South Bend Tribune
With fewer than three months until the election, and with the nation still in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Eric Holcomb needs to do the right thing to ensure that all Hoosiers can safely exercise their right to vote.
He can do so by acting to enact no-excuse absentee voting.
As it stands, Indiana is one of only seven states that require a reason to cast an absentee ballot for the Nov. 3 election. The need to end this dubious distinction should be obvious. Just two weeks ago, in response to a rise in COVID-19 positivity across the state and an increase in overall hospitalizations, the governor issued a statewide face mask mandate.
“This is not about what I want to do or wished would be,” he said in announcing the mask order. “This is what the reality is.”
The reality is no one knows what things will be like in early November. But given the uncertainties of the pandemic, officials’ failure to act could force Hoosiers to choose between being possibly exposed to COVID-19 or being disenfranchised.
Instead of endorsing the common-sense course of action, the governor has expressed his personal preference for in-person voting, saying last month that “I am just one of those old-fashioned guys that wants to vote in person. And I also just wanted to see with my own two eyes whether it could be pulled off safely. I voted in Marion County, and it was.”
The half-million Hoosiers who voted by mail in the primary clearly had a different, less romantic view of going to the polls during a public health crisis. But that’s the thing: No-excuse mail-in voting allows Hoosiers to exercise their constitutional right in the way most comfortable to them.
Indiana rose to the challenge earlier this year, allowing no-excuse absentee voting for all during the primary election. Indiana’s Election Commission, guided in part by the bipartisan recommendation of state leaders, made the correct decision to ensure that Hoosiers could cast their vote in the primary election without fearing for their health.
That safety and convenience should be extended to voters in November. It shouldn’t be a controversial or political decision, as both parties have in the past acknowledged — and even embraced — absentee and mail ballots as a way to make voting easier, expand participation and lower election costs.
Former Indiana lieutenant governors John Mutz, a Republican, and Kathy Davis, a Democrat, are among those who have called on Holcomb to expand absentee mail-in voting.
“It’s impossible for me to imagine why we would want to deprive Hoosier voters the right to vote at a time when a number of people are afraid to leave their homes, let alone go to a polling place,” Mutz said.
Holcomb said the in-person election on Nov. 3 will be safe. He said he doesn’t know of a single case where someone contracted COVID-19 while voting in-person during the primary in Indiana.
But in these unpredictable, uncertain times, there’s only one way to ensure a safe and accessible vote on Election Day. And that’s by allowing no-excuse absentee voting for all Hoosiers.
