The future of elections?

Tuesday’s Wisconsin Election Is Our Future
Chaos. A public health disaster. And partisan trench warfare, too.

Normally, there are around 180 polling places in the city of Milwaukee, serving roughly 300,000 registered voters. Unless there is a drastic, last minute change in plans for Tuesday’s pandemic election in Wisconsin, there will be only five polling locations in the entire city.

Although hardest hit, Milwaukee is not alone. In more than 100 municipalities throughout the state, there will not be a single polling location open, as thousands of poll workers will follow the state’s stay-at-home order.

Well barring any unseen turns of fortune is will not be the case that we will have to be doing a virtual election with mail in ballots. Moreover, there is literally no chance that the Senate would pass such a national change, nor would the President sign anything like that into law. But of course, that doesn't mean that some people will not try.

Politico reports that Republican opposition to mail-in balloting is so adamant that the issue “may be a sticking point to any relief package as the U.S. faces mass unemployment and a plummeting economy.”

Perhaps it will be a sticking point. But not if it isn't included in a relief package. I think people inherently understand that stimulus or relief packages are just that and that bill and laws that change how our elections work are completely separate. Democrats trying to shove election changes into a stimulus bill will be met no differently than it was when Pelosi tried it the first time. I am not sure why you would blame "Republican opposition" for a hold up of another stimulus bill if election changes were added into it. I would blame Democratic manipulation for even attempting it.

The reality is that if there is still some sort of pandemic in place when November comes, we are not going to be prepared for some grand short term upheaval to our election process. While there are some constitutional loopholes that some people believe Congress can exploit to nationalize elections, that attempt would be fought tooth and nail by any state that wanted to keep their independence and authority over their own election laws. That would even assume that something could get through the Senate and be passed by the President.

If that happens, we will have three options: Hold the election in distressed circumstances that may or may not result in chaos. Postpone the election, which would certainly create chaos. Reform the system now so that there is a more stable way to hold the vote should another outbreak take hold. If this week’s Wisconsin dry-run is any indication, then the best option is reform. And we ought to have started working on it five minutes ago. But of course, even that isn’t as easy as it sounds.

It's not only not easy, it's generally impossible. Starting to work on it five minutes ago is not our pressing concern at this stage of the Covid-19 crisis. I promise you that if this had happened eight years ago or if we had a President Hillary today, that the left would be singing a much different tune, likely talking about the safety of the electorate and paving the way for some sort of delay that would last until we had no more outbreak of any sort. But the concept of doing the most plausible thing of postponement is unthinkable as long as the "bad orange man" is place.

Either way, a strategy that allows for Democrats to nationalize elections is ultimately the sort of thing that the classic "no tragedy should go to waste" thinking would create. But at this point in time, it's little more than a liberal pipe dream.