Editorials: It’s up to the states to prevent an Election Day fiasco | David Ignatius/The Washington Post
Tuesday was primary day in West Virginia, and the Republican-led state government there did something sensible that other states should embrace: They made it easier to cast absentee ballots. All 50 states and the District of Columbia permit absentee voting, but they don’t always make it simple. West Virginia is one of about 16 states that require a medical reason or other excuse. But because of covid-19, West Virginia declared a general medical excuse and mailed absentee ballots to all 261,000 voters who asked for them. By Tuesday, about 85 percent of those ballots had been cast and received. “The voters should have confidence in the system,” Andrew “Mac” Warner, the West Virginia secretary of state, told me during an interview on Tuesday. Warner is a pro-Trump Republican. But he’s also a 23-year Army veteran, and he knows how hard it can be to vote. Absentee voting presents opportunities for fraud, he says, but they can be managed.