[EL] Open letter from public health and election experts

Thu Jun 18 09:58:24 PDT 2020

Prof. Richman raises the very important question of protecting vulnerable poll workers.  Indeed, as the national survey on elections under COVID that co-authors and I conducted shows (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6mb7764n, see p.13), only 34.6% of respondents would feel comfortable working at a polling place that did not practice social distancing.  That number increases 48.3% when the policing place does adhere to social distancing.

But, perhaps surprisingly, recruiting a new generation of poll workers may be difficult, because younger respondents are just as likely as senior citizens to voice their discomfort with working at a polling place with no social distancing.  When we broke down the responses to this question by age groups in a parallel survey<https://drive.google.com/file/d/10EmINSJaqKwc48qEKpyxexrGF8R6TnUX/view> we conducted in California, we found few differences across age groups in this question. (We will soon conduct this age analysis for our national survey.) For all age groups, social distancing practices increased comfort levels. The consistency in responses is not because all age groups view the election similarly; older voters were significantly more likely to prefer to cast their own ballot by mail, as the next question shows.  But it does indicate that quickly recruiting a new generation to work in polling places will be difficult, unless those polling places have strong social distancing practices.

California Survey:
[cid:470905d5-b839-4eb0-9e49-775048921689]
[cid:513f9da4-4a2b-4ad9-91b0-95ec5e91141d]

[cid:5f1504f5-019c-4442-b494-1ba09ced8fde]

Thad Kousser, Professor and Department Chair
Department of Political Science, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
858-534-3239
http://polisci.ucsd.edu<http://polisci.ucsd.edu/>

________________________________
From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of Richman, Jesse T. <JRichman at odu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2020 7:58 AM
To: Michael Latner <mlatner at calpoly.edu>; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu <law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Open letter from public health and election experts

This letter is missing some crucial elements in my opinion.

In order to minimize voter confusion and to keep lines short it is essential that states and localities maintain all ordinary in-person polling locations.  Closing locations because of the pandemic generates unnecessary confusion, makes planning more difficult, and increases the risk of catastrophic lines.  This should be resisted.

States and localities need to begin the process of recruiting and training a new generation of poll workers, as the older individuals who often work the polls are among the most vulnerable.

It pays insufficient attention to the age distribution of vulnerability to the pandemic.  While a full vote-by-mail roll out might be preferable, a minimum point of departure should be full vote by mail for registered voters over 60 or 65.

Jesse Richman
Associate Professor
Old Dominion University
________________________________
From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of Michael Latner <mlatner at calpoly.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 8:36 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu <law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Open letter from public health and election experts

Apologies the link to the letter did not paste:
https://secure.everyaction.com/9pz2rlM7LEaei2oBf-DmbQ2<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fsecure.everyaction.com*2F9pz2rlM7LEaei2oBf-DmbQ2&data=02*7C01*7Cjrichman*40odu.edu*7Cbdd72006e78c44db96ba08d8131fd7ee*7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3*7C0*7C0*7C637280374772310246&sdata=tNQY*2B5kTlR7ycGLL15KY7RMVYEJZlkk*2FdNWb3FueoyU*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!QYfiQpjprL51eFXOe5qi0NTxZOAgt-u5WaBcE-A_zqj-USfShDc6alTu659pQAZoA8U$>

Thanks again!

ML

From: "mlatner at calpoly.edu" <mlatner at calpoly.edu>
Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 5:14 PM
To: "law-election at department-lists.uci.edu" <law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Open letter from public health and election experts

Dear Election-Law listserv recipients,

I am writing to invite you to sign on to an open letter from public health, political science and election law professionals and organizations nationwide urging Congress and states to take action on ensuring a safe and secure national election amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The open letter is not in support of any candidate nor party, but seeks to keep voters as safe as possible while exercising their right to vote by clarifying the public health need for science-based solutions such as online voter registration, early voting, vote-by-mail, and strategic polling placement. It also aims to spotlight the necessity for voting reforms that ensure equitable access to the vote, especially for marginalized communities facing compounded burdens of unaccountable governance and policies and longstanding barriers to the ballot.

An open statement that brings together experts in the fields of health, political and election science, and public administration can make a powerful evidence-based case for these critical measures. Our hope is that this letter and its use puts the scientific voice to work to bolster the expertise and experience of voting access advocates as the forefront of this work. I sincerely hope you will consider adding your name as a signatory to the letter.

Thursday, June 24, is the deadline for signatures to be part of the initial release. Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

See the list of hundreds of experts<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fdocs.google.com*2Fspreadsheets*2Fd*2F1iVBoUC5m2KddVfWZf_Pz4UJdDaaXX3hIcXpGyKscvME*2Fedit*3Fusp*3Dsharing&data=02*7C01*7Cjrichman*40odu.edu*7Cbdd72006e78c44db96ba08d8131fd7ee*7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3*7C0*7C0*7C637280374772320245&sdata=*2F1oJU765b*2FH4DL6ZveZFgbp0hbnFqC*2FD*2Fld24MOHwBs*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!QYfiQpjprL51eFXOe5qi0NTxZOAgt-u5WaBcE-A_zqj-USfShDc6alTu659pSwUty-M$> who have already signed the letter.

Sincerely,

Professor Michael Latner

Kendall Science Fellow, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists

Faculty Scholar, Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy

Political Science Department

California Polytechnic State University

@mlatner

Mikelatner.com

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