States Struggle to Get Vote-by-Mail Plans Ready in Time

States Struggle to Get Vote-by-Mail Plans Ready in Time

In prepping for the August primary election, officials with the Connecticut Secretary of State’s office decided they will mail every registered voter in the state an application for an absentee ballot. The move is meant to reduce in-person voting during the coronavirus outbreak, but it’s still unclear how many residents will be allowed to vote by mail.


Connecticut is one of several states that requires voters to provide an explanation—which must meet certain requirements laid out in state law—for why they cannot vote in person on Election Day in order to receive an absentee ballot. In the era of coronavirus, the Secretary of State’s office interprets that law as allowing voters with pre-existing conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to a bad case of Covid-19 eligible to request a ballot, but not necessarily those voters who are just afraid of contracting the contagious disease while at the polls. 


The issue illustrates just one of the difficulties states are addressing in the summer primaries, which are providing many election officials with a test run on how to protect voter access during the pandemic as they ready themselves for the November presidential elections. 


Elections officials and voter advocates have pushed for broader use of mail voting as a way to balance voter access and public health concerns. With no clear understanding of whether the coronavirus outbreak will subside by November, elections experts say all states should be developing plans to expand vote-by-mail capacity for the presidential elections. 


“The primary is giving us a trial run on how it’s going to work,” said Brian Miller, the executive director of Nonprofit Vote.


In Connecticut, Secretary of State ..

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