Bill Cotterell

Capital Curmudgeon

When this virus crisis passes, we’re going to learn a lot of lessons and make a lot of changes in how we live and work.

The medical profession, the government, the economy — those are just three big areas of our daily lives that may never be the same. And with regard to government, the conduct of elections ought to get a thorough review and updating in post-Corona America.

Basically, even if there weren’t a worldwide pandemic, we ought to switch to mailed ballots as much as possible.

There is enormous expense and a lot of operational details — notably ballot security and fairness — that would require legislative action. But there’s just no reason for going down to the courthouse and filling out your ballot like we were all living in a Norman Rockwell painting of idealized democracy.

Maybe a few election cycles from now, it might be possible to routinely cast our ballots online. Certainly, that would require ironclad security — and people still wouldn’t trust it, at least at first.

From secret agents in the Kremlin to hackers President Trump once described as “some 300-pound guy in a bed” at 3 a.m., there are sinister forces messing in elections already. But if we can give our credit card numbers to online book sellers, we ought to be able to tell a machine which candidate we want to vote for, with air-tight security, some day.

Absolute, total trust is a must. The familiar pen-and-paper slates would still be available, and so would a couple weeks of early voting and the good old U.S. Postal Service, since not everybody has a home computer or knows how to use one at the library.

But in this fast-changing computer age, why shouldn’t we be working toward an honest, reliable internet option? If you can buy a car remotely and have it delivered, if schools can teach courses to homebound children, why shouldn’t voting be as easy as ordering a pizza?

E-voting is a ways off. But we’ve had vote-by-mail longer than anyone can remember. They used to be called “absentee” ballots and there were four or five legal reasons to get one. Now, they’re yours for the asking.

There are some practical problems. Poll workers match your signature on the outside of the envelope to the one signed on voter-registration rolls at the courthouse, and whether they match is a matter of opinion. What if, in some counties, a whole bunch of signatures for members of one party get challenged, but hardly any in the other party have a problem?

We’ve all seen President Trump’s signature, as he holds up a new law or executive order. If I showed it to you now, could you say for sure whether that spiked zig-zag is really Trump’s signature, or something I just scribbled five minutes ago?

It wouldn’t be hard for a forger to sign ballot envelopes for ordinary citizens, either.

The Corona crisis has already had an impact on the 2020 elections. Ohio cancelled its presidential primary with just a few hours notice. Hundreds of poll workers called in sick in Florida this month. At least seven states have postponed their primaries because of the pandemic.

What does this portend for voting in the summer state primary elections, or in November? Who knows how long Covid-19 is going to disrupt our lives?

Mercifully, we won’t always have worldwide emergencies threatening our elections. There are five states that already gather most of their votes by mail — Washington, Oregon, Utah, Hawaii and Colorado — and about two-thirds of the states offer the option.

Two Democrats are sponsoring a bill in the U.S. Senate to require mailed balloting, along with early voting periods, in all states. It won’t pass in the Republican-run Senate, but several states are looking at the idea on their own.

Experience in several states indicates that the public is slow to accept it, since we’re used to dropping the ballot in the box.

Mailed balloting would probably increase voter turnout, something politicians in both parties claim to want. After all, there’s never a long line at your kitchen table.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat reporter who writes a twice-weekly column. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com.

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