The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020
Beginning today in Michigan, election officials in some cities will be able to start processing absentee ballots. The new law passed last month allows officials in cities with at least 25,000 people to begin getting absentee ballots ready to count, sorting them and opening outer envelopes. But they can’t start counting until tomorrow, and can only process today from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. Previously, officials had to wait until Election Day to start processing absentee ballots. Still, even with a small head start, Michigan’s secretary of state estimated that it could take until Friday for all the ballots to be counted.
For the second time, the Texas Supreme Court on Sunday denied a legal challenge to drive-through voting in Houston’s Harris County. However, a separate challenge is still pending in federal court, with a hearing scheduled for Monday morning. The Republican plaintiffs are attempting to invalidate the almost 127,000 votes cast via drive-through voting in the Democratic-leaning county.
Q: One last thing — election administration is chronically underfunded in the U.S. which means states and election officials often don’t have the resources they need, which can create problems in their own right, like long lines, equipment that malfunctions, etc. How is that especially under strain this year, given the pandemic?
When the pandemic struck the U.S., election officials recognized immediately that the systems they’d used for years would need to be bolstered in ways they’d never imagined. They also knew that their budgets wouldn’t sustain the expense, and they appealed to Congress for help. States ultimately received $400 million in funding — short of what was needed but still significant.
Now, as we head toward the final days of the election and as an unprecedented number of voters have already cast their ballot, I’m hopeful that the election will be safe and secure. This is in part because of the important work of election officials, who have worked tirelessly to expand voting options and protect the health of voters and election workers. This is also because of public support. People have helped spread awareness of different voting options, voted early to reduce stress on election day systems, and even flooded election offices with applications to serve as poll workers.