National: Did we order enough envelopes? Vote-by-mail advocates worry time is running out to prepare | Kevin Collier/NBC

Some of the most ardent supporters of voting by mail have a warning: Time is running out to prepare for the November election. Officials who want to offer far more voters the option of mailing in their ballots are running out of time to make that option a reality, experts warned Wednesday during a livestreamed hearing hosted by the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency tasked with giving states guidance on how to effectively conduct their elections. Panelists cautioned that while voting by mail can be a safe and effective option for many Americans, preparations to do so take substantial investments of time and money, made more difficult by the fact that most election officials are working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Scanning machines, ballots and even envelopes can become roadblocks if states do act soon enough. “I’m one of the biggest advocates for vote-by-mail and absentee voting,” said Kim Wyman, the secretary of state of Washington state, which is widely regarded as a leader in transitioning to a full vote-by-mail system.

National: ‘We can’t afford to wait’: coronavirus could shut out droves of new US voters | Sam Levine/The Guardian

In a typical election year, canvassers across the country would be beginning to fan out on street corners, college campuses, concerts and rallies to pepper Americans with a simple question: “Are you registered to vote?” This early work is critical to campaigns trying to build a support base for election day. But this year, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it nearly impossible to register new voters. Limited voter registration is most likely to affect young people, minority groups, and naturalized immigrants, groups projected to contribute to record-high turnout in November. Freezing them out is likely to benefit Republicans, who tend to see a more diverse and younger electorate as a threat. In Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell faces a closely-watched Senate re-election battle in November, just 504 people registered in March as Covid-19 restrictions went in to effect. By comparison, more than 7,200 voters registered the month before. Meanwhile, more states are turning to vote-by-mail amid the pandemic, relying on voter registration rolls to send out election materials. Those unable to register might not get their applications, or ballots, in time.

Georgia: State may spend election relief money on drop boxes and safety gear | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia is slated to receive nearly $11 million in federal coronavirus relief funds for elections this year, money that could be used for protective gear, high-speed ballot scanners and absentee ballot drop boxes. Election officials are also planning to buy sanitation supplies and equipment that can quickly determine voter intent on absentee ballots that are in question, wrote Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a funding request letter to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. In addition, the state will reimburse counties for emergency election expenses.“Our team is putting voters first,” said Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs. “This funding will allow us to beef up security and delivery of absentee ballots, and provide a safer in-person voting experience for voters and poll workers alike.”The money comes from $2 trillion — including $400 million for elections — for coronavirus relief that was approved by Congress on March 26 and signed by President Donald Trump the next day. Georgia’s share of the federal money must be matched by $2.1 million in state funds, bringing its total election relief amount to about $13 million.The secretary of state’s office has already spent millions of dollars to encourage remote voting in the June 9 primary, sending absentee ballot request forms to Georgia’s 6.9 million active voters. That program costs over $3 million, plus between $1.88 and $2.38 per absentee ballot mailed, depending on the size of each ballot.

Georgia: Fulton County elections employee dies of COVID-19 before Georgia primary | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Fulton County elections employee has died from COVID-19 and a voter registration manager was hospitalized, slowing the county’s ability to handle a flood of absentee ballot requests for Georgia’s June 9 primary. Beverly Walker, a registration officer, died April 15 at age 62, said Fulton Elections Director Richard Barron.Registration Chief Ralph Jones also suffered coughing and shortness of breath, symptoms associated with COVID-19. Jones was treated at a hospital for low oxygen levels and was released after less than a day.The Fulton elections office closed for two days last week for deep cleaning and decontamination, Barron said.About 113,000 Fulton voters have submitted absentee ballot request forms so they can vote by mail, Barron said, but just 10,738 of them had been processed through Wednesday.“With this mortality rate, this is really nothing to play around with,” Barron said. “What are we going to do if a voter is in line that’s exhibiting symptoms? Are we allowed to use non-contact thermometers to take people’s temperature? Are we allowed to send someone home if they’re in line with a fever?” Barron said further guidance is needed to ensure the safety of voters and poll workers.

