AFSA has joined other unions in a push for the $3.6 billion in the House Democrats’ stimulus bill to pay states to establish vote-by-mail systems—and the measure’s mandate they do so.
However, the unions, plus wide public support for the idea across the country, might not be enough to sway either GOP President Trump or the overwhelming majority of the Senate’s ruling Republicans. Both Trump and senators fear that the more people vote, as Trump put, the more the Republicans lose at the polls.
Vote-by-mail money is in the $3 trillion House Democratic economic stimulus bill. Senate sponsor Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) joined AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and union presidents on a telephone press conference to help raise public understanding.
Congress needs to pass it now, Klobuchar said, so states have enough time to set up and test-run their vote-by-mail registrations, procedures and systems.
Vote by mail will help “the front-line workers—the nurses, those who are driving trucks and in grocery stores and others, who are working from home and have kids there” due to shelter-in-place policies the coronavirus pandemic mandated, Klobuchar said. Voters also don’t want to risk health or lives to the virus’s community spread by waiting in long lines.
That’s what happened in the Wisconsin Democratic primary, she noted. The GOP-run state lawmakers forced voters to stand in such lines, and 72 voters and one election judge got sick. By contrast, 1.1 million mail ballots swamped Badger State election officials beforehand.
That’s no surprise. In the 2018 off-year election, turnout as a percentage of eligible voters zoomed, especially in those states with vote by mail, such as California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington. It also rose substantially in such states as Minnesota and Illinois, which have same-day voter registration. Younger voters and women in particular cast ballots.
And the high turnout, combined with a horde of progressive female candidates seeking U.S. House seats, and anger against Trump and the GOP—even before the coronavirus pandemic hit—combined to produce an enormous shift of House seats to Democrats, along with House control and election of a large number of pro-worker lawmakers.
State legislative and gubernatorial races saw similar results, except in states like Georgia and Florida with rampant GOP-pushed voter suppression efforts, heavily gerrymandered legislatures, or both.
All this makes enacting vote by mail the first top cause of Labor 2020, its election effort, Trumka said. “In the middle of a global pandemic, we must make it easier to vote than ever before,” he explained. The $3.6 billion for vote by mail and $25 billion more for the Postal Service—so carriers can deliver and pick up ballots, along with other mail—“are investments in our democracy.” Even GOP governors in Ohio and New Hampshire agree, Klobuchar said.
(PAI material)
Image credit Robert Stinnett on Wunderstock (license)
