Many states require an excuse to vote from home but Covid-19 isn’t one of them. Advocates are calling for every voter to have the right to cast a ballot by mail

In the face of Covid-19, election officials around the country are urging Americans to cast votes by mail to avoid crowded polling places during the rest of the primary season.

Voters have responded willingly: Wisconsin election clerks are reporting a surge of requests for mail-in ballots ahead of the state’s primary next month. More than 111,000 people have already cast mail-in ballots in Illinois, which has resisted calls so far to delay its primary amid the coronavirus outbreak. The mail-in ballot request deadline in the state, which could more than double the number of mail-in ballots from its 2016 primary, passed last week.

Advocates have called for federal legislation to mail ballots to every eligible voter in the country. This pragmatic solution for allowing people to vote while protecting their health, however, has revealed deep cracks and inconsistencies in America’s election system as several states grapple with the restrictions that would need to be overhauled, at least temporarily, to allow many voters to participate.

Florida primary will test impact of former felons' new right to vote Read more

Now there’s deep concern that unless elected officials act immediately to clarify the rules around absentee balloting, Americans could be left with a dangerous choice in November. “Nobody should have to risk their life to exercise democracy,” said the New York state senator Alessandra Biaggi, who recently introduced legislation that would allow voters to request an absentee ballot amid a public health risk.

Every state in the US allows at least some voters to vote by mail, but restrictions vary widely from state to state. Some states, like Washington and Oregon, conduct their elections entirely by mail. Other states allow voters to request an absentee ballot, but set varying deadlines for when the application and ballot must be received. Several states, including those with upcoming primaries, also have longstanding restrictions on who can use a mail-in ballot, risking millions of votes in the upcoming election.

New York, set to hold its primary in April, is among 17 states that require voters to give a specific excuse if they want to vote by mail. New York only lets voters cast an absentee ballot if they swear they cannot appear at the polls, and the state only has six acceptable reasons for requesting an absentee ballot.

John Conklin, a spokesman for the New York board of elections, conceded that “fear of pandemic” was not on the approved list of excuses for mailing in a ballot. But he said there was some “wiggle room”. “Illness is not defined anywhere and a voter could use that to justify a lot of things,” he said, adding that the requests were mostly based on the “honor system”.

Several other states are in a similar position to New York. Catherine Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the Delaware department of elections, said the state accepts absentee ballots from voters who list one of six pre-approved excuses that do not include a public health crisis. Jennifer Gardner, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia secretary of state, said her office was researching whether the state’s absentee restrictions could be loosened.

With primaries fast approaching, voting advocates are pushing governors to issue emergency executive orders clarifying that anyone can cast a mail-in ballot ahead of November when the political environment will be more heated.

Some state governments have made progress. Denise Merrill, Connecticut’s top election official, asked the state’s governor on Friday to issue an emergency executive order that would allow anyone concerned about coronavirus to request an absentee ballot. Alabama loosened restrictions on Friday on absentee voting ahead of a runoff election in the state.

In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine moved on Monday to postpone in-person voting for Tuesday’s scheduled primary until 2 June, with mail-in voting extended until then. But civil rights groups said in a Sunday letter the state should make it so any person a voter chooses can return a requested mail-in ballot in person as well.

Even if states ease their restrictions, however, voters may be deterred from voting by mail, said Amber McReynolds, the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, a group that advocates for voting by mail. “There’s such low usage in those states that have had that barrier of there being an excuse for such a long time, I think most of those voters, just from a behavioral and analytical perspective, don’t have any idea that’s an option,” she said.

McReynolds said the flurry of emergency changes should prompt states to urgently revisit their absentee ballot regulations.

“If your policy isn’t gonna work for a public health crisis, or for people who are ill from the public health crisis, then maybe your policy doesn’t work generally,” she said.