What Went Down In The Arizona, Florida And Illinois Primaries

Yeah, I think there’s a case for both sides, Sarah. On the one hand, obviously, the health concerns are enormous right now, and elections don’t just endanger voters — there are poll workers, party officials and a ton of other people working behind the scenes to pull events like this off. If holding this election leads to more infections and even more strain on hospitals which are already set to be overwhelmed, that would be awful. On the other hand, process is important (including the process for trying to postpone elections), and Geoffrey is right that the circumstances in this case were pretty dicey.

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.