National Institute of Director Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci said this week that there is “no reason” Americans can not vote personally for the presidential election in 2020, as long as voters follow proper social distancing guidelines amid the pandemic of coronavirus.
“I think if done carefully, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason I can see why that’s not the case,” Fauci told ABC News this week. “If you wear a mask, if you observe the physical distance and do not have a full situation, there is no reason why you can not do that.”
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Fauci added that individuals who are “physically or otherwise compromised” and who are not interested in physically going to the polls after election day can use e-mail voting.
But Fauci doubled down, saying, “There’s no reason why we can not vote personally as otherwise.”
Fauci, in April, in the early stages of the pandemic, said he could not “guarantee” that it would be safe to vote physically.
“I hope so,” Fauci told CNN in April. “I can not guarantee it.”
Fauci’s remarks come on the eve of the mail-in-vote battle – with President Trump and Republicans warning for months that the practice would cause widespread voter fraud, and with Democrats saying the practice is a safe way to issue ballot papers.
The president and the Republican National Committee have filed lawsuits in several states to retaliate against efforts by Democrats to restore the voting laws in response to the pandemic.
Trump dropped universal mail-in-vote during an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo this week, warning of “the biggest fraud in history.”
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The president went on to say that “there is nothing wrong with coming out and voting” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“They voted in World War I and in World War II,” Trump said. “They need to have voter ID, because Democrats are scamming the system.”
But Biden campaign Rapid Response Director Andrew Bates on Thursday called the practice safe.
“The president of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely on,” Bates, referring to the U.S. Postal Service, “cuts a critical lifeline for rural economies and for the supply of drugs “Americans are losing their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in more than 100 years – a crisis so devastatingly devastated by its own failed leadership that we are now the hardest hit country in the world by the coronavirus pandemic.”
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“Even Donald Trump’s own campaign has endorsed the right to vote by mail and his own administration has definitively refuted his wild-eye conspiracy theories about the safest form of voting,” Bates continued.
He added: “This is an attack on our democracy and economy by a desperate man who fears that the American people will force him to confront what he has done all in his power to escape months – responsibility for his own actions. “
Democrats, who have backed down for months against Trump and the GOP’s claims, say cases of actual voter fraud are limited and claim that Republicans are trying to suppress voter turnout to improve their chances of winning elections.
