We Must Ensure Safe and Reliable Elections for All Americans
Join us as we design and implement a safe voting experience.
By Soren DeOrlow with contributions from Tracy Deluca, Susan Dix Lyons and Dr. Amanda Sammann
Illustration by Andrew Holder
This fall, over one hundred million Americans will attempt to vote as the Covid-19 pandemic poses a historic threat to public health and our elections.
To address the public health challenges facing voting, the Emergency Design Collective (EDC) is launching a design sprint entitled Safe Voting, a non-partisan initiative to understand and support voting during a pandemic.
The EDC is a non-profit organization comprised of doctors, academics and designers seeking to provide human-centered, rapid responses to urgent public health crises. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the EDC has tackled wide ranging issues such as personal protection equipment, mental health, blood donation and drive-through Covid-19 testing. In doing so, the EDC has established valuable thought leadership on how to deliver human-centered solutions to pandemic challenges.
We invite you to join this important effort as we address the following six challenges that represent a threat to public health and the administration of our elections in the fall.
1. How might we remove the obstacles voters faced in early primaries?
Voters in early primaries held across the country faced a range of obstacles, including rescheduling, long wait times, bottlenecks at voter locations, poll workers refusing to work, and a spike in cases following elections. These challenges threaten participation in the democratic process and require creative solutions.
Sixteen states postponed their primaries due to COVID-19¹ and some of these primaries were rescheduled numerous times², which created significant confusion for voters. Regardless of the delays, voters felt that the health risks of COVID-19 made it necessary to postpone their elections³, providing a precedent for postponing future elections.
The primary in Wisconsin, in contrast, proceeded according to schedule, as GOP legislators rejected the advice of experts⁴ and Governor Evers’s proposal to delay the election. When the election kicked off on April 7, there were record turnouts that were bottlenecked by a reduction in the number of voting locations. Many state polling workers refused to work due to the risks of becoming infected with COVID-19. Those poll workers who did show up were overwhelmed as they attempted to implement last-minute CDC guidelines. As a result, Wisconsin voters experienced wait times of more than 3 hours⁵ to vote in crowded and understaffed polling places⁶.
Researchers are still investigating the public health implications of the Wisconsin primary election, but initial findings have shown that in-person voting increased the spread of COVID-19. Researchers at UW-Oshkosh and Ball State University saw a large increase in the rate of positive COVID-19 test cases⁷. This spike in cases was correlated with a higher density of voters in polling locations due to the decision to consolidate polling places. It has also been reported that poll workers worked while infected with COVID-19. The CDC is still investigating the data from the Wisconsin primary, which will inform measures put in place for November 3.
2. How might we improve and simplify mail-in voting, and ensure each vote is cast successfully?
For voters seeking to avoid polling places, absentee ballots for those who can’t be physically present at a voting center on election day and general voting by mail may seem like ideal solutions, but they are fraught with a number of unique challenges. While some states have raced to make voting more accessible through mail-in voting, others have legislation in place that makes this more difficult. For example, Oklahoma law requires that absentee ballots be notarized⁸ and some states require a verified signature to confirm the legitimacy of a mail-in ballot. For voters whose signature may have been filed decades earlier, and whose writing ability has changed due to age or other circumstances, this may preclude election officials from verifying their vote⁹.
Issues such as these could result in a significant percentage of ballots being rejected. According to a study by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 1.4 percent of all mail-in votes were rejected in the 2018 midterms¹⁰. Assuming these issues persist during the fall election and there is an increased reliance on mail-in voting, this would result in millions of ballots being cast aside for reasons such as a missing signature¹¹.
3. How might we facilitate implementation of new voting measures?
As the U.S. strives to modernize the process of voting, unexpected problems have emerged in the roll-out of new voting systems. In recent elections, states and counties that tried to introduce new voting processes to improve voting were disastrous. The results of the Iowa Caucuses were delayed for days due to a major app malfunction and poor training of staff members¹². LA County implemented a new three hundred million dollar voting system that suffered a similar flawed rollout during the March 3 primary¹³. Voters in LA County dealt with delays while staff members had insufficient training to mitigate the problems that occurred. These two primaries demonstrate that there is a need to ensure that polling workers are equipped to operate new voting technology successfully.
4. How might we avoid unintentional voter suppression?
In a Pew Research poll published in late June, attitudes towards the virus were markedly partisan. Sixty-one percent of Republicans believed that the worst was behind us, while seventy-six percent of Democrats believed that the worst is still to come. Republicans were much more comfortable than Democrats visiting restaurants, indoor events and parties. Forty percent of Republicans would be in favor of attending indoor sporting events compared to eleven percent of Democrats.
Regional difference in attitudes toward COVID-19 infection rates will also create great disparity across states. Despite the heightened health concerns, there was a record turnout in Wisconsin. On the other hand, attitudes were very different in New York, where voters were in favor of delaying the election at a time when their state had the highest case number.
5. How might we ensure that the process of voter ID meets CDC guidelines?
For voters planning to vote in-person, 36 states have laws that require a form of ID at polling places. As states have differing mask requirements, potential problems may emerge during the process of identifying voters who are wearing PPE. Texas voters were advised to consider wearing masks and bringing hand sanitizer to the polls, but not required to do so. Neither were they required to lower their masks during check-in. However, if an election judge decided that it wasn’t possible to determine a person’s identity while wearing a mask, the voter would have to lower or remove their mask, before they could vote¹⁴. It is unclear how polling places across the nation will approach the challenge of identifying voters wearing masks.