North Carolina: Elections officials work to prepare for voting during a pandemic, in the shadow of an election fraud scandal | Emily Featherston/WECT

This year was always going to be a challenging one for those working in North Carolina elections, as 2020 promises to bring massive turnout. With cases of the novel coronavirus continuing to climb the prospects of running a “normal” general election have flown out the window. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, says her agency is doing what it can to prepare. “We don’t know what the situation is going to be in November,” she said, specifically referencing the rate of infection. “So our job as election professionals, anytime, is to prepare for the worst case scenario, and so that’s what we’re doing.” In the short term, that means gearing up for two elections scheduled for June 23: a runoff in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, and a new Republican primary for Columbus County Commission District 2. Under normal circumstances those races would have been held in mid May, but Bell said they were pushed back after the NCSBE staff talked with state health and emergency officials.

North Dakota: All eligible voters to receive ballots by mail for June 9 primary | The Dickinson Press

North Dakota voters will be receiving their ballots by mail for the June 9 primary election, state officials announced Thursday, April 23. County commissions in all of the 53 counties have authorized vote by mail for the election as a measure to reduce the public’s risk of exposure to COVID-19, according to a release from the North Dakota Association of Counties. On March 26, Gov. Doug Burgum signed an executive order encouraging counties to use Vote by Mail for the June 9 election. The executive order suspends the requirement for counties to have at least one physical polling location. In response, every county has decided to administer the primary election by vote by mail only, and reservation counties have been working with tribal governments on the process, the release said.  No polling locations will be open for the primary election and all ballots will be issued through the mail.

Pennsylvania: A key Democratic group is suing to ease Pennsylvania’s vote-by-mail laws | Jonathan Tamari/Philadelphia Inquirer

A major Democratic political group is backing a new lawsuit aiming to make it easier to vote by mail in Pennsylvania because of the coronavirus crisis. The suit was filed Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans and funded by Priorities USA, the main super PAC supporting likely presidential nominee Joe Biden. The suit cites obstacles created by the pandemic — including health risks for voters and poll workers — as requiring expanded mail voting. … The lawsuit is part of a national fight around voting laws, one that has become increasingly critical as the coronavirus has disrupted elections. Both parties are scrambling to adapt for elections almost certain to rely heavily on mail-in voting. The Pennsylvania suit prominently cites the April 7 primary election fiasco in Wisconsin, where numerous polling places were closed, state officials were overwhelmed by a flood of mail-in ballot requests, and many ballots did not reach voters in time, leading to long lines at polling sites, despite a stay-at-home order.

West Virginia: Governor again urges in-person voting over mail-in absentee | Jeff Jenkins /WV MetroNews

State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Secretary of State Mac Warner issued a joint fraud alert Thursday in connection with the June 9 Primary Election while Gov. Jim Justice continued to encourage voters to choose in-person voting over mail-in absentee. Morrisey said the fraud alert is taking an additional step to protect voters. “We know that fraud occurs more frequently when we’re dealing with some of these mail-in absentee ballots,” Morrisey said. All voters in West Virginia have the option to request a mail-in absentee ballot because of the coronavirus pandemic. The voters have received postcards from the county clerks in their counties. Clerks will begin mailing ballots out next week. Gov. Justice used his daily media briefing Thursday to once again urge voters to choose to go to the polls in person on June 9.

