Home » News » 36 people caught COVID19 in the Wisconsin primary and doubts about in-person voting grow

36 people caught COVID19 in the Wisconsin primary and doubts about in-person voting grow

At least 36 people who came to vote at the Wisconsin primary on April 7 have received positive results for the coronavirus test.

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The State made headlines across the country earlier this month because despite the COVID 19 pandemic, it held a primary election with in-person voting without changing conditions. Governor Tony Evers went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court with a request that the vote be canceled in person, but lost. The State became one of the few not to expand voting by mail options and on April 7, some 400,000 people approached the polls. Employees and volunteers were offered masks and gloves to cover themselves. For voters, simply the recommendation that they wash their hands when leaving and avoid touching their faces.

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Three weeks after that day the results begin to show. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that it takes two to fourteen days for the virus to manifest from the time a person came into contact with someone already infected. Evidence, which in Wisconsin still only performed on those who develop symptomsThey take between 2 and 5 days to meet. So from the outset those who discouraged voting in person warned that results would be known weeks later.

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It is impossible to determine exactly whether a person was infected at a polling place, but the Wisconsin Department of Health announced that it has sufficient reason to believe that 36 people who were in polling places last April 7 – either working or voting – had contracted the virus there. And they added that they suspect that the number will grow over the days. Inclusively, there would be forty voters in Milwaukee County who, over the days, discovered that they were positive for the coronavirus, whose cases did not enter the original account of the State because it was still under investigation.

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Cases like the one in Wisconsin are bringing the debate on modifying the electoral system back to November this year. In the United States, each state is autonomous in deciding how to conduct an election. There are States such as Florida, where voting by mail is extended to all people entitled to vote, while in other cases, such as Georgia, a special request is required to vote.. As a result of the pandemic, several states have already decided to change their laws and expand the possibilities of voting by mail, such as Washington, Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon and Utah. Some are even thinking of a hybrid system between an online vote combined with an in-person deposit of the ballot code so that there is physical evidence before an audit, such as California exploring the system in some of its counties. Still others are directly planning to extend a purely digital networked system, such as West Virginia.

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The truth is everyone knows that something must be done. If there is no vaccine before November, voting in person creates a health hazard, in the worst case, or a disinterest in approaching to vote, if viewed from another perspective. The primary process was completely modified. Some twenty states delayed their voting, and New York even canceled the process (first it was postponed from April to June and then it was completely canceled because they considered it to be an unnecessary risk considering that practical terms it was a primary school where they are already elected candidates of both parties). But the general election cannot be delayed, much less canceled. So the only option will be to think about how the process can be done exposing the population as little as possible.

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