If an election indeed takes place Tuesday, it will be chaotic. The state is facing a severe shortage of poll workers as well as a massive number of absentee ballot requests that the state may not be able to handle. Beside the state’s strict voter ID law, new hurdles borne out of the pandemic will disproportionately affect marginalized populations, including low-income people, people of color, seniors, and people with disabilities—but will make voting harder for nearly everyone.

Because of the shortage of election workers, Evers has asked the National Guard to work the few polling stations that will be open in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, voters have requested more than 1.2 million absentee ballots across the state.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also called for the state to reconsider its current trajectory. “We don’t want people to have to risk their lives in order to cast a vote,” he said on MSNBC Wednesday. Sanders thinks states should move to all-mail elections. Sanders’ opponent Joe Biden, who leads the polling in Wisconsin, downplayed the threat of in-person voting, suggesting the importance of proper procedures—“having people walk into a polling booth with accurate spacing, six to 10 feet apart, one at a time, going in and having the machines scrubbed down,” he said Thursday in a virtual news conference.

One justification for continuing with the election is that Wisconsin’s spring voters decide more than the state’s preferred presidential candidate. Also on the ballot are elections for a state supreme court judge and numerous county executive and city positions.

If the primary were delayed, “You would have, in the midst of a pandemic, hundreds of essential government positions vacant,” says Joe Zepecki, communications director in Wisconsin for the labor-backed For Our Future PAC.

Still, a number of lawsuits were filed to delay the election, including a lawsuit from advocacy organizations that charged voters of color will be disproportionately affected by an election during a pandemic. “African American and Latino voters will have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice because they are less likely to be able to vote via mail in absentee ballot,” the lawsuit charged.

If the election in Wisconsin continues as planned, there will be a small patchwork of polling stations and a wide influx of absentee voting—if voters both receive their ballots and meet each requirement for their vote to be counted.

The process is “a travesty,” says Robert Kraig, executive director of the advocacy group Citizen Action of Wisconsin, of which Fulwilder is a member. He believes that the governor should do whatever is necessary, including extending the terms of lame duck officials, to protect health and safety.

“People will die because of this,” says Kraig. “There will be people who will get COVID-19 because they felt like they had to vote.”