KINGSTON, R.I. – May 5, 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has already had a great effect on politics and this year’s election cycle. More than a dozen states have postponed presidential primaries, some are looking into increasing the use of mail ballots, and in Wisconsin there was controversy over in-person voting in the middle of the pandemic.
In part one of a two-part Q&A, University of Rhode Island Political Science Professors Christopher Parker and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz discuss how the pandemic could affect the 2020 election cycle.
Question: How do you think the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the state primaries and November elections?
Pearson-Merkowitz: The presidential primaries are pretty much settled. It’s more that Bernie Sanders will be underrepresented at the Democratic convention. That means the platform the Democratic Party develops will not be as representative of that wing of the party as it probably otherwise would have been. There’s a chance the Democratic Party is smart and understands its base and develops its platform the same way because they know that’s what is being called for and why the race has been competitive.
While the pandemic may not greatly affect the presidential primary, many states have other offices being decided in those primaries. Campaigns need a fair amount of time to prepare for the general election. For competitive primary races, the eventual nominee will have less time to campaign, putting them at a disadvantage. You might have one party that has an uncontested seat and that candidate already knows she’s prepping for the general, while the other party is still internally battling, can’t fundraise for the general, can’t start campaigning. And so those late primaries really hamper the eventual nominee.
Even though the general election is likely to be held as normal, and the primaries are unlikely to cause a major upset, there are other ways that there will be a loss of democracy for voters. There are likely to be a lot fewer ballot referendums. These are opportunities for voters to have a direct say over policy. There were states in which citizen groups were organizing ballot initiatives and collecting signatures for things like raising the minimum wage or extending Medicare – a lot of things that are important social change issues right when the pandemic hit. All that signature collecting had to come to a complete stop because of the pandemic. That means those initiatives will not be on the ballot come November. So, we will see the people of the United States have fewer things that they’re able to weigh in on.
Q: Are there any historical events that have come close to disrupting a presidential campaign?
Parker: The U.S. conducted presidential elections during the War of 1812 and during the Civil War, as well as other times during wars that did not take place on American soil, including the 1944 election during World War II or multiple elections during the Korean and Vietnam wars. While these wars certainly affected the politics of the elections, there was never any serious movement to postpone the elections. Some of President Lincoln’s aides floated the idea of suspending the 1864 election, but Lincoln dismissed the idea and it never gained any real traction.
Q: Is there language in the U.S. Constitution allowing a presidential election to be postponed due to a disaster or, say, pandemic?
Parker: The Constitution contains no language about postponing a presidential election due to a national emergency, though it does give Congress general authority to select the day that electors in the Electoral College will give their votes, provided it is the same day throughout the country. So, Congress does have the authority to push back Election Day if they choose. However, the 20th Amendment states that the president’s term ends Jan. 20 (and Article II sets the president’s term at four years), so presumably Congress would be required to set the election with enough time to have the results before that date. That would not allow for much of a postponement beyond the normal Election Day in November.
It is not clear what would have to happen for a presidential election to be postponed, as it has never happened before. However, presidential elections were conducted in the midst of wars on American soil in both 1812 and 1864, and midterm elections were held during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 when many states had similar restrictions on gathering in public as we see now. It would seem that there would need to be a truly extraordinary emergency preventing any possibility of an election in order to justify extending the president’s term beyond Jan. 20 without an election.
Given the access to much more advanced technology and the ability for states to conduct voting by mail, the current pandemic is not likely to justify postponing the election. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to prevent Wisconsin from moving to expand absentee voting on the eve of its elections would also suggest that the current pandemic is not enough of an emergency to justify undermining something as critical to democracy as our elections. A second wave of COVID-19 cases in the fall may lead to calls to delay the elections, though this call would surely be divided along partisan lines. And it is still unlikely that a postponement would be justified in such an event, especially if states move to expand mail-in voting during the intervening months.