Wisconsin Voters Come Down With COVID-19
I’m a few days ahead of the news cycle on this one, but this might be the most predictable story of the year.
If you’re not sure what’s going on, let me tell you. Today, Wisconsin held an election (on the ballot were candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination as well as candidates for Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court), despite the fact that voting involves large crowds of people in close proximity and touching the same items, at a time when the CDC is urging citizens to do the exact opposite. Note that most poll workers are old, and therefore at greater risk of serious illness if they were to become infected with COVID-19. Additionally, many polling places in Wisconsin were closed due to the Coronavirus, forcing hoards of Wisconsinites to wait in hourslong lines at the few polling places that remained open (for example, Milwaukee had five polling locations open, while they were supposed to have had 180). It is a dangerous convergence of poor decisions, human vulnerabilities, and unyielding circumstances; or as Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes called it, a shit show.
The Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, tried to postpone the election until June to give the pandemic time to subside a bit, but the Republican-held Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled his executive action unconstitutional. Efforts to pivot from in-person voting to vote-by-mail were also unsuccessful, halted by Republicans who feared that more people voting would result in them losing more races (if that’s the position your party is in, it may be time to reevaluate your platform). Voter suppression is alive and well. For more details on the Wisconsin Republicans’ motivation for suppressing voter turnout in this election, check out this article from The New York Times.
Forcing Americans to chose between their health and voting is an insult to Democracy, and the unpatriotic Republicans who put Wisconsinites in that predicament should be ashamed.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 6