National: Researchers discover how far-right coronavirus protest websites are organized | Jeff Stone/CyberScoop

More evidence that a group of conservative political activists is operating a network of websites meant to inflame pandemic-related tension in the U.S. and solicit donations has been uncovered by a Seattle-based cybersecurity company. Threat intelligence firm DomainTools released research Friday indicating that pro-gun activist Aaron Dorr appears to be using widely available software to operate dozens of websites, many of which include “reopen” in the URL. DomainTools researchers have conducted a technical examination of “reopen” sites — like “ReopenMN” and “ReopenWI” — to determine just how consolidated the sites are, despite the appearance that they exist as standalone entities. The sites are registered to local gun advocacy groups and utilize One Click Politics, a digital organizing service that allows a single person to manage dozens of websites, run email promotion and collect money. The network starts with Dorr’s personal website on top, at least 13 gun rights coalition groups on the next level down, and many dozens of state “reopen” sites beneath that, according to DomainTools. “All of the [domains] in our report are tied back to Dorr,” said senior security researcher Chad Anderson.

National: Coronavirus will necessitate recruitment effort unseen since World War II to staff voting booths, election official warns | Jon Ward/Yahoo News

States will face severe shortages of election workers for November’s presidential election and will need to find new ones because of the coronavirus, the top elections official in Washington state said Wednesday. “As a nation we are going to need to do the biggest recruitment effort, probably since World War II — in terms of personnel — to staff polling places and voting centers and election processing warehouses,” said Kim Wyman, Washington’s secretary of state. Wyman testified via teleconference during a meeting of the Election Assistance Commission, a federal government agency created in 2002. She told the commissioners that she expects her state and most others to lose a majority of their traditional poll workers, who tend to be older and therefore at greater risk of infection.  “Most of our seasonal workers come from people who are 65 and older, and we know that out of the gate we are going to lose between half and two-thirds of our workforce and we’re going to have to rebuild that nationally,” Wyman said.

National: The vote by mail fault lines that could define November’s election | Kendall Karson/ABC

The ongoing legal wrangling over voting rights and access, an issue that has become an undercurrent of the 2020 election, foreshadows some of the expected clashes to come ahead of November’s uncertain general election. The quarrels center on expanding mail voting as states adjust to the unprecedented coronavirus crisis, particularly in key battlegrounds that could tip the scales of the upcoming presidential contest. In states such as Georgia, Texas, Nevada and Florida, among others, state and party leaders are seeking to change the way people vote to avoid a similar fate as Wisconsin, where a series of emergency orders and legal challenges earlier this month culminated in thousands of voters risking their health to stand in long lines for hours to vote. Since Wisconsin’s election, state health officials said Tuesday that 19 people who have either voted in-person or worked at a polling site on election day have so far tested positive for COVID-19 after April 9, two days after the spring election — underscoring the potential risks of forging ahead with an in-person voting during the height of the widespread and deadly public health crisis.

California: Here’s why Los Angeles County plans in-person voting during coronavirus crisis while Riverside, Orange went all-mail | Ryan Carter/Los Angeles Daily News

On May 12, Los Angeles County voters will decide who replaces former Rep. Katie Hill for her remaining term in Congress. Despite countywide “stay at home” orders spurred by the coronavirus outbreak, nine polling places will be available for residents to register and cast their ballots in person. Meanwhile, Riverside County plans its own May 12 special election in the 28th Senate District, but it will be mail-only with no in-person balloting. And Orange County will stage a May 19 City Council recall election in Santa Ana. Initially, the registrar positioned it as a mostly mail vote. But since then, citing “risks to public health,” the Board of Supervisors decreed a mail-only election, canceling early in-person voting options that were set to begin on May 9. All three elections were decreed under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s March 20 executive order. Newsom’s office acknowledges the pandemic risk at polling stations and required that mail-in ballots be sent to all registered voters. But he also “authorized and encouraged” elections officials to give voters in-person options, if they can be made safe.

