Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, as an independent, the introduction of cuts to the U.S. Postal Service, during a pandemic election expected to break records for post-in-vote, is a nasty threat to American democracy. There is still some debate as to whether the service changes imposed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump megadonor, are deliberate election sabotage if only part of a long-running conservative project to bump into the USPS and then privatize it. However, the consequences of the worst cases are the same: a nightmare scenario in which thousands and millions of Americans who vote legally by post – and are overwhelmingly registered Democrats – are nevertheless released.
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The media, congressional Democrats, and state election officials of both parties rightly sound the alarm about the catastrophic disaster. Nancy Pelosi has recalled the House from the recession to vote on a bill that would prevent the USPS from reducing services by the end of the year, although it could easily die in the Republican-controlled Senate. The good news is that individual voters have another, simpler solution at hand. It’s called the polling station.
It turns out, it turns out, being a person personally in a mood is not that dangerous. Somewhere in the pandemic this could be a crazy thing to suggest. The primary Wisconsin, back in March, was widely described in apocalyptic sounds. The New York Times called it “a dangerous spectacle that forced voters to choose between participating in a major election and protecting their health.” After state Democrats unsuccessfully fought to extend the deadline for sending returned ballot papers, the subsequent photos of long lines at polling stations in Milwaukee seem to predict an explosion of Covid-19 cases.
But the bomb never blew up. As I noted in May, there was no noticeable rise in coronavirus cases thanks to the Wisconsin primary. A follow-up study by researchers from the City of Milwaukee Health Department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded, “After the election, no clear increase in cases, hospitalizations, or deaths was observed.” In fact, there were case numbers in Milwaukee doctors in the weeks after the elections then in the weeks before. There are caveats: Personal turnout was generally low, thanks to the widespread use of email polls, and we do not know how prevalence of coronavirus in March will compare to November. Yet it tells that there have been no credible reports of virus spikes being assigned to every other election this year, even though poor assessment of on-site locks have not led to further instances of Milwaukee-style force majeure.
Why would voice be safer than expected? We now know that the coronavirus is most prevalent when people are in constant contact – in establishments such as a restaurant, a bar, or a shared house or office. The risk of transmission in fleeting encounters is, in contrast, small. Outside, it has disappeared like that. Even the massive protests following the assassination of George Floyd, which even sympathizers feared would sow outbreaks, did not, according to several major investigations. The pandemic is really an indoor problem. Even the defined picture of the danger of voices during a pandemic – lines around the block – serves to illustrate why there is not much to fear. For most people, standing in a walking line, outdoors, while wearing masks, poses quite a slight risk.
“I think if done carefully, according to the guidelines, there is no reason I can see why that would not be the case,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a recent National Geographic event . “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.” Similarly, a recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice advises, “Personal voting can be conducted safely if jurisdictions take the necessary steps to minimize the risk of transferring Covid-19 to voters and election workers.”
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