Page 35 - FCW, September/October 2020

‘UNPRECEDENTED’ CHALLENGES
The country’s election infrastructure is bending under the stress of multiple crises. Administrators are doing all they can to ensure it doesn’t break.
BY DEREK B. JOHNSON
A raging pandemic. An economic recession that has decimated state and local budgets. Critical shortages of poll workers. Long lines at polling stations. A mail system beset by politics. Disinformation campaigns by foreign intelligence agencies and domestic political groups. Hackable voting machines.
Election administrators have always walked a tightrope when it comes to ensuring a smooth voting process, but the number of obstacles they face this year will pose one of the greatest challenges to America’s voting infrastructure in memory.
“Things are bad. I can’t sugarcoat that, but most people in elections are truly rising to the occasion within the limits of their positions,” Genya Coulter, an election official in Florida, told FCW. “They can’t change certain things, but whatever is in their power to change, they are.”
Chief among those challenges is a deadly virus that is altering voter behavior. What started out as a years- long effort to secure in-person voting machines and polling stations has in a matter of months morphed into an urgent scramble to ensure that the state and local voting infrastructure is capable of handling what
is expected to be a historic surge in mail-in ballots this fall. Furthermore, the increasing number of poll workers who are dropping out because of concerns about the virus is complicating many jurisdictions’ efforts to facilitate in-person voting this year.
Amber McReynolds, CEO of the nonprofit National Vote at Home Institute, summed up the situation when she told the House Homeland Security Committee in August that the pandemic “has upended all aspects of our lives, and the voting process is no different.”
“Election officials have responded to difficult circumstances with little support and will attempt to do so again this year, but this year is unprecedented,” she added. “They need support from elected leaders who have the power to help.”
Although some local officials have been vocal about their frustration, others have pointedly rejected the urge to give into hopelessness or despair and instead have pledged to conduct a safe and secure election regardless of the circumstances. They argue that few, if any, of the challenges are insurmountable and say that most simply require sufficient political will to address.
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