Florida: Mail voting expected to ‘explode’ in Florida as coronavirus reshapes 2020 elections | David Smiley/Miami Herald

In Florida, a state where the steady rise of mail voting has dramatically transformed the campaign season over the last 20 years, the novel coronavirus could fast-forward the evolution of elections. Elections offices in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — home to more than a quarter of Florida’s 13.2 million voters — are preparing to send vote-by-mail registration forms to every voter in those counties amid worries that the virus will disrupt in-person voting this summer and fall. Elections supervisors and political organizations around the state asked Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis weeks ago to provide flexibility under state law to help them administer the upcoming elections. They’re still waiting for an answer, and in the meantime are widely encouraging voting at home — even as President Donald Trump, a Florida resident, has called for restrictions. “My push for vote by mail isn’t political in any way,” said Wendy Sartory Link, elections supervisor in Palm Beach County, Trump’s home county. “It’s just safety. It’s a safety-driven measure.” But a significant spike in mail voting in the nation’s largest swing state could have political implications for the 2020 elections and affect campaigns for years to come by pushing a larger percentage of the vote into the weeks before Election Day.

Georgia: Lawsuit seeks another Georgia primary delay amid coronavirus | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal lawsuit is seeking emergency changes to Georgia’s June 9 primary election — including another postponement and a switch to hand-marked paper ballots — because of the health risk from the coronavirus. The lawsuit, filed Monday by an election integrity group and five voters, said Georgia’s new voting touchscreens could spread the illness to voters at precincts.Though unprecedented numbers of voters are expected to mail their ballots this election, in-person voting locations must remain open, according to state law. More than 586,000 voters had requested absentee ballots through Monday.A judge should delay Georgia’s primary by three weeks, abandon touchscreens, allow curbside voting, create mobile “pop up” early-voting locations, permit vote centers on election day and provide protective equipment to poll workers, the lawsuit said.

Indiana: Voting rights advocates call on Election Commission to provide more flexibility | Erica Irish/Goshen News

Indiana voting rights advocates joined an Indiana Election Commission meeting Wednesday to push for expanded flexibility in the upcoming state primary, which was moved to June 2 last month in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Julia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause Indiana, told the commission members at their third virtual Zoom meeting that while their decision to move the primary date and to expand absentee voting were positive first steps, Hoosiers need more options. “You are operating in unprecedented times, and you really need to be thinking creatively and in ways that you probably never envisioned having to think about in the administration of elections in Indiana,” Vaughn said. “It’s going to be a challenging election period for voters, for election administrators, for county-level officials.”

Louisiana: Emergency plan for delayed elections gains approval after this change | Sam Karlin/The Advocate

Two key Republican-led legislative committees and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards have agreed on an emergency plan for the delayed spring elections, after GOP lawmakers rolled back the number of reasons people could access mail-in ballots that were included in an initial plan debated last week. GOP lawmakers on the state Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, who balked at the original plan because they claimed the expansion of mail-in ballots would invite voter fraud into the elections, approved the revised plan unanimously Wednesday morning. The House and Governmental Affairs Committee later approved the plan on an 11-5 vote. It also needs the approval of the full House and Senate. The new plan, submitted by Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, reduces the number of reasons people can qualify for an absentee ballot out of concern for the coronavirus. Originally, the plan would have allowed absentee ballots for those 60 or older, those subject to a stay-at-home order, those unable to appear in public due to concern of exposure or transmission of COVID-19, or those caring for a child or grandchild whose school or child care provider is closed because of the virus.

Nevada: Conservative lawsuit seeks to stop mail-in primary | Colton Lochhead/Las Vegas Review-Journal

A conservative vote-monitoring group wants Nevada to scrap its plans to conduct a mail-in primary election in June, claiming it violates the U.S. Constitution and would open the state up to voter fraud. Attorneys for True the Vote filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday challenging Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s plans to shift to an all-mail primary amid coronavirus concerns. In its complaint, the group says the plan “strips vital anti-vote-fraud safeguards” that exist with in-person voting that “allow local poll workers and watchers to monitor who is voting and deny voting and issue challenges if appropriate.” Cegavske made the move to a mail primary because of increased risk and mitigation efforts regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of her plan includes opening up one in-person polling place in each county. In normal elections, voters would have to request an absentee ballot. The group says that eliminating that requesting process creates “fraud potential of having unrequested, perhaps unexpected ballots arriving around the state.” That could lead to ballots being ignored or left in a pile of letters, which “invites ballot fraud.”

