, election experts warned — especially if it’s implemented in a tight time frame. For example, officials would have to put safeguards in place to ensure mailed-in ballots are secure throughout their journey to election offices and to prevent U.S. adversaries or those seeking to tamper with the vote from sending in phony ballots to sow confusion. They’d also have to guard against misinformation related to the vote-by-mail process and figure out how to deliver ballots to people without street addresses. There’s also a heightened concern about people coercing friends and family members to vote for particular candidates with write-in ballots because the voters aren’t entering a private booth or cubicle to cast their votes.

National: Voting by Mail Is the Hot New Idea. Is There Time to Make It Work? | Nick Corasaniti and Stephanie Saul/The New York Times

In Wisconsin, Democrats sued elections officials to extend voting deadlines. In Rhode Island, the secretary of state wants all 788,000 registered voters to receive absentee ballot applications. In Maryland, a special election to replace the late Representative Elijah E. Cummings will be conducted entirely by mail. As the coronavirus outbreak upends daily life and tears at the social fabric of the country, states are rapidly searching for ways to protect the most sacred institution in a democracy: voting. With gatherings of people suddenly presenting an imminent health threat, state officials and voting rights activists have begun calling for an enormous expansion of voting by mail — for both the remaining Democratic presidential primary race and, planning for the worst-case scenario, the general election in November.

National: Senators Klobuchar and Wyden introduce bill to promote mail-in voting amid coronavirus crisis | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A group of Democratic senators led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation on Wednesday to promote mail-in and early voting to decrease the spread of the coronavirus. The Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act (NDEBA) would ensure voters have 20 days of early voting in all states, require that all mail-in ballots submitted during 21 days leading to an election be counted, and ensure that all voters have the option to request absentee ballots. The legislation would also provide $3 million to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to begin implementing some of the bill’s requirements, along with reimbursing states for doing the same. Both Klobuchar and Wyden pointed to recently delayed primaries in Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, and Maryland because of coronavirus fears in emphasizing the need to utilize mail-in ballots. In-person voting dropped in Florida, Arizona and Illinois on Tuesday, when the states held their primaries.

National: States urged to clarify election procedures during pandemic | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

As the ongoing coronavirus pandemic scrambles how states will administer long-scheduled elections for presidential primaries and local races, one election-security expert says that officials need to do a better job of clarifying who has the authority to reschedule or change the formats of upcoming votes. “Things voters deserve to have is a clear set of authorities, a clear set of guidelines,” said Chris DeLuzio of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security. Already, five states — Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Maryland — have delayed their primary elections from March and April until June, amid fears that drawing people out to polling places could sully efforts to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes. In four of the states, governors or secretaries of state had the authority to delay elections. In Ohio, which was scheduled to hold its primary Tuesday, the vote was only called off at the last minute when the state health director ordered polling places closed, after a judge rejected a lawsuit by Gov. Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose to push the election back. “Ohio’s a cautionary tale,” DeLuzio told StateScoop. Clearly identifying who can order an election to be rescheduled, he added, “should be memorialized in the election code so there’s never a question whether something can be properly done.”

National: Coronavirus has already disrupted the election. Some states are looking to vote by mail as a solution. | Kevin Collier/NBC

As the coronavirus leaves voters fearing polling places, states that don’t already allow everyone to mail their ballot are trying to figure out how to do so. Federal law requires that states provide some sort of means for members of the military and citizens abroad to cast their votes. While a majority of states also offer “no excuse” absentee ballots, meaning anyone can request one, more than a dozen do not. In most cases, the state’s chief election official doesn’t have the power to single-handedly implement voting by mail, and even if they could, that means a new host of logistical hurdles. “We’re looking at all of our options right now,” one Texas state official, who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly, said on the condition of anonymity. “We don’t know what exactly we’re going to end up doing. There’s the legal end of it, which you’ve got the governor’s disaster declaration that helps, and we’ve got to figure out where that ends and a court order begins.” “The realistic problem is infrastructure,” the official said. “The counties just aren’t set for big volumes of voting by mail.”

National: Nationwide drive to safeguard voting intensifies as coronavirus spreads | Isaac Stanley-Becker and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Elections officials and party leaders faced deepening dilemmas on Wednesday about how to carry out the most fundamental democratic exercise — voting — in the face of the spread of the novel coronavirus. Additional states delayed contests scheduled for the spring, while Democratic Party leaders stepped up their calls for states to adopt emergency measures to ensure access to the polls as officials pushed to limit the size of public gatherings. The Democratic National Committee and the Wisconsin Democratic Party sought a solution in federal court, suing Wisconsin elections commissioners to get an emergency judgment extending Wednesday’s deadline to register to vote electronically and by mail and lifting requirements that absentee ballots be received by Election Day. The national party is confronting vexing questions about its projected timeline for concluding the presidential nominating contest and putting forward a candidate at its July convention. While former vice president Joe Biden extended his dominant lead with wins in Tuesday’s three primary races, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declined to bow out of the race immediately. The effort to develop voting contingencies took on new urgency as the three contests that unfolded on Tuesday showcased what experts described as unprecedented challenges involved in conducting in-person voting during a public-health emergency.

