That same Election Day ballot return rule is also applicable in North Carolina, where voters can drop off absentee ballots at early voting locations but not Election Day polls. In Ohio, the ballots also must be returned to county election offices on November 3, although a recent ruling may allow counties to deploy more than one drop box (if it is not blocked on appeal). In both of these states, should a voter insist on voting at an Election Day precinct, they will be given a provisional ballot. (This process involves some paperwork in addition to voting.)
Michigan and Wisconsin have slightly different absentee ballot return rules. Both of those states offer Election Day registration, which means that voters can surrender their absentee ballot and fill out forms to vote with a regular ballot. In Michigan, Democrats won suits to extend the date when ballots postmarked can be returned, and overturned laws barring voters from seeking help to get driven to the polls and allowing people to return another voter's ballot.
In Wisconsin, there are further variables. Thirty-five of the state's 1,850 election jurisdictions, including its biggest city, Milwaukee, want voters to return absentee ballots on Election Day to a counting center -- not a local polling place. However, the rest of Wisconsin's townships will accept a voter's absentee ballot at an Election Day polling place.
Florida and Georgia have additionally differing rules. In both states, absentee ballot voters will be allowed to vote at polling places but not before poll workers update their voter file, which can take time. Georgia also will be using ballot drop boxes on November 3.
What Can Be Done?
With the 2020 Election Day less than six weeks away, there is little time left for state legislatures to adopt new voting rules or state election officials to issue new rules to allow voters to return absentee ballots to all polling places on November 3, legal experts have said.
However, that does not preclude governors or top statewide election officials -- usually secretaries of state -- from issuing narrow emergency rules to assist voters in a pandemic, the experts said. They noted that orders from state constitutional officers who sought to delay this spring's presidential primaries that were opposed by GOP-majority state legislatures (and, in some cases, blocked by federal courts) are not of the same magnitude as allowing voters to return absentee ballots at Election Day polling places.
Facilitating expeditious ballot returns could be justified as a public health response during the pandemic, a former secretary of state said. Another constitutional scholar said that some states with Democratic constitutional officers were looking at potential Election Day issues and pondering emergency decrees. But he declined to be more specific.
This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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