Send in the postal service

The Republican Legislature in Wisconsin tried to use the pandemic to suppress Democratic voting in a crucial state Supreme Court race. They thought that the virus and long lines and long lines would keep progressive and minority voters away.

It backfired spectacularly. In fact, the 10 percent and more than 120,000 margin of victory for Democrat Jill Karofsky over incumbent GOP Justice Dan Kelly might not have been as wide a result if postal voting, and a delayed election date to June, had been allowed.

The refusal by the Badger State’s Republican Legislature and Supreme Court to allow postal voting and postponed primaries outraged and motivated progressive electorate to rush to the polls, especially African-Americans, even when urban areas like Milwaukee only had a handful of open precincts. In that reaction stands a lesson for Louisiana — and the rest of the country in the coming months.

Like the Pelican State, Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor begged for both a delay and the implementation of widely available “vote-by-mail” options. The legislature constantly refused, and when Gov. Tony Evers attempted a delay, the conservative majority on the state Supreme Court shut him down. Now that GOP High Court Majority has been cut from 5-2 to 4-3 in a swing state that Trump must win eight months before the Presidential election. (The hyper-politicization has gotten so bad in Wisconsin that the Republican Senate refuses to confirm the state’s acting Health Secretary for even suggesting that forcing long lines to vote during a pandemic could cause the disease to spread.)

Critics do have a point that sometimes the Badger State’s biannual Supreme Court contests can serve as a contraindication of what shall result in the Fall; after all, Donald Trump won the state eight months after a liberal landslide for a candidate to its high court. Still, never underestimate how turnout can be driven by outrage. It’s especially true when it became clear that majority of the Supreme Court Justices themselves had voted by mail for the past five elections, while denying that right to the general electorate.

Right now the Louisiana legislature has limited its quorums to vote out of fears of the virus. Should it not give the right for Louisianans to do the same? Gov. John Bel Edwards may have extended the quarantine until May 16th, but he has warned our GOP House and Senate that the scheduled June municipal and judicial elections might occur too soon to safely allow long lines to queue up. The administration has urged the legislature to expand early voting options, and allow postal voting “for reasons of the pandemic”.

Currently the coronavirus is not an acceptable reason to request a mail-in ballot, but it should be. Especially, if social isolation extends into the autumn. It seemed impossible just weeks ago, but Mayor LaToya Cantrell urged the cancellation of the Fall festivals last Tuesday — including the transplanted JazzFest — out of real concerns of a second surge in the pandemic. Moreover, serious conversations are being held at the upper echelon‘s of Tulane University about whether to even have the fall semester. Admittedly, some of the reticence to reopen has much to do whether the fee paying foreign students are able to get visas to attend, but if the flagship private university stays closed, other state higher ed institutions will follow suit.

The Orleans and Jefferson Parish School Boards have privately began to poll teachers on the likelihood that public schools could remain closed for the Fall Semester. Parents speculate whether their tuition payments to parochial and private schools make sense if they are likewise closed — causing a potential chain reaction of bankruptcies of educational institutions.

Even the Saints games could be played without spectators, so acute are second pandemic concerns. Most importantly, even if the economy reopens, virus fears will keep millions of people unemployed for months. Telling the general public, who wear a mask just to go to the grocery store and cannot come within six feet of loved ones, that they have to line up within touching distance to be able to vote on a touchpad will spawn horror.

Suburban moderate GOP voters have already shown a willingness to cross party lines for Edwards. We matched with high African-American turnout, even Louisiana can become a swing state. Let citizens vote by mail this year.

This article originally published in the April 20, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.