National: Elections amid coronavirus: How officials aim to keep voters safe | Alfred Ng/CNET

The coronavirus outbreak has put much of the US out of service, shutting down schools, stores and sports events for the foreseeable future. With several crucial primaries coming up in the US presidential race, election officials need to figure out how to get the vote out while handling a public health crisis. On Monday, we got a sign of just how fluid the situation is, as Ohio planned to postpone its primary, a day ahead of scheduled voting. Three other states — Arizona, Florida and Illinois — are forging ahead with their primaries Tuesday. It was just on Friday that election officials for those states issued a group statement saying they planned to keep the primaries going, despite the outbreak. Several of those states are considered battleground states for the presidency. “They voted during the Civil War. We’re going to vote,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a press conference Friday. That was two days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday urged against gatherings of more than 50 people throughout the next eight weeks. Then on Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump advised against gatherings of more than 10 people. At around the same time, Ohio Gov.Mike DeWine announced that he planned to postpone the state’s primary to June 2.

National: These 2020 primary voters face extra hurdles in pandemic | Patricia Beall and Mark Nichols/USA Today

Terriayna Spillman, 19, has been waiting to vote for a presidential candidate since she was in elementary school. The day after Tuesday primaries, the African-American college student is still waiting. In Florida and Ohio, poll closures and other disruptions prompted by coronavirus threatened certain voting groups more than others, according to interviews and data analysis by USA Today. Among those most at risk: young voters, senior citizens, minorities and people in low income communities. In Florida, precincts inside assisted living facilities were closed by the dozens, affecting both older residents and nearby voters who cast ballots there. As the state’s colleges emptied, students registered in the county where they live nine months of the year while attending school were sent home to other counties or states without voting. “I watched my mom, my grandparents, when Obama was running and went to his rallies,” said Spillman from her family’s Lake County, Florida home. “I could not wait until it was my turn.”

National: Coronavirus Putting US Cyber Vulnerabilities in the Crosshairs | Jeff Seldin/Voice of America

The race to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the United States is placing an unprecedented burden on the country’s cyber infrastructure, potentially making it as vulnerable as it has ever been. At issue are the U.S. government agencies, thousands of businesses and millions of Americans, who suddenly have been forced to telework and rely on the security of their internet connections and good cyber hygiene, to keep businesses and services running. The result, some officials warn, is an opening for anyone who would like to strike a virtual blow. “We’re mindful that our adversaries often see opportunity in situations like these,” a U.S. official told VOA on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the subject. Both the FBI and private cybersecurity firms warn the assault is already well underway. “We’re seeing a significant amount of threat in email, leveraging social engineering at scale to do a variety of attacks,” said Sherrod DeGrippo, senior director of threat research and detection at Proofpoint. Some of the emails are designed to look like they are coming from legitimate agencies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO), using fear of the coronavirus to get a recipient to click on a malicious attachment or link.

National: Facing coronavirus pandemic, US confronts cyberattacks | ABC

The United States, already dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, is also being targeted for cyberattacks and foreign disinformation campaigns, as federal officials feared. Multiple sources confirmed to ABC News in recent days that both the efforts that slowed computer systems at the Health and Human Services Department Sunday night and the weekend rash of bogus text messages warning a national quarantine is imminent were the products of foreign actors or components of foreign governments or entities connected to them. “We are seeing multiple disinformation campaigns right now,” said one federal official briefed on the situation. The two types of cyber incidents are different, but both are aimed at sowing panic in the American population and feeding distrust in government, according to intelligence officials. Federal officials said the two most likely perpetrators are Russia and China, two nations with the sophistication, skill and desire to carry out such campaigns against the U.S. In the case of the HHS incident, officials said outsiders deployed automated users — called bots — to target the public-facing computer system. A source familiar with the investigation into the incident told ABC News that it is thought to be either a widespread campaign to scan HHS systems for vulnerabilities, or possibly a “clumsy” attempt to paralyze public online systems with a flood of visitors, something called distributed denial of service, or DDOS.

National: Poll Workers Didn’t Show Up at Some Primary Election Precincts on Tuesday Because of COVID-19 Concerns, Limiting People’s Ability to Vote | Madeleine Carlisle/Time

When Julie Snyder of Delray Beach, Fla., first tried to cast her vote Tuesday in the Democratic presidential primary, she was unable to do so because one of the election supervisors had not arrived to her polling location at the city’s Emmanuel Catholic Church. “I’m just really frustrated. I don’t know what to do,” the 59-year-old told TIME on Tuesday morning, adding that while she waited for the election worker to arrive she saw multiple other people try to vote and leave. Snyder says she had wrestled with whether to vote on Tuesday at all, after self-isolating for over a week, but decided that she had to because this election is too crucial “given what is going on in this world.” She says she was able to vote later that day once a neighbor texted her that the location had opened. Three states — Florida, Arizona and Illinois — held their presidential primaries on Tuesday amid the coronavirus pandemic; in all three, poll workers did not show up to some locations, making it difficult for many to vote. (The states had added extra precautions, such as sending cleaning supplies and gloves, to help protect the health of voters and workers.) In Ohio, which was also scheduled to hold its primary on Tuesday, officials canceled voting and declared a public health emergency mere hours before polls were meant to open.

