What Went Down In The Arizona, Florida And Illinois Primaries

Sarah, on the surface, I think the Ohio move is understandable and OK. Obviously, COVID-19 is a serious threat to the health of people potentially entering polling places, particularly older people. However, the way it was done was potentially very problematic. Basically, the governor tried to stop the election at the absolute last minute, then did an end around of a court order that was going to keep the election on. With it looking likely that the state government was going to ignore judicial attempts to halt the postponement, the state supreme court OK’d the move. I worry about a future bad actor using this as precedent to try to cancel an election. The rule of law is really important, especially for elections, and this was a case where I think it was flouted to some extent.

I asked some Illinois voters — and a Chicago alderman who happened to be at the early voting site where I was — today whether they thought the primary in their state should have been postponed. The answers were pretty divided. Some people (including the alderman) said that moving the primary could be seen as a violation of democratic norms, even an attempt to suppress the vote. But others thought it was a mistake to have the election at a moment when it’s so risky to be outside in a big crowd, and said it should have been postponed.

Sarah, I think the circumstances lessen the risk of setting a precedent for violating norms. Obviously democracy is not going to function very well if elections can be called off willy-nilly, but when lives are very literally at stake I think that’s a high bar that has been met.