Pennsylvania: Why some election officials oppose a mail-only primary: ‘Considerable potential for serious problems’ | Ivey DeJesus/Patriot-News

Pennsylvania last year expanded access to voting by mail. Gov. Tom Wolf signed a law giving voters the option to vote by mail without having to explain why they can’t cast a ballot in person. Now amid concerns over the highly contagious coronavirus pandemic, some of the state’s largest counties want the upcoming June 2 primary to be carried out exclusively via mail-in ballot. The idea is to do away with in-person voting, which could put poll workers as well as voters at risk of exposure to the coronavirus. More than 34,000 people in Pennsylvania have contracted the virus and more than 1,500 have died, according to the state Department of Health. The proposal already has support among some officials in Allegheny County as well as some of the hardest COVID-19-hit suburban Philadelphia counties, including Montgomery and Chester. But the proposal has engendered some opposition – particularly across central Pennsylvania.

South Carolina: Citing coronavirus, DCCC sues State to allow vote by mail | Emma Dumain/The State

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is leading a lawsuit against the South Carolina Election Commission to allow residents to vote by mail in elections through the end of the year amid fears that coronavirus-related social distancing mandates will still be in place in the coming months. The national party’s main fundraising apparatus for U.S. House candidates filed the suit Wednesday asking the state to expand absentee voting opportunities in advance of the scheduled June 9 primary and November general election. “Our leaders should be using every available tool to ensure South Carolina voters don’t have to choose between protecting their health and participating in our democracy,” DCCC chairwoman Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., said in a statement announcing the suit. “We’ll keep fighting to ensure voters can safely and freely participate in our democracy during this time of uncertainty.” Under current South Carolina law, all voters can request and cast absentee ballots. They must, however, have a specific excuse that adheres to a set of more than a dozen, established reasons for not being able to vote in person on Election Day.

Virginia: State Senate blocks Northam’s proposal to move May elections to November amid push for June alternative | Local News | Amy Friedenberger /Roanoke Times

Gov. Ralph Northam’s effort to move the May municipal elections to November failed late Wednesday after the state Senate rejected his recommendation. Northam wanted to postpone the May 5 elections to Nov. 3, along with the presidential and congressional contests, out of concern about people voting in person during the coronavirus pandemic. Most Democrats supported his proposal, but it gave Republicans and a few Democrats pause. Under Northam’s plan, absentee ballots that already have been cast would have been destroyed, and people would have to vote again in November. Elected officials’ with terms expiring June 30 would have seen those terms extended. The House of Delegates narrowly approved Northam’s recommendation 47-45, but the Senate declined to take up the proposal. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats. Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, who opposed Northam’s recommendation, said he was preparing legislation that he’d like to be considered in a special session. He would have proposed the May elections be moved to June 16 and that the party primary scheduled for June 9 be delayed to July 28.

West Virginia: Legislators call for mail-only voting for primary election, Warner says current options are safe | Lacie Pierson/Charleston Gazette-Mail

West Virginia Democratic legislators are asking Gov. Jim Justice and Secretary of State Mac Warner to go one step further in making voting accessible amid the worldwide coronavirus pandemic during the 2020 election cycle. A group of legislators on Wednesday sent out a news release asking Gov. Jim Justice to declare the state’s June 9 Primary Election a vote-by-mail-only election, as opposed to the current situation that allows all eligible West Virginia voters the option to vote absentee through the mail. In response to the call-out from the legislators, Secretary of State Mac Warner said he was not an advocate for West Virginia becoming a vote-by-mail-only state, and he wouldn’t implement such a system unless the state Legislature passed a law requiring him to do so. The legislators’ news release didn’t have exact details about how mail-only voting would work other than making it so voters wouldn’t have to physically go to a polling place to cast their vote.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee Council votes to mail absentee ballot applications | Alison Dirr/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Common Council voted unanimously Tuesday to create a program under which all of the city’s approximately 300,000 registered voters would receive an application for an absentee ballot in the mail.      

