- [Reporter] These are voters in Wisconsin waiting to cast
their ballot in the April primary election,
despite being under stay-at-home orders
during the coronavirus pandemic.
With a potential resurgence of the virus
in the fall of 2020, many are questioning how they will vote
in the November general election
without jeopardizing their health.
One solution?
- Mail-in ballots. - Mail ballots.
- Vote-by-mail. - Vote-by-mail.
- [Reporter] Lawmakers are debating
whether expanded absentee voting policies
should be adopted in all 50 states.
- It shouldn't be mail-in voting, it should be you go
to a booth and you proudly display yourself.
- So, the real problem right now is public safety
and that people shouldn't have to choose
between voting and their health and we all know
there is one solution, which is riding out in front of us
and that is voting at home or voting by mail.
- [Reporter] To understand the debate, first,
you have to understand what voting by mail looks like now.
All states allow forms of voting by mail
but for some, it has limitations.
Currently, five states have primarily mail-in elections.
This includes Oregon, which was the first state
to fully adopt the policy in 1998.
- The states that have a culture and history
of extensive use of vote-by-mail
have enjoyed higher turnout.
The states that extensively use vote-by-mail really like it
because they think it's more convenient for voters,
they think it is cheaper and easier to administer.
- [Reporter] 29 states have what is called
no-excuse absentee voting, which means that
any voter can request a ballot to vote from home,
which they can then mail in or drop off in a ballot box.
The remaining 16 states, which you can see here in gray,
allow for mail-in voting but only with an excuse,
like having a physical disability
or being away on election day.
Some states, such as New York, Maryland and Georgia,
have already opted to expand voting-by-mail
because of the pandemic.
Some lawmakers are arguing that absentee voting
should be accessible and easy for all voters.
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden have introduced
the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act.
The bill would expand early in-person voting
and no-excuse vote-by-mail to all registered voters
in every state, among other things.
- So, we don't know, as much as we'd like to,
what will happen in November but the safe bet is
that this will still be around in some form
and that we need to plan ahead
and allow people to vote safely at home.
- [Reporter] In March, Congress passed
a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill,
that included 400 million
to address voting issues created by the pandemic.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is calling
for more funds in the next stimulus.
- It has been estimated by the Brennan Center
that it would take about $2 billion to ensure
that the appropriate policies can be in place
in order to make sure that
the November election goes off without a hitch.
- [Reporter] For all Americans to have the full ability
to vote-by-mail in the 2020 election, the policy will need
to be included in legislation that is approved by Congress.
- There's huge urgency to getting this bill done
because the Secretary of States
in each state need time to plan.
- [Reporter] It will require significant resources
for states to enact voting reforms
less than seven months before a presidential election.
This includes hiring additional election staff
and purchasing equipment such as high-speed ballot scanners
and large orders of envelopes and postage.
The Brennan Center estimates the total cost of postage
to be between 413 and 593 million dollars,
while ballot drop boxes with security could cost
an additional 117 to 165 million.
- The states that extensively use vote-by-mail have
a variety of security mechanisms.
They start with voter rolls that they believe are clean
because they have been doing a number of interactions
with the voters and they are constantly updating
the information that they get, they have mechanisms
for tracking where the ballot is in the pipeline
to ensure the chain of custody, they have
non-discriminatory procedures for comparing signatures.
- [Reporter] Opponents of mail-in voting argue
that it increases the risk of fraud
and that it's not a reliable way to cast a ballot.
- The most secure way to do an election where people have
the most confidence in the election is to have people go to
an assigned polling place on election day and vote.
- [Reporter] They say that voting early
also encourages voters to cast their ballots
before having all of the information from a campaign.
While researchers have found cases of fraud,
evidence shows that, overall, it's rare.
The debate over vote-by-mail doesn't always follow
party lines, some Republican governors are pushing
for temporary voting-by-mail
just during the coronavirus pandemic.
But for some states, the only way to allow absentee voting
for all voters would be to change the state constitution.
Experts point out that it may not be the best option
for everyone and that ensuring the safety
of voters will require multiple methods.
- There are going to be some communities
that have terrible mail service
and it would be inappropriate to expect them
to vote by mail when they don't trust the mail.
- It's not one size fits all, we want to, as a country,
to move to mail-in balloting but we know that people
with disabilities, many of them, can't vote by mail,
you'll have people that do wanna vote at the polls
for some reason or don't have, their ballot didn't arrive,
all kinds of things can happen.
So, you don't wanna have them lose that right.