Thread by @Taniel

big takeaway me of writing up this Q&A: an idea we keep hearing, that we can just scale up absentee programs (instruct ppl to ask for mail ballots, shut down rest) risks leaving behind a ton of voters.

let me explain in brief thread because it's important theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

1. This is the most obvious point: 17 states require people to provide an excuse while voting absentee, and that just has to go if you expect any meaningful scaling-up of mail voting. It's probably about to in Virginia, so make it soon 16.

2. Okay, 70% of people already vote by mail in AZ. Easy to send a ballot to everyone. But many states have no experience processing significant number of mail ballots. So let's start with basics. Who is processing this? Where are $ for counties? Who's printing the ballots?

3. Bad decisions at this elemental stage (the design of the ballot & envelope) already risks backfiring if requirements are made too onerous, & either dissuade voters from voting, lead to unreasonably high number of ballots to be disqualified, or make things go slowly at offices.

4. Many jurisdictions are small & you'd effectively be asking 1-2 workers to suddenly process thousands of envelopes out of nowhere. Doable! It just takes more planning than flipping a switch overnight. As Tammy Patrick spelled out:

5. Once ballots return, how will we make sure counties reach out to voters about issues before throwing away a potentially valid ballot? You need time and will for this.

There were staggering rates of disqualifications in one GA county in 2018, predominantly people of color.

6. When ballots return, are we making sure the postage is prepaid? How will we make sure counties are not throwing out ballots sent back on time (postmarked on election day) but were delayed for reasons unrelated to the voter, especially when later voters often skew younger?

7. Mail voting shouldn't just mean shutting down all in-person services without leaving some behind. But that's what some consider (e.g. WI).

Some people need in-person assistance, e.g. something's wrong with their registration (often more transient), or a mistaken removal.

8. Some people have hard-to-deliver mail addresses, especially Native voters. Some people are used to voting in-person, & while there may be reasons to move away from it as many as possible in coming months, a full-on stop would dissuade participation.

9. And this all just covers moment of voting. Because public authorities have done little to take on burden of registering people, voter registration itself typically hinges on in-person interactions. Often it's been all grassroots groups taking up mantle! What happens to these?

10. In a dozen states, you cannot even register to vote online. So there's certainly more states can do to enable people to not need inperson interactions to register. There's also a lot more public agencies can do to use all info at their disposal to proactively register people.

All these issues can be addressed. Relying on mail as a solution without that would cause problems. All require states willing to play along & ensure elections that leave no one behind (hmm, never a given); and so all require all levels of government to start work now to prepare.