The “SafeVote” program also provides voters with a postage-paid return envelope so they can participate in the fall election. The measure was proposed by new Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic and passed at her first meeting on the Common Council. The resolution notes thousands of people turned out to vote in person earlier this month in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic that has caused government officials to limit the number of people who can gather under other circumstances. In Milwaukee, some residents reported waiting in line for more than two hours to cast their ballots at the city’s five in-person polling locations.

Wisconsin: ‘They should have done something’: Broad failures fueled Wisconsin’s absentee ballot crisis, investigation shows | By Daphne Chen, Catharina Felke, Elizabeth Mulvey and Stephen Stirling(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In Lodi and Pewaukee, voters were told the system for requesting absentee ballots crashed. In Marshfield, Shorewood and Bristol, voters threw up their hands after spending hours in front of computers trying to request a ballot. In Milwaukee and Green Bay, dozens of couples said one member of their household received a ballot while the other didn’t. “Nobody cared,” said Brenda Lewis, a 61-year-old Delafield resident who said her local clerk could find no record of her or her husband ever requesting an absentee ballot, even though both of them had. “They should have done something, some sort of public service (announcement), something, just something,” Lewis said. “But nobody did.” An investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the PBS series FRONTLINE and Columbia Journalism Investigations into Wisconsin’s missing ballot crisis reveals a system leaking from all sides, buckling under the weight of a global pandemic and partisan bickering that kept the logistics of Election Day up in the air until less than a day before polls opened. Inadequate computer systems, overwhelmed clerks and misleading ballot information hampered Wisconsin’s historic — and historically troubling — spring election.

National: Coronavirus displaced millions of college students, who worry how they’re going to vote | Rebecca Morin/USA Today

Ashee Groce doesn’t know if she’ll be able to vote in Georgia’s primary. Groce, 21, attends Spelman College in Atlanta but is from California and staying in South Carolina with a friend after her school closed for the the semester during the coronavirus pandemic. California voted when Groce was in Atlanta. Georgia was supposed to vote March 24 but pushed back its primary until June 9, and Groce doesn’t know if she will be able to get an absentee ballot sent to South Carolina. She didn’t return to California amid the pandemic, because she has family there who are immunocompromised. “Me and a lot of my peers are afraid,” Groce said. “I just feel like a lot of people who look like me and who are in similar situations that I’m in aren’t going to be counted, and that’s just a very big disappointment.” Many young voters’ lives have been upended after universities and colleges closed campuses and moved to online classes. As a result, millions of students have left their college housing and headed home to different cities and, in some cases, different states. More than 4,000 colleges and universities have closed or been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, affecting more than 25 million students, according to Entangled Solutions, an education consultant group.

National: The 2020 Elections: Is America Ready to Vote by Mail? | Carl Smith/Governing

The 2020 general election was never going to be calm, but the COVID-19 pandemic has brought worst-case scenarios out of the shadows and into the forefront of planning. That means secretaries of state, election officials, legislators, lawyers, voters rights groups and other stakeholders are gathering strategies and resources to safeguard both public health and democracy. “It’s a given that the election in November will be different than ones we’ve held in the past,” said Wendy Underhill, director of the Elections and Redistricting program for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “States can scale up their existing processes, or they can adopt new processes with the expectation of more mail-in ballots and fewer in-person voters.” “We’ve got to reduce the number of people who have to show up in person to vote, and the only way to do that is vote by mail,” said Chad Dunn, director of litigation for the UCLA Voting Rights Project and a co-author of its election policy recommendations. “We’ve got to flatten the curve,” “As election officials, we shouldn’t ignore the message that voters are sending,” said Neal Kelley, the registrar of voters for Orange County, Calif., the country’s fifth-largest voting jurisdiction. “This country has been using widespread absentee voting since the Civil War.”

