In case it’s not clear to everyone by now, ALL eligible people (Dem, GOP, etc.) should register to vote by mail-in ballot for the general election in November (and the primary, if your state hasn’t had one yet and there’s still time). There is one compelling reason for this that applies to all voters: COVID-19.
Do NOT rely on the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 emergency to be over by November. For the emergency to be over and for social distancing mandates to be relaxed we will require a vaccine — a well-tested and effective vaccine — to be available and administered to all people in the U.S. While at least one candidate vaccine is almost ready to test it will still take months for the test to run and confirm that it is effective and non-harmful. If it passes the testing it’ll take many more months to produce enough vaccine to vaccinate everyone and more months still to administer those vaccinations.
I’m not even talking about voter suppression as demonstrated in Wisconsin and other states. There’s a case to be made there, too, but that would require another, longer analysis and I am not the best person to make that argument. I’ll leave that to Heather Cox Richardson’s post from yesterday that covers the Wisconsin disenfranchisement.
Here’s one note from an article about an article about potential vaccines:
“This virus isn’t going away. It’s going to continue to bounce around the world,” Gottlieb said. “And it’s going to change our lives until we have a therapeutic that can vanquish it or really take the fear away from this virus spreading in the background.”
Scott's Thoughts 