National: Why vote-by-mail may not save our elections from the virus’ disruption | Kim Zetter/Politico

The spreading coronavirus is starting to create a difficult choice for the nation’s election supervisors: force people to keep voting in person, despite the risk of contagion, or rush into a vast expansion of voting by mail. Already, the pandemic has forced Louisiana, Georgia, Maryland, Kentucky and Ohio to postpone their presidential primaries until later in the spring, while reportedly contributing to lower than average turnout in Tuesday’s primaries in Illinois and Florida. It has also inspired some lawmakers and activists to call for much broader use of mail-in voting, a way for Americans to cast their ballots despite the lockdowns, quarantines and limitations on crowds taking hold across the country. But some election experts warn that an abrupt adoption of vote-by-mail systems in states that aren’t sufficiently prepared would introduce new risks and avenues for disruption. The results, they say, could bring widespread confusion or even disenfranchise voters. “Rolling something as complex as this out at large-scale introduces thousands of small problems — some of which are security problems, some of which are reliability problems, some of which are resource-management problems — that only become apparent when you do it,” said Matt Blaze, an election security expert and computer science professor at Georgetown Law School. “Which is why changing anything right before a high-stakes election carries risks.”

National: Illinois Stumbles as States See Light Voter Turnout, With Many Ballots in the Mail | Nick Corasaniti, Stephanie Saul, Matt Stevens and Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

Voting in major cities in Illinois was rife with confusion on Tuesday and early turnout in many areas was significantly lower than expected, leading to complaints from poll workers and clashes between Chicago officials and the statehouse. Illinois is one of three states that went ahead with their Democratic presidential primaries on Tuesday amid fears about people gathering in groups and risking exposure to the coronavirus. In Florida, relocated polling sites led to disruption and low turnout was reported in some counties, while voting in others was running smoothly. Arizona, where a vast majority of voters had cast their ballots early, was reporting no major issues. Elections officials in all three states hoped that any drop-off in turnout would be partially offset by early voting and the vote-by-mail ballots that many Democrats filed in the weeks leading up to Tuesday. Ohio also had a presidential primary scheduled, but Gov. Mike DeWine postponed it through a flurry of legal actions and declarations on Monday night, recommending that it be pushed to June 2. Voters who weren’t aware of the late-night decision by the governor and the state’s top health official were greeted Tuesday morning with closed doors and statements taped to windows saying the primary had been postponed.

National: Coronavirus wreaks havoc on Tuesday primaries | Natasha Korecki/Politico

Voters practiced social distancing with the election on Tuesday – by staying away from the polls. Early signs of low turnout in Illinois and Florida offered another sobering reminder of how the coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on the election year. In Ohio, a wild day of pronouncements from elected officials and legal challenges ended in the last-minute postponement of the state’s primary. Tensions also flared in other states as officials faced a backlash over decisions to forge ahead with their elections. In Illinois, the number of people who showed up to vote early in the day in Chicago was below even the pace of mayoral contests, which are typically low-turnout affairs, according to an election official. Statewide numbers were also expected to come in low. Turnout likewise looked skimpy in Florida, according to anecdotal reports. Steve Vancore, a spokesman for Broward County elections, said turnout so far has been light in the South Florida county that has been one of the hot spots for the virus in the state.

National: A Primary? In a Pandemic? Voting is the opposite of social distancing. But Americans in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois are still heading to the polls | Elaine Godfrey/The Atlantic

Americans are supposed to be avoiding one another right now. But they’re still convening at the polls. Hundreds of thousands—maybe even millions—of voters in Arizona, Illinois, and Florida today will grasp the same door handles, drag their fingers across the same touch-screen voting machines, and wait in long lines with dozens of other people as they participate in the next series of primary contests. All three of these states have reported multiple cases of the coronavirus, making the elections today a major health risk, says Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “When you bring people together in close proximity for extended periods of time, that is where you see explosions of disease,” she told me. “It’s tough to stay apart when you’re standing in a line” to vote. The threat of the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, is likely to compound some of the problems already plaguing America’s election systems: Coronavirus fears could lead to depressed turnout, longer lines, and general confusion for voters on Election Day, experts worry. “This is building up to a level that it could clearly cause real problems,” warns David Pepper, the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. And if states don’t start planning now, the virus could impede the general election too.

National: Facing coronavirus pandemic, US confronts cyberattacks | Ali Dukakis, James Gordon Meek, Mike Levine, Luke Barr and Josh Margolin/ABC