The Republicans seemingly have no end of dirty tricks to tilt the elections in their favor, while then treating the rest of the process as legitimate, so Democrats seemingly need to accept the results. I, for one, am still wincing over the Senate not taking up the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. That, as much as and perhaps more than the Russians interfering in the election, may have tipped the results to Trump.
The latest seems to be not sending bailout money to the USPS, even as there has been a huge amount of such money for the Airlines. Why the one but not the other? The argument is that if the USPS goes belly up, now slated for September, then voting by mail can't happen. But voting by mail, in this pandemic, would greatly expand the number of potential voters who do participate. That favors the Democrats. By restricting participation, the Republicans up their chances at re-election. This is unseemly. Yet that is no deterrent at all.
What might be done to counter this?
My first answer comes from a message I got from my health provider a week or so ago. They are beginning to return to non-Covid healthcare, while trying to respect the guidelines for safe social distancing. One of the things they are offering are ordinary blood tests done by drive through. I'm curious as to how that works in actuality. Assuming it does work, might there be drive through voting done similarly? The voter in the car is given a ballot and an envelope, as well as a clipboard and a pen or pencil. The voter completes the ballot, inserts it in the envelope, and then returns it along with the clipboard and writing implement. Sounds clunky to me, but it is do-able, isn't it?
I want to note that for many years I've voted early, often the very first day that's available. It is typically not crowded at the polling place. While the usual arrangement where the various people at the tables who sign you in and give you a ballot doesn't respect safe social distancing, I don't think it would be too hard to do an alternative that would work and would be safe. The number of people voting then is meager (and it's all retired people). So it shouldn't be hard for them to keep safe social distancing while completing their ballots. The question is whether more people could take advantage of early voting, perhaps by (a) having scheduled times for them during which their employer gives them paid time off or (b) having scheduled times on the weekend where the polls are open. The purpose of the scheduled times would be to not overrun the polling place. That could make the process break down.
I get email from various Democrat politicians. Some have been making noises about the USPS. And there have been articles about this in the New Yorker and the New York Times, though the articles are about the postal service itself, not about the election.
If this latest dirty trick is allowed to happen and if it does sway the election, it does seem to me we'll be at the point of complete fracture in our politics. Indeed, it's remarkable to me that hasn't happened already. One would like to believe that the process has built-in stabilizers that restore normalcy when it seems things are tipping over the deep end. I hope that's still true, but I fear it isn't.
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