Ohio
Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio cancelled the Ohio primary on March 17th, literally at the last minute. The voting machines were already at the polling places and the ballots were put out. Eight hours before the polls were to open, he went to Court to stop the election, and lost. The Judge ordered the election to continue, asking the important question: “if not now, then when?” A couple of hours after that, DeWine and the State Director of Public Health used their power to declare a health emergency and shut the voting down.
As a Democrat, waiting to finalize the nomination process, I voted early on the Sunday before the election. My vote has been cast, but not counted, waiting on same day voting to begin. There are probably millions of votes sitting in the eighty-eight County Board of Elections in Ohio, absentees and early voters.
I absolutely supported the Governor on his decision. With the corona-virus crisis, asking folks to line up to vote would be dangerous. And asking poll workers, many of them in the “high risk” age category, to sit and converse with thousands of random voters would be unconscionable. But now we are faced with a problem. The corona-virus crisis is not a hurricane that will blow through and be over. It’s not a wildfire that will quickly destroy and move on. It’s not an earthquake with predictable after-shocks that dwindle away.
November
It now looks like the “description” of the corona-virus epidemic is a series of waves. How this first most dangerous wave hits is the crisis of the moment. It may or may not overwhelm the American healthcare system, and thousands, maybe millions, may die from lack of appropriate care. We are going to know in the next month or so, how bad that first surge will be.
But now they predict that there will be a resurgence of the virus sometime later on, a secondary wave, not as terrible, but still requiring closings and social distancing. And if that second wave hits in October nearing November, what will DeWine, Ohio and the rest of the nation do about the general election; the Presidential election?
As the judge might say, “If not then, then when?”
Experiments in Government
As I was putting out the flood-damaged trash this morning, I ended up in a discussion with a neighbor about the difference between a democracy and a Republic (yes, this neighborhood can be strange). That difference has been used to justify many un-democratic actions in America, from racial and partisan gerrymandering to the Electoral College. But one of the good things about our Federal system, fifty sovereign states in one sovereign nation, is that there can be fifty laboratories in government.
Colorado led the way in legalizing marijuana. Montana decided that the vast distances of their state required virtually unlimited speed limits. Michigan used to have an eighteen-year-old drinking age when I was in college (there’s a long story about a road trip, sloe-gin and horse back-riding there somewhere). California set higher pollution standards creating a “California gas” different from the rest of the nation. Nebraska has a one-chamber legislature. We are a nation of fifty different experiments, all in search of their unique way of fulfilling the American “promise”.
Our Solution
So the solution to our voting problem has already been created. There is already a state where there are no lines, no polling stations, no direct contact with poll workers are other voters. In Oregon you register and vote by mail (Oregon). And Oregon is consistently in the top ten states for voter turnout. Seeing the success of the Oregon effort, Washington and Colorado have already copied the process.
Norman Rockwell was the great painter who documented Americana in the mid-twentieth century. It is “American” for neighbors to lineup at their local school, or church, or firehouse and vote for their government representatives. It is the right suffragettes were named for, and that Martin Luther King marched for. Going to the polls and casting your ballot is as American as – you know – Norman Rockwell.
But we’re now living in an America where, at least temporarily, lining up to vote risks lives. We are asking our most at risk citizens, the elderly and the immune-compromised, to choose between exercising their right to vote, and their keeping right to remain healthy.
Yes, Ohio already has “unlimited” absentee ballots. Anyone can ask, and receive that ballot, and mail it back in. So let’s go the rest of the way. Instead of having to ask for an absentee ballot, let’s just send everyone an absentee ballot. Then they can be mailed in, and we can vote. Everyone is included, everyone has a say, and everyone can stay healthy. Oregon, Colorado and Washington are already showing us the way.
It answers the question: If not now, then when?
I cannot in all good conscience steal a line without attribution – especially from one of my favorite balladeers –Tracy Chapman – If Not Now
