Coronavirus fears cause poll worker dropouts, safety concerns ahead of Florida primary
A large portion of poll workers in the last presidential election was above the age of 60. Many nursing homes are also used as polling stations. Here is how Florida is handling concerns over the coronavirus ahead of its primary this coming Tuesday.
When Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 maelstrom, wiped out parts of Miami in 1992, authorities delayed elections for a week. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s winds and floodwaters caused so much damage that New Orleans postponed its mayoral election for months.
More recently, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks New York City postponed its mayoral primary for two weeks.
So why aren’t we calling for the postponement now of primaries for presidential and down-ballot nominations in the next few weeks?
BIDEN TO HOLD VIRTUAL EVENTS IN FLORIDA, ILLINOIS AMID CORONAVIRUS
Of immediate concern: primaries scheduled for Tuesday in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
As coronavirus infections spread across our country from people coming in close contact, we must be more concerned about personal health than political choice.
Florida – the biggest prize of all Tuesday with 219 convention delegates up for grabs in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination – is suddenly up in the air regarding its ability to conduct voting and count the votes.
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Poll workers in Florida are opting to stay home. Volunteers may fear showing up to replace them. And some citizens – especially those in senior assisted living and nursing homes that are now all but quarantined from the general public – will not be able to vote at all.
Illinois, Ohio and Arizona are in much the same boat, with their primaries still afloat but slowly sinking due to the potential spread of illness caused by the coronavirus.
All across America, concern over the coronavirus is keeping people from gathering together in ways we normally take from granted.
Most sporting events have been postponed or canceled, many concerts and plays are not being held, President Trump has placed restrictions on people entering the U.S., airlines have cut back sharply on flights, schools and colleges are conducting classes online, and growing numbers of office workers are working from home. And those are just some of the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s simply not right to hold elections where people who want to vote can’t, or are terrified that if they vote they could contract COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. This means “one person, one vote” will yield to many people being too frightened to vote.
And do we really want the two remaining viable Democratic presidential candidates – former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – continuing to battle for votes by slamming the Trump administration for its attempts to deal with this unparalleled crisis?
It’s unseemly enough for anyone to try and score political points off a pandemic. What’s worse is that this drives an insidious wedge between those trying to control the contagion, versus others out to control an election by fanning fear.
In his televised address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump called for American unity to confront and defeat the coronavirus. He said we should set aside politics to unleash the power of American ingenuity, know-how and resolve to end the pandemic.
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Let’s honor the president’s request. We need to postpone planned primaries until an unplanned health scare is in our rearview mirror, perhaps defaulting to a final, one-day primary in June among all the states that have not yet held party primaries for president and other offices.
That leaves plenty of time for political discourse, debate and disagreement to continue in and beyond the July and August Democratic and Republican conventions.
Current Florida law says a state of emergency can be declared to delay or reschedule an election due to natural or manmade disaster “to ensure maximum citizen participation in the electoral process, and provide a safe and orderly procedure for persons seeking to exercise their right to vote.” That’s as it should be.
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Now it’s time for our political system to be as major league as our major league sports. If not, the politics of the coronavirus will delay our efforts to end this pandemic.
Now, who’s for that?