The Covid-19 Elections Emergency:

Finding Bipartisan Common Ground and Common Sense Solutions

National Election Defense Coalition
May 22, 2020

In recent weeks a veritable tsunami of fundraising appeals have flooded Inboxes as partisan NGOs look to capitalize on the COVID-19 elections crisis, focusing on Vote by Mail (VBM) as either the solution to protect democracy, or an evil nexus of corruption. Some on the left insist that Democrats must promote universal VBM if they are to defeat Trump. Others on the right proclaim that the Democrats must be stopped from stealing the elections through VBM fraud, despite virtually no proof that such fraud existed in past elections.

The recent campaign for VBM federal mandates has unfortunately now made it a “Democratic wish list issue” and, unsurprisingly, a lightning rod for political opposition from Senator McConnell and President Trump. Particularly after VBM became a major part of a new $3.6 billion dollar House funding bill pushed by Democrats.

Turning VBM into a weaponized wedge issue, now expanded into a grass roots campaign aimed at the Senate, has not only created an inevitable Mexican stand-off, it has overwhelmed the discussion about other urgent and viable mitigations to the dangers posed by the pandemic this November.

Common ground and reasonable solutions do in fact exist, but time is quickly running out for a strong bipartisan push to ensure that effective, state-based efforts are funded and ready for 2020, and that our ballots are secured from hacking and counted with accuracy and transparency.

The solutions include expanding VBM where appropriate, but also prioritizing safe in-person voting through sufficient PPE for poll workers, more and larger poll stations, expanding early voting, and providing curbside polling and curbside ballot drop-off boxes for voters who don’t want to put their ballot in the mail. Voters also should not be forced to cast their ballot at the polls on Touchscreen voting machines or Ballot Marking Devices (BMD), which are not only insecure from cyber-attacks, they are vectors for spreading the COVID virus.

Democracy advocates focused on VBM need to realize that it not a panacea, nor is it the holy grail of democracy. Most voters prefer to vote in person, in the privacy of a polling booth. In 2016 and 2018, in-person early voting and election day voting accounted for almost 80% of all ballots cast. Surveys show that a substantial number of voters do not trust mailing their ballots.

Meanwhile, civil rights and voter protection advocates warn that, while universal VBM would expand access in some cases, it could also disenfranchise vulnerable voting blocs who lack access or qualifications for voting from home. VBM can act as a nexus for vote suppression through such mechanisms as disqualification based on address or signature issues.

Election security advocates are extremely concerned that this push for VBM will also be followed by a push for Internet voting, already being advocated. Without overstating the threat, this could put the final nail in the coffin of election integrity.

Here are some specific obstacles and shortcomings for VBM.

·       Implementation & Infrastructure - Only three states, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, have developed state-wide universal access to VBM, achieved over a years-long transition and testing. The rest of the states would need quantum leap of reorganization to accomplish a wholesale transition; a high bar given the virus has shut down many state and County offices and functions, and most poll workers are elderly and vulnerable to the virus. Infrastructure for drastic expansion is deficient, not only in funds, but in available hardware and software technologies for processing VBM at the county and precinct level, as well as in personnel training. Yet there are less than 6 months to get funding distributed and upgrades implemented in the midst of COVID-19 isolation regimes and now a deadlocked DC political class.

·       VBM disenfranchisement - People of color, Native Americans and youth have a hard time transitioning to vote by mail or absentee voting when these systems are first introduced or drastically expanded in short order. Voting rights experts say that a rushed process to VBM this year may suppress poor and minority votes and new young voters, who have deficient mail services or changing addresses. We may also expect to see a surge in address change, or even temporary homelessness as the pandemic undermines housing security. Voters with certain disabilities may also be disadvantaged if forced to vote at home.

