Survey: Two-Thirds Don’t ‘Feel Comfortable’ Going to Polling Places

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Tony Lee

Nearly two-thirds (66%) of Americans would not “feel comfortable going to a polling place to vote” during the Coronavirus crisis, according to a Pew Research poll released this week.

The Pew Research survey of 11,537 adults—conducted March 19-24 with a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points—comes months before the next scheduled “Super Tuesday” after numerous states had to postpone primary elections because of the Coronavirus crisis.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Wednesday called on Wisconsin to postpone next week’s primary and not force people to put their lives on the line to vote.

“People should not be forced to put their lives on the line to vote, which is why 15 states are now following the advice of public health experts and delaying their elections,” Sanders reportedly said. “We urge Wisconsin to join them.”

Wisconsin Democrats also called for a postponement, with Party Chair Ben Wikler saying the state’s Democrats were joining the “call by civil rights groups & mayors across Wisconsin to postpone our April 7 election & remove barriers to safe voting by mail.”

 

Before the last round of Super Tuesday primaries on March 17, Sanders said he did not think it made “sense” for voters to go to the polls, especially after experts said they did not “want gatherings of more than 50 people.”

“I’m thinking about some of the elderly people sitting behind the desks, registering people and doing all that stuff. Does that make sense? I’m not sure it does,” Sanders reportedly said then.

His advisers also criticized former Vice President Joe Biden and his advisers for insisting that the primary elections be held.

According to a CBS News report, June 2 is setting up to be the next big “Super Tuesday” primary for Democrats with 11 elections scheduled (D.C., Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island).

Democrats have been pushing for more states to adopt absentee voting for November’s presidential election, with failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams saying last week that postage for those absentee ballots should also be pre-paid. The Coronavirus relief bill included $400 million to assist states with absentee voting.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he feared that some of the voting provisions Democrats have been demanding would wipe out Republicans.

“The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump fold Fox & Friends on Monday morning. “They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

Addressing Trump’s remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday told MSNBC that she thinks it’s necessary for the country to have a “strong Republican Party” and added that she feels “sad that the president does not have confidence that his party [can] convince the American people about a path to go forward.

“How anyone can oppose our enabling the states to have vote by mail raises so many other questions, but let’s just be hopeful and have public opinion weigh in,” Pelosi said.

She also said there should have been more funds for absentee voting allocated in the relief billTrump signed and signaled she would fight for more reforms in the next relief bill.

“In terms of the elections, I think we’ll probably be moving to vote by mail,” Pelosi reportedly added. “That’s why we wanted to have more resources in this third bill that just was signed by the president, to get those resources to the states to facilitate the reality of life: that we are going to have to have more vote by mail.”

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