Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash.
Election Day is 100 days from today.
One hundred days is very little time to prepare for the complexities of voting during a pandemic, made obvious by several recent tumultuous primary elections and a resurgence of absentee ballot requests from voters who don’t want to — or can’t — risk voting at the polls.
Last month in Georgia, for example, thousands braved rain, heat, and virus exposure after their requested mail-in ballots did not arrive. An 80-year-old woman hoping to vote in Atlanta said, “What is going on in Georgia? We have been waiting for hours. This is ridiculous. This is unfair.” An investigation is looking into why the “catastrophe” was particularly egregious in largely minority areas.
My own family’s Georgia came immediately to mind. When my great-grandmother Georgia McCoy Henderson was also an octogenarian, her mail-in ballot did not arrive. Frustrated and wheelchair-bound, she called the local newspaper, where whoever answered the phone was greeted with: “I’ve just about used up all my cuss words.”
She wasn’t done.
“I was 28 before you darn men decided we women were smart enough to vote. I’m 81 years old,” she continued, “and I’ve been voting [ever since]. But I didn’t get an absentee ballot this year, and they tell me down at the elections department that I can’t get one now.”
In the end, Georgia was able to vote in what would be her last election because a story-hungry reporter arranged a cab to take her to the polls. Afterward, she proclaimed, “I made up my mind that if there was any way for me to vote, by George, I was going to vote.” Was she glad she voted? “You’re damn tootin’ I am!” Great-grandma beamed.
Though she died half a century ago, my great-grandmother Georgia’s voting history resonates today for another reason. In her life, as for voters in 2020, her place of residence determined her opportunity to vote. Her first chance to vote came because, after her husband’s untimely death, she moved 1,500 miles west from her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, to Hermiston, Oregon, to join her sister and brother-in-law, a childless couple who would help her raise her two small children. The move brought her enfranchisement because Oregon granted women the vote eight years before the 19th Amendment mandated suffrage for white women nationwide.
One hundred years after this amendment, should our right to participate in our most basic democratic institution still be tied to the state or even neighborhood in which we live?
One hundred years later, as we honor the legacy of civil rights hero John Lewis, should black and brown Americans encounter drastically fewer polling stations, with longer lines and thicker crowds?
With over 9,000 election jurisdictions in the U.S., should a hodge-podge of policies enable some of us to vote safely from our homes while others are forced to brave coronavirus exposure?
The vote is a founding principle of American democracy.
All eligible citizens should be free to participate safely, securely, and without interference. I already do this in the largely Republican state of Utah, which has universal vote-by-mail. Each election, I study my ballot with laptop open, then I mark my choices, sign the envelope, and place it in the mail or directly in a polling box. Later, I check online to see whether my ballot was received. The system is secure, saves states money, and increases voter turnout, including among the elderly or those with health issues. Importantly, vote-by-mail does not favor one political party over the other.
Although each state’s solution need not replicate Utah’s, every state must hasten to ensure both the safety of their voters and the legitimacy of the election outcomes. Time and resources are finite, but with flexibility and creativity we can find solutions to accommodate the variance in state and county election procedures.
Drive-up polling stations, early voting, and increased numbers of polling stations are all options that will thin the crowds and allow social distancing for in-person voting. Recruiting poll workers from younger, less-vulnerable populations will protect the elderly, a significant source of poll workers. States with “excuse-only” absentee voting can temporarily allow “no-fault” absentee voting during the pandemic — my great-grandma’s home state of Nebraska has chosen this. Across the nation, citizens must demand solutions that ensure the safety of our democratic processes and of our fellow man — whether age 18 or age 81.
My great-grandma Georgia’s obstacles to vote are different than those faced by American citizens this year. But we need her same tenacity to ensure all citizens are able to vote safely this November.
Can we do it? Damn tootin’ we can!
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