12:30 min
never hear of these guys but interesting beyond this story (not that i agree with all of it )
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Voting In A COVID-19 World
By Brett Goble, Centre College Class of 2022
June 17, 2020
Amidst the nation's focus on the current Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, both social media feeds and late-night talk shows are focusing on the importance of voting during summer primaries and in November. This emphasis on voting comes from the assumption that voting will secure politicians who can push for substantial change to support the BLM movement while in office.These claims from leftist pundits and talking heads have been met with claims from the right of the aisle about the harms of voting by mail, a highly recommended way of voting due to the COVID-19 virus and concerns about social distancing, saying that voting by mail would substantially increase the risk of fraudulent votes.However, as the New York Times has pointed out, “voting by mail, which, while more vulnerable to fraud than in-person voting, has proved overwhelmingly secure in states with mail-in elections, including Colorado and Washington (1).” More to the point, there is around one case per state every six or seven years, or a voter fraud rate of 0.00006% over the past 20 years of elections, or about 15,000 votes out of 250 million cast by mail during that time period (2).
Even though the threat of substantial voter fraud does not seem to be supported by the data on mail in voting, those hoping to be elected in November have much to lose if voters view mail in voting as an avenue for fraud and don’t want to physically vote due to the threat of COVID-19; it leaves this November to be a historic election year in more ways than one. To name a few reasons, in many states, acquiring a mail-in ballot is made difficult in part to dissuade voters mailing in their ballots, such as Mississippi, and the rate at which people will vote is already expected to be lower this November due to COVID-19, so any additional hurdle to voting will most likely have serious consequences for voter turnout (3). There are still more things to contemplate in the realm of voting in a world after COVID-19. With the 2020census currently being administered, the question that will most likely be plaguing the news cycle this time next year will be the redistricting of voting districts as so required by the results of the census. With this redistricting, due to the fact populations may have grown/changed political persuasion/moved, comes the possibility of gerrymandering.As a brief review, gerrymandering is intentionally drawing voter districts that favor one political party over another through higher diluting or empowering of a specific voting block (4).
Since the summer 2019 Supreme Court decision Rucho v. Common Cause it has been the case that the court has no say on the constitutionality of gerrymandering (5), and thus gives the state governments that draw voter boundaries greater potential to design said districts with their party's interests in mind.These three points, those being calls for electing politicians that support BLM, dubious accusations about the safety of voting by mail, and the redistricting that will occur next year, raise many important questions. Will various states that don’t change their current political status quo by failing to elect new leaders due to concerns over COVID-19 or voting by mail, have their districts redrawn in harmful ways that silence their votes? Will activists have to push their state governments to form independent commissions to draw new districts to avoid widespread gerrymandering now that the Supreme Court has shown it won't do anything substantial against gerrymandering?For these and other questions, we will simply have to wait to see what transpires. If a new president is elected in November, perhaps gerrymandering will be an issue they wish to tackle. Though this seems unlikely, as the Supreme Court said gerrymandering is a “states issue (6).”All of this being said, voting in a COVID-19 world will undoubtedly be more difficult for some voters and thus some may not vote, but, as I have shown, the societal and political ramifications of this election could be more substantial than any other election in recent years.Brett Goble is a junior at Centre College in Danville, KY. He is studying politics and environmental studies.
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1. Rutenberg, J., Haberman, M., & Corasaniti, N. (2020, April 08). Why Republicans Are So Afraid ofVote-by-Mail. Retrieved June 13, 2020, fromhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/republicans-vote-by-mail.html?auth=login-email
2. Parks, M. (2020, June 04). Why Is Voting By Mail (Suddenly) Controversial? Here's What You NeedTo Know. Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2020/06/04/864899178/why-is-voting-by-mail-suddenly-controversial-heres-what-you-need-to-know
3. Ibid.
4. Liptak, A. (2019, June 27). Supreme Court Bars Challenges to Partisan Gerrymandering. RetrievedJune 13, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-gerrymandering.html
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
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