Portion of New Jersey Mail-In Ballot application. Note that voters have the mail-in option for “ALL FUTURE ELECTIONS”. Nevertheless, New Jersey’s governor just delayed the primary there until July.

Will Voters Be Able To Use COVID-19 As An “Excuse” To Get An Absentee Ballot This Fall?

We’ve been floored by the number of people — especially young people — Tweeting things today like “Everybody needs to send in for their absentee ballot now!”

Update (5/27): The Supreme Court of Texas just ruled that lack of immunity to COVID-19 is not reason enough to request an absentee ballot in that state. So sorry, you’ll have to show up in person there. President Trump promptly called the decision a “big win”. Now, people who are at demonstrably high risk of contracting Coronavirus can send in for an absentee ballot, but with Texas’ Attorney General vowing to aggressively prosecute misrepresentations of that, not sure it’s a route many people will take.

That seems to be in response to 3 things:

• Bernie Sanders dropping out. So the fall match-up is now settled, and because of that, it seems closer.
• Debacle in Wisconsin where people didn’t get absentee ballots in time to return them, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to give them extra time, overturning what seemed like a workable compromise by a district court judge. So voters there had to show up in person during a pandemic to get counted, or not at all.