When Gov. Cuomo cleared the way for all New Yorkers to cast absentee ballots in the June 23 primary elections due to the coronavirus, it seemed like an idea that would be obvious to everyone.
The state, like the rest of the country, is experiencing a deadly pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 30,000 people and crashed the economy. Scientists say the key to preventing its spread is social distancing.
And several states already use mail-in voting exclusively, including red and purple states. Millions of ballots have been mailed in during dozens of elections and there’s been no evidence of serious fraud or misconduct.
“New Yorkers shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their civic duty,” Cuomo tweeted after his announcement.
Sadly, this obvious decision has been lost on others.
In fact, Cuomo’s decision followed a national disgrace in Wisconsin where mask-clad voters braved hours-long waits in long lines and crowded polling sites to cast their ballots.
A Republican majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court had earlier rejected a measure making it easier for residents to apply for absentee ballots.
The five Republican-appointed members of the United States Supreme Court then followed this up by ruling in favor of the state Republican Party, which had sued to stop an extended deadline for absentee ballots.
Check and mate.
Nor was this an isolated incident.
President Trump and his Republican allies have launched an aggressive strategy to oppose the expanded use of mail-in ballots nationwide. This is unfolding during a pandemic in which many of the administration’s own health officials view the expanded use of mail-in ballots as one of the most effective ways to make voting safer and curtail the spread of the coronavirus.
Republican leaders have been targeting state-level statutes that could expand absentee ballots in Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona and elsewhere, according to a report in The New York Times.
Trump, who himself voted by mail in the last election, and other Republicans have falsely claimed that mailed-in ballots result in widespread fraud.
But Trump gave away the game when he said that under Democratic plans for a national expansion of early voting and voting by mail “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
The battle against mail-in voting has been part of an ongoing campaign by Republicans to deny equal access to the ballot and equitable rules and neutral procedures.
In recent years, Republican-dominated state Legislatures have come up with all manner of ways to discourage voters, particularly voters who tend to vote Democratic. All in the name of fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.
Republican legislators have been aided by the conservative, Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court. Their rulings have opened the door to unlimited campaign spending by corporations, interest groups and wealthy individuals; swept away the “preclearance” section of the Voting Rights Act – freeing states to adopt new restrictions on voting and ballot access; and allowed extreme partisan gerrymandering.
How extreme? Thanks to redistricting by GOP legislators in 2011 Wisconsin Republicans hold nearly two-thirds of the seats in the state Assembly despite winning less than half of the votes statewide.
This is not to say that New York has been without sin in restricting access to the ballot box.
Until Democrats gained control of the state Senate in January, New York had no early voting, held federal and state primary elections on different days and had a loophole for LLCs that allowed large companies to contribute virtually unlimited amounts to candidates.
The New York Legislature voted this year to allow for eight days of early voting before an election, synchronized federal and state primary elections, allowed voter preregistration for teenagers, provided voter registration portability within the state, and closed the LLC loophole.
Cuomo and the Legislature should not stop there.
The governor’s recent order expands the list authorizing mail-in ballots to include the risk of contracting COVID-19 in the June primary. He should do the same for the general election.
And then he and the Legislature should remove any restrictions for mailed-in ballots in the future.
States such as Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and (deep-red) Utah conduct all of their elections by mail. About 30 additional states allow people to vote absentee for any reason.
They should also make Election Day a state holiday – as Virginia just did.
That would at least address inequities in the state.
The federal government is another matter. The U.S. Post Office could run out of money by the end of September, but the Trump administration appears unwilling to bail it out. Do you suppose mail-in voting has anything to do with this?
Then there is the Electoral College, which allows for the candidate with fewer votes to claim the presidency – as Trump did in his race with Hillary Clinton, who won by 3 million in the popular vote.
The margin of victory for a presidential candidate in New York could be 10 million or one – it would make no difference in the number of Electoral College votes.
This discourages New Yorkers from voting and makes those who do vote count less than voters in “swing” states.
New York’s clout is further diminished by the U.S. Senate, where each state elects two representatives.
At the moment, California, the most populous state, contains more people than the 21 least populous states combined. New York has more people than the 15 least populous states.
Wyoming has 578,759 people – less than half of the 1.4 million people living in Nassau County.
This, and the most cynical kind of partisan politics, helps explain why New York has received less than its fair share during the coronavirus crisis.
In its disastrous response to the coronavirus crisis, the Trump administration has sent hundreds of thousands of masks, respirators and other protective equipment to states with very small outbreaks while giving relatively little aid to states like New York.
New York was similarly short-changed in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package.
“When you look at the package and you look at the distribution, the Senate almost treats it as a pork-barrel bill,” Cuomo said.
A glimmer of hope was offered on Monday night when a liberal challenger upset a Trump-backed incumbent to win a state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. The win is expected to block efforts to throw 200,000 people off the voter rolls in the state.
Projecting the judge’s seat was seen as one of the main reasons motivating Trump and state Republicans to force voters to risk their health to cast their votes.
But bad odds can sometimes be overcome by a committed electorate. That’s called democracy in action. We should all insist that it is practiced more often.