6. How might we protect older adults while ensuring their participation in the election?
This initiative will be looking at the primary experience in battleground states, where the high stakes of the elections may pressure voters to forego the risks of COVID-19. According to a Pew Research Poll, only forty-nine percent of those sixty-five and older said in a late April-early May surveythat the coronavirus is a major threat to their health¹⁵. Older conservative voters who do not see COVID-19 as a serious health risk may be compelled to vote despite the fact that they are in a vulnerable population. Poll workers, who tend to be older adults¹⁶ may prioritize their civic duty in the election over their personal health.
The significant challenges facing our November election may seem daunting, but we believe there are solutions to run a safe election during COVID-19. The Safe Voting design sprint will promote solutions to positively impact public health to ensure a safe and reliable U.S. Presidential Election.
As we embark on this design sprint, we’ve been inspired by the courage we’ve seen in states across the country and throughout the world. When this crisis reached an initial inflection point mid-March, there was a global movement to support our frontline healthcare workers. The outpouring of collaboration and generosity was incredibly inspiring. We’ve seen a determination to find innovative solutions to continue life amid a global pandemic. The world was inspired by South Korea’s novel approaches to scaling COVID-19 testing. They took a similar approach to running an election on April fifteenth that was successful with zero COVID-19 transmissions, proving that it’s possible to design a safe in-person voting experience.
As we go to the polls this year, we are forced to deal directly with issues facing public health. COVID-19 has reinforced the fact that a healthy democracy cannot exist unless American citizens are healthy. Our collective participation in a properly run election can be a symbol of our commitment to public health and a vote for a Healthist future. Please join us as we embark on this important design sprint.
Here are some ways you can help the Emergency Design Collective as we create solutions to address the challenge of voting in a pandemic.
· Share your unique voting experience with us during this year’s primary or connect us to voters you know who will share their stories. Bonus points for voters in Wisconsin, Georgia and other battleground states. If you would like to share your voting experience with us, fill out this survey.
· Are you a healthcare worker who participated in the primaries and have ideas to make the in-person voting experience safer? Please share your ideas with us.
· Connect us to local and regional governments who should be involved in this effort.
· Connect us to other teams working on this challenge, or partners who could help us.
· If you would like to donate to fund our Safe Voting research, please fill out our Google Form below.
Support this project by getting in touch with us via this Google Form.
Emergency Design Collective Team members: Soren DeOrlow (Design Lead), Tracy DeLuca (Team Advisor), Nicole Cousino (Project Lead), Daniel Davidson (Researcher), Susan Dix Lyons (Writer/Advisor)
References
[1]: Nick Corasaniti and Stephanie Saul (5/27/2020) 16 States Have Postponed Primaries During the Pandemic. Here’s a List.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html
[2]: Sarah Ewall-Wice (3/17/2020) Ohio delays primary in late night decision amid coronavirus outbreak
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-delays-primary-coronavirus-governor-dewine-health-emergency/
[3]: Hannah Hartig & Bradley Jones (4/3/2020) Most voters say postponing presidential primaries amid COVID-19 outbreak has been necessary
[4]: Katelyn Burons (4/7/2020) Wisconsin voters are waiting in 5-hour lines in the middle of a deadly pandemic
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/7/21211879/wisconsin-voters-lines-election-primary
[5]: Scott Bauer & Steve Peoples (4/7/2020) Wisconsin voters wait for hours, others stay home amid virus
https://apnews.com/326d33f1da060324d6fda720e3ae6aea
[6]: The New York Times (4/7/2020) Wisconsin Primary Recap: Voters Forced to Choose Between Their Health and Their Civic Duty
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/politics/wisconsin-primary-election.html
[7]: Chad Cotti Ph.D. Bryan Engelhardt Ph.D. Joshua Foster Ph.D. Erik Nesson Ph.D. Paul Niekamp Ph.D. (5/10/2020) The Relationship between In-Person Voting, Consolidated Polling Locations, and Absentee Voting on COVID-19: Evidence from the Wisconsin Primary
[8]: Adam Harris (6/30/2020) The Voting Disaster Ahead
[9]: Amber Phillips, (4/3/2020) Why voting by mail will be so hard for states to set up on the fly
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/03/vote-by-mail-difficulties/
[10]: Michael R. Blood (7/13/2020) California rejected 100K mail-in ballots because of mistakes
[11]: John Wildermuth (7/18/2020) Sloppy handwriting could get your mail ballot tossed in California
[12]: Sara Morrison (2/6/2020) The Iowa caucus smartphone app disaster, explained
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/4/21122211/iowa-caucus-smartphone-app-disaster-explained
[13]: Jaclyn Cosgrove, John Myers, Matt Stiles (6/17/2020) L.A. County primary voting was plagued with technology flaws
[14]: Tessa Weinberg (5/26/2020) Texas voters should wear masks, bring hand sanitizer to the polls amid COVID, state says
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/article243006316.html#storylink=cpy
[15]: Pew Research (5/12/2020) Most Americans Say Federal Government Has Primary Responsibility for COVID-19 Testing
[16]: Michael Barthel & Galen Stocking (4/6/2020) Older people account for large shares of poll workers and voters in U.S. general elections
[X]: Aaron Maybin (4/5/2020) ‘I had to go do this:’ Some waited 2 hours on final day of drive-thru voting in Milwaukee
https://fox6now.com/2020/04/05/i-had-to-go-do-this-some-waited-2-hours-on-final-day-of-drive-thru-voting-in-milwaukee/