Editor’s Note: Harry Reid, a Democrat, is a former US Senator from Nevada. He was the Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
There is no doubt our democracy is now at risk from both the global pandemic and Donald Trump’s presidency. Being able to cast a vote for leaders who prioritize the health of American citizens this fall is therefore of paramount importance. And states bear a responsibility in ensuring all voters can participate in the democratic process.
Primary elections in Wisconsin, Georgia, New York and Nevada show that states have their work cut out for them. In Wisconsin, hundreds of polling places were closed, and some voters never received the absentee ballots they requested in the state’s April primary. This created massive lines in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s most populous city. Georgia’s June primary was all too similar, as poll closures and difficulties with voting machines kept some voters waiting for hours.
New York’s antiquated registration system riddled with outdated voter rolls made it difficult to conduct an efficient and fair election, helping to create a situation where many in the state did not receive absentee ballots. Additionally, election officials and poll workers seemed overwhelmed and underprepared, while polling locations opened late and created long lines, all as the state rushed to change its election system with limited time. Even Nevada, which offered any eligible voter the option to vote by mail, saw long lines and a shortage of poll workers in its recent primary.
Long lines, ballot shortages and broken voting machines should not derail this year’s elections. With the US presidency, majorities in both houses of Congress and countless down-ballot contests at stake, citizens must be assured that safe, secure and successful elections will be held in all 50 states. As a paragon for democracy around the globe, the United States cannot settle for anything less than that.
Fortunately, even with a president so openly hostile to expanded voting options, states still have the power to run elections without interference from Washington, DC. State legislatures and secretaries of state, among other state officials, still control how elections are administered and determine whether they expand or contract access to the ballot. Look no further than Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington – four states that ran elections successfully entirely by mail. As has been the case these past three years, we must work around Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do what needs to be done.
First, we must understand the fairness of vote-by-mail. The truth is that elections that are vote-by-mail do not necessarily protect access to the polls for all eligible voters. In states where there is currently no mail-in voting option available to the general public, rushing to a mail-only voting system offers secretaries of state limited time to perform critical tasks, which forces them to pay a hefty price tag. For example, these offices need to ensure every single voter’s address and information is current, a task that takes time and manpower to accomplish. Covid-19 has made this extremely difficult to do in states that lack online voter registration or automatic voter registration systems.
Additionally, moving to a vote-by-mail in states that have never held mail-only elections before risks leaving out key eligible voting groups, including disabled voters, voters who do not speak English or eligible voters who lack a street address, like we see with many voters who live on Native American reservations. Therefore, even though voting by mail is safe and secure, to protect access for all eligible voters, in-person voting is also necessary to offer access to the polls for every voter in our nation.
We must learn from our mistakes. Voters cannot be deterred by long lines or faraway, inconvenient polling locations. As such, states must prepare to open polling places where voters can safely cast their ballots in-person. More locations – and more poll workers – means that voters do not need to congregate at any one voting station, a risk as the pandemic continues to grip the country.
Even as we open more polling locations and expand the option to vote-by-mail, expanding early voting can also decrease both crowds and the burden on election officials. Thirty-nine states and Washington, DC, already offer early voting as an alternative option because it allows busy people to vote at a convenient time. This year, early voting has the added benefit of separating voters over multiple days to make social distancing possible, while also allowing election officials to operate efficiently.
Get our free weekly newsletter
While the blueprint for a perfect election may never come from our nation’s capital, red states and blue states are taking steps to ease the burden on voters and election officials. For example, New Mexico held a successful primary in early June, with a combination of in-person and by-mail voting resulting in a highest turnout this century. West Virginia saw similar success in its primary in June, with “historic” levels of absentee voting across the state. Similar trends were seen in Montana, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
We can have safe, secure and successful elections in November – as some states did in June. But states must complete two steps: planning and preparation. They should also start expanding vote-by-mail, increasing the number of polling places and poll workers and implementing adequate early voting measures.
Our democracy is on the line, and any barrier to voting threatens our country’s future.