National: NAACP, others: in-person voting still needed during coronavirus pandemic | Joey Garrison /USA Today

As calls mount to expand vote-by-mail options for state primaries and the November election, advocacy groups have a warning: Don’t reduce or eliminate in-person voting in the process. In a joint publication released Monday, the NAACP and the liberal Center for American Progress say curbing or entirely cutting in-person options because of the coronavirus pandemic would “inadvertently disenfranchise” African American, disabled, American Indian and other voters who rely on same-day voter registration. “To prevent the disenfranchisement of American citizens, any expansion of vote by mail must include preservation of in-person voting options for people who need them,” the groups said in the report. Their message comes as several states are working to expand vote-by-mail in case citizens are still advised to avoid public places in November because of the coronavirus. Democrats, including presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former first lady Michelle Obama, have made vote-by-mail a rallying cry while President Donald Trump opposes changes.

Editorials: The Simplest Way to Avoid a Wisconsin-Style Fiasco on Election Day | Edward B. Foley and Steven Huefner/Politico

The fiasco surrounding Wisconsin’s April 7 primary election is still fresh: In the middle of a viral pandemic, crowded, in-person voting took place despite the governor’s stay-at-home order, while tens of thousands of voters did not receive absentee ballots in time to cast eligible votes by mail. Two election eve judicial decisions added to the confusion. Unfortunately, the November elections are at risk of looking similar. With coronavirus likely to remain a threat for months, some form of voting by mail, including in states historically unfamiliar with high rates of absentee voting, will be a public health necessity. But one issue with mail-in ballots, whether a state uses them just for absentee voters or for the entire election, is that they need to be postmarked or delivered to a polling station no later than Election Day. If local election offices can’t handle the increased demand for absentee ballots and voters don’t receive their ballots in time to cast them by Election Day, those voters are disenfranchised. And that, in turn, could lead to heated, possibly prolonged disputes about election outcomes. But there’s a fairly straightforward way Wisconsin could have avoided its mess—and the rest of the country could do so in the fall. In fact, this solution already exists, albeit in a limited context.

Georgia: Voting in Primaries Could Look Much Different Amid Pandemic | Emil Moffatt/WABE

Thousands of absentee ballots for Georgia’s June primary elections are set to be mailed out on Tuesday. Early voting locations will re-open their doors in less than a month in advance of Election Day, June 9. It’s all set against the backdrop of the coronavirus, which has already wrought havoc this spring on voting in the state, delaying the state’s primaries not once, but twice. “Historically in Georgia, we are a people that enjoy voting in person, about 95% usually,” said Gabe Sterling, Chief Operating Officer with Georgia’s secretary of state’s office. But with concerns over the spread of the coronavirus, Georgians have flooded county elections offices with absentee ballot applications. As of Sunday, some 526,000 applications had been received. Georgia has had “no-excuse” absentee voting since 2005, but voters have used it relatively sparingly. But after the March 24 presidential primary was pushed back, the secretary of state’s office began a push to get more people to vote by mail by mailing absentee applications to all 6.9 million registered voters.

Missouri: ACLU Explains Its Lawsuit To Force Vote-By-Mail Option | Sarah Fenske/St. Louis Public Radio

In Missouri, you may only vote by mail if you apply for an absentee ballot — and cite one of just six specific reasons detailed in state law. Among them are illness or disability, or the fact you’ll be traveling out of the area. “Fear of contracting COVID-19” is not listed among them. But the ACLU of Missouri believes that should, in fact, be sufficient cause to cast an absentee ballot. Working in concert with the Missouri Voter Coalition, the organization filed a class-action lawsuit last Friday against the state of Missouri, the Missouri Secretary of State and a few local boards of election. It argues that the “illness or disability” clause in state law should include those staying at home to avoid the coronavirus, since it specifically mentions “confinement due to illness” as a qualifier.