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On Consumerism: Election Day in a pandemic: Part IV

By Arthur Vidro
By Arthur Vidro

Our three prior columns discussed mail-in ballots, drop boxes, and lawsuits filed nearly everywhere over the election process.

Now let’s focus on Election Day itself.

It will probably be much harder for polling-site leaders to put together sufficiently large teams of ballot clerks. Most poll workers are senior citizens, and thus in a high-risk group regarding the coronavirus. Many have begged off from the polling duties. It’s hard to blame them. They must consider their health.

So localities and states are having to work harder to scrounge up poll workers. Some are trying to entice lawyers into the effort.

The state supreme court in South Carolina announced earlier this month it will grant six hours of training credit to any attorney who volunteers to be a poll worker on Election Day. The court said finding poll workers is especially important as some people who traditionally work elections are opting out because of the pandemic.

Over in Ohio, lawyers who volunteer as poll workers could earn continuing-education credit hours in exchange for their work, under a program announced this summer by the Ohio Supreme Court and the state elections chief. That state, too, faces a poll worker shortage because of the pandemic.

It’s hard to find any state not facing a shortage of poll workers.

Absentee ballots already are arriving across the nation. In Alabama, counties across the state are reporting record numbers of absentee ballots a month ahead of Election Day, and local officials say they’re taking steps to cope with a flood of mail-in votes that’s likely to continue amid the pandemic.

Similar floods of votes are sweeping in across the land.

Perhaps folks are sending in ballots extra early out of fear their votes might otherwise not be counted. In the past few months we’ve seen hearings in Washington, D.C. about the unpredictable, non-guaranteed delivery speed of the Post Office, which is being tasked with handling more Election Day mail than in the past – and during a year in which they have been cutting services.

Over in Minnesota, an agreement was made to extend the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots, allowing ballots that arrive up to a week after the November election. Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, agreed to extend the deadline because of a legal challenge from groups that sought to allay concerns about voter safety during the pandemic and to ease mail-in voting requirements. However, a republican state representative and a GOP activist have challenged that agreement.

The Minnesota battle is typical of what’s occurred across the land: Democrats want to expand voting opportunities, while Republicans oppose such expansion.

November’s ballots will contain far fewer propositions than in recent elections. Why? Because to get a proposal put onto a state’s ballot, a petition with a state-specified number of signatures has to be submitted. This year, because of the pandemic, signatures were much harder to gather. The New Hampshire ballot, for example, contains zero proposals.

Proposals or not, what will voters be thinking as they enter the polls? Are they thinking of the candidates and their policies? Possibly not. They’re more likely to be thinking:

— Will the voting booth be disinfected in between voters? (Depends where you live.)

— Will I be using a pen that was handled by the previous voter? (Depends where you live.)

— Will I be exposed to germs while waiting in line? (The risk is there.)

— How do I show my ID to the poll worker while keeping six feet between us? (You can’t. Unless you have orangutan arms, it’s impossible.)

— If there is a mask mandate, will it be enforced? (Depends where you live. And by the way, if it’s not enforced, should it still be considered a mandate?)

My hunch is most localities – at least here in the Northeast – will require

all workers to be masked. But the voters? Having moderated elections, and knowing the sanctity of the right to vote, I can’t see any voter being turned away for lack of (or refusal to don) a mask.

In the presidential race, many states will encounter delays in determining the winner. What in the past was an insurmountable lead might not be insurmountable this year, because of the great volume of mail-in ballots.

Of the 16 most contested states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maine, and New Hampshire don’t allow the processing of absentee ballots to begin until Election Day. Michigan was in the same category until a month ago. Experts say Michigan’s 10-hour head-start before polls close will have little impact.

Delays in counting mail ballots could lead one overzealous candidate to declare victory before a wave of votes for his opponent surfaces. The swing states where this is most likely to happen are Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Outcomes in those three Rust Belt states could remain in doubt long after polls close Nov. 3, the result of unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots.

There also is a greater chance this year for the public to elect a dead candidate. Yes, occasionally a deceased person wins an election – even one running against opponents. How is this possible?

Well, let’s look at North Dakota to illustrate the point. David Andahl, 55, a state legislative candidate who won the June primary over a longtime incumbent, died on October 5 due to complications of COVID-19, according to the candidate’s mother. The death of a candidate four weeks before the election means there isn’t time for the party to come up with a replacement candidate and there isn’t time for the state to print new ballots. He’ll be on the ballot. He might win.

A dead person is more likely to be elected in states that allow early voting. In those cases, if a candidate passes away, say, a week before the election, it’s possible the candidate has already received thousands of votes, whether already tallied or via ballots that will be opened on Election Day.

Arthur Vidro’s latest short story appears in the Wildside Press anthology “The Further Misadventures of Ellery Queen,” published in October 2020.

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