Honestly, you just have to vote in person – it’s safer than you think

That you are Whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent, the introduction of cuts to the United States Postal Service in a pandemic election set to shatter postal voting records is a disturbing threat to American democracy. There is still debate as to whether the service changes imposed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump megadonor, constitute deliberate election sabotage or are simply part of a long-standing Conservative plan to hamper then to privatize the USPS. Either way, the worst consequences are the same: a nightmare scenario in which the thousands or millions of Americans who legally vote by mail – and are mostly registered Democrats – are nonetheless disenfranchised.

The media, Congressional Democrats and state election officials from both parties are rightly sounding the alarm bells about impending disaster. Nancy Pelosi called the House back from recess to vote on a bill that would prevent the USPS from cutting service until the end of the year, even though it could easily die in the Republican-controlled Senate. The good news is that individual voters have another, simpler solution at their fingertips. It’s called the polling station.

It turns out that voting in person isn’t that dangerous after all. At the start of the pandemic, that might have seemed like a foolish thing to suggest. The Wisconsin primary in March was widely portrayed in apocalyptic tones. The New York Times called it “a dangerous spectacle that forced voters to choose between participating in an important election and protecting their health.” After State Democrats fought unsuccessfully to extend the deadline for returning mail-in ballots, photos of long lines at polling stations in Milwaukee seemed to portend an explosion in Covid-19 cases .

But the bomb never exploded. As I observed in May, there has not been a noticeable increase in coronavirus cases thanks to the Wisconsin primary. A follow-up study by researchers from the Milwaukee City Department of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded: “No net increase in cases, hospitalizations or deaths was observed. after the elections. ” In fact, the case numbers in Milwaukee were inferior in the weeks following the election than in the weeks preceding it. There are caveats: In-person turnout has been low overall thanks to extensive use of postal ballots, and we don’t know how the prevalence of the coronavirus in March will compare to November. Yet it is telling that there has been no credible reports of virus spikes from any other election this year, even as reckless polling station closures have led to new cases of overcrowding in Milwaukee.

Why would voting be safer than expected? We now know that the coronavirus mainly spreads when people are in prolonged contact indoors, in settings like a restaurant, bar, or a shared home or office. The risk of transmission during short-lived encounters, on the other hand, is low. On the outside, it is so. Even the massive protests that followed George Floyd’s murder, which even supporters feared would lead to epidemics, failed to do so, according to several large studies. The pandemic is truly an internal problem. Even the defining image of the danger of voting during a pandemic – lines around the block – serves to illustrate why there is nothing to fear. For most people, standing in a spaced line, outdoors, while wearing masks, carries a minimal risk at best.

“I think if this is done carefully, as directed, there is no reason I could see why it would not be the case,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Allergy Institute and of infectious diseases, at a recent National Geographic event. “If you wear a mask, if you observe the physical distance and you don’t have a situation of overcrowding, there is no reason why you cannot. Likewise, a recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice advises, “In-person voting can be safe if the jurisdictions take the necessary steps to minimize the risk of transmission of Covid-19 to voters and election officials.”