Amid widespread alarm about the ability of the embattled U.S. Postal Service to deliver mailed election ballots on time, pandemic-wary voters are now being told that in-person voting this fall may not be as risky as initially thought.
“We’ve got to vote early, in person if we can,” former first lady Michelle Obama declared during a Democratic National Convention speech on Monday. “We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we’ve got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.”
Four days earlier, the nation’s most prominent expert on infectious diseases had been asked whether people can safely go to polling places and vote in person.
“I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that not be the case,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with National Geographic.
“I mean, obviously if you’re a person who is compromised physically or otherwise, you don’t want to take the chance,” Fauci added. “There’s the situation of mail-in voting that has been done for years in many places. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to vote in person or otherwise.”
It’s a fraught issue with political implications. President Trump and his campaign have fought the massive pandemic-induced expansion of voting by mail around the country, frequently making false claims about mail-in voting.
With the pandemic striking in an election year, officials are now making social distancing, barriers between voters and poll workers, protective gear for poll workers and abundant cleaning products on hand part of the standard operating procedure for in-person voting.
Some localities are struggling to find suitable polling place locations and are considering drive-through bank tellers and parking garages as substitutes for high school gyms and community centers. In some cities, professional sports teams are offering up their facilities to provide polling sites with ample social distancing.
Still, new research suggests in-person voting may be less risky than many fear.
A peer-reviewed study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health concludes that in-person voting in Wisconsin’s April 7 election by more than 400,000 electors did not produce a detectable surge there in coronavirus cases.