Six Months Out: Time & Money Are Most Critical to Protect Election

The recent spring election in Wisconsin was a glaring reminder of the need for action to protect voters and our democracy amid the health crisis. It was a travesty engineered by Republicans in the legislature and the courts intent on creating chaos to help re-elect a conservative to the state’s highest court. As a result, at least seven COVID-19 infections have been traced to exposure at polling places and thousands of voters who never received requested ballots or who feared large crowds at polling places were disenfranchised.

Although the GOP’s cynical assault on democracy was rebuked (the Trump-endorsed incumbent justice lost by double digits), action must be taken to prevent voters from being forced to choose between their constitutional rights and their safety in November. Unfortunately, Congress is poised to pass yet another coronavirus relief bill without significantly addressing enormous needs for election protection.

With six months until Election Day, the most critical elements to preserving a free, safe, and fair election are very simple: money and time.

Simply put, time and money are far more important right now than protracted debate about a federal vote-by-mail standard.

Congress this week is poised to pass a fourth coronavirus response legislation, but none of those bills have yet provided state and local election administrators the funding they will need to protect voting this fall. Election officials will need nearly $4 billion to rapidly expand voting options and their administrative capacities during a fiscal crisis and time to implement changes will soon be an even more valuable commodity.

Despite the urgency, the debate on election protection remains stalled in Washington. While expanded voting by mail will be critical, the debate has become far too focused on that single solution.

The fact is that most states (including most of the important battleground states) have existing options for no-excuse absentee voting by mail. While many of those current systems are inadequate to the challenge, the rules will provide many administrators with the flexibility they need if they have the sufficient resources. Simply put, time and money are far more important right now than protracted debate about a federal vote-by-mail standard.

To be clear, expanded vote by mail will be critical to protecting our election and expanding access to the ballot, but any kind of federal mail ballot standard or other changes can only be implemented if there is money to fund it and time to set systems in place. More than a federal standard, many states need the money and time to implement changes allowed within their current voting rules and they need it now.

Furthermore, election protection will require dedicated resources not drawn from broader fiscal relief for state and local governments. With tax revenues plummeting, state budgets will soon be decimated and we cannot be pitting needs against one another. No state or local government should be forced to shift resources from public safety and education to protect the election.

For states that traditionally have had only a small percentage of voting done by mail, it’ll take a huge investment staff, procedures, and technology to efficiently process applications, send out ballots, receive them, and count them in a timely manner. These major challenges were evident in Wisconsin, where the state struggled to process an onslaught of over 1.2 million absentee ballots — with thousands of voters receiving their ballot days after the deadline to return it.

State officials have shown that this need not be a partisan issue. The Republican Secretary of State of Iowa, Paul Pate, along with other Democratic and Republican elections officials around the country have made clear that federal investment is desperately needed to ensure that voter programs can be expanded. However, Republicans on Capitol Hill, stoked by President Trump, are keen on turning pleas for help from states red, blue, and purple alike into a partisan issue and our democracy into a negotiating chit.

Providing full funding to states for election protection absolutely must be included in the next relief bill. Alas, given Washington Republicans’ disdain for protecting voters and voting rights, congressional Democrats will need to make election protection a “must-have” priority in any legislation and push for that more strongly than they did in the bill passing this week.

There is still enough time, barely, to provide states the funding they need to be ready to protect the November election with dramatic expansions of vote by mail, along with increasing easy in-person voting options like early voting, to keep everyone safe. But each day we wait, is one day we get closer to November 3rd. We’ve already seen how this can go wrong. State and local administrators can get it right with enough resources and time. All that’s left is action from Congress.