·       Dependence on the USPS - the postal service is in financial trouble and the average age of postal workers is well above fifty. Upgrading infrastructure for a huge volume of ballot distribution, sorting and returning them on time, is a formidable and time consuming effort. There's also the problem of a lack of trust. A 2017 survey from the University of California at Davis found Asian (47%), Black (32%) and Latino (29%) voters in California were more likely not to trust the postal service to deliver their ballots on time, compared to white voters (21%). 

We at NEDC have successfully coordinated a seven year effort that has held center political ground, carefully cultivating support for election integrity on both sides of the political spectrum, from the Freedom Caucus to the Civil Rights community. In avoiding wedge issues or show bills, we helped shepherd over $800 million dollars in federal funding for the states and legislation in the US Senate, the Secure Elections Act, that had an equal number of Republican and Democratic sponsors. This was accomplished during a time of intense partisan hostilities.

Given that the House $3.6 billion dollar Bill will likely languish in the Senate (as did the HR1 Voting Rights Bill introduced by Democrats in 2019), to save our republic from further political chaos this November we urge all sides to move quickly to the center and support practical bipartisan solutions and a state-by-state approach.

Yes, absentee ballots should be part of the list of voting options supported by advocates, but NEDC and our allies don’t anticipate that there could be any approval in the conservative US Senate for a massive or one-shoe-fits-all mandate to drastically expand mail-in voting. In general, any attempt to push Federal mandates on how the states run their elections is a surefire way to garner the most intense conservative opposition.

As we work to enhance voter participation, we should preserve the primacy of the “Australian” secret ballot and protect the right of voters to cast their ballots at the polls free of the coercion or intimidation they might be subjected to at home or work. We also should not take our sights off the likelihood - far closer to certainty - of Russian or other foreign attempted hacking of our voting technology.

Solutions:

• SECURITY: Efforts must be focused on immediately suspending the use of electronic voting machines; both paperless touchscreen DREs and touchscreen ballot marking devices (BMDs) will require constant sanitizing, dramatically increasing the already unacceptably long lines voters endure, and may also cause machine de-calibration issues. Paper ballots must be made available to every voter. All e-voting machines should be decommissioned in 2020, and preferably permanently banned. They pose a well-documented, high-level national security threat, vulnerable to every form of manipulation and cyber-attack, and their results cannot be verified. We must also eliminate all Internet connections to voting tabulation technology, and stop all transmission of elections results data over the Internet.

• ACCESS: Current focus should be on enabling voter registration. This includes opening DMVs for in-person registration and reopening on-line registration systems as an essential service, as important as churches and grocery stores. As of end-April, voter registration has become a significant hurdle as DMVs stay closed, on-line registration is shut down, and social isolation prevents in-person registration of all new voters or those whose address has changed. This also inhibits the ability to register new young voters who will turn 18 before Nov 3rd.

• FUNDING: NEDC will work with allies left and right to ask Congress, Secretaries of State and Governors to fund the following:

1. Recruiting, training and protection of personnel for early and expanded voting hours. Poll workers will be democracy’s front-line workers, risking their lives to assist voters. We must focus on getting young people to volunteer if needed to replace aging poll workers. Funding should include PPE and sanitizing supplies for all polling stations.

2. Printing and mailing ballots to voters in advance, to fill out in the safety of their homes, to be dropped off in person or mailed where necessary, secure and appropriate.

3. Printing and stockpiling paper ballots and ballot tabulators at all polling stations; making paper ballots available on request of any voter for any reason.

4. Efforts at isolation and distancing of voters, such as choosing larger polling stations, and for ballot drop-off (curbside or drop box).

5. We continue to promote funding for public, manual post-election Risk Limiting Audits (RLAs) of voter verified paper ballots, not those printed by BMDs which use bar codes or QR codes that are not human readable.

6. Amplifying opportunities for voters to verify identity and address, and education and notifications of the need for  signatures on mail-in ballots.

7. Pre-paid postage for mailing in of ballots, so that during this financial crisis, the cost of mailing ballots does not become a prohibitive “poll tax”.