Date/Time
Date(s) - 07/05/2020
11:30 am - 1:00 pm

Categories No Categories

Worried about our election during COVID? You should be!!

Voter turnout may be fine in California and solidly blue and red states that both parties are ignoring as already determined. But voter participation will face significant obstacles in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina, Texas and Georgia. These are purple states without a history, funding or ability to conduct a fair mail-in-ballot election. They lack the resources to buy the necessary equipment or hire the necessary people to convert to a mail-in election. Officials will site Coronavirus risks as grounds to close polls in urban minority areas. Conspiracy theories will fly from election night as the media will not be able to call the election as current laws mandate that mail-in ballots counting start after Election Day. the longer the count takes, the more conspiracy theories will gain traction and the winner will lose legitimacy. With unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots and insufficient resources it won’t be possible to count all the ballots by the federal statutory certification deadline. Without a change in the law, the Gore v. Bush precedent, which states that the certification deadline cannot be extended to allow for a more proper count, will apply. State legislators will usurp power and choose electoral college representatives themselves, stating it is simply not possible to do a proper count/recount of all mail in ballots in the time necessary and that they believe that voters really did vote for ______. And, to top it all off, coronavirus will subsequently skyrocket in urban minority areas with long lines at the polls.

All of that presumes that USPS receives the funding it direly needs to stay afloat and deliver mail-in ballots. Right now, USPS is heading toward bankruptcy in mid-fall, just before the election.

Laura Colban (lauracolban@gmail.com 8/692-2528) is looking to form a group to work on this nonpartisan issue. This group should be broad, and include people outside UUFSD. It will be an interfaith coalition, as churches are allowed to work on nonpartisan issues (notice that everything above is nonpartisan!) We will divide into groups to attack the various dimensions of this considerable problem. I hope you will attend and will encourage your friends, both at UUFSD and beyond, to attend. Come prepared!! Before attending, please read at least one of these articles:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/magazine/voting-by-mail-2020-covid.amp.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/trump-republicans-vote-mail-arizona-florida/612625/

We will meet on both July 5 and July 12, immediately after the coffee half hour.