Ohio's governor is going to court to postpone Tuesday's in-person voting in the state's Democratic presidential primary, casting uncertainty over whether millions of people will be able to cast ballots amid mounting concerns over the coronavirus.
"A lawsuit will be filed to postpone the election until June 2, 2020," Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said on Twitter. "In the meantime, voters would still be able to request absentee ballots. It will be up to a judge to decide if the election will be postponed."
DeWine's announcement came on the eve of presidential primaries in his state as well as Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Louisiana and Georgia had already postponed their primaries.
"At some point, it may be so difficult to run a primary that it has to be delayed," said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine.
At a news conference in Columbus, DeWine said he was following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against gatherings of more than 50 people.
"It is clear that tomorrow's in-person voting does not conform and cannot conform with these CDC guidelines," he said. "We cannot conduct this election tomorrow, this in-person voting, for 13 hours tomorrow, and conform to these guidelines."
Election administrators in Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Arizona were scrambling earlier Monday to avoid disruptions in the balloting amid emergency measures to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Among the many challenges were last-minute switches in voting locations, the potential that many poll workers, especially the elderly, will fail to show up, and the fears of voters that they could catch coronavirus at any crowded polling place.
Nonetheless, election officials tried to reassure the public that the voting would go smoothly. In Florida, nearly 2 million people had already cast ballots by mail or at early voting centers by Monday. For those who vote Tuesday in person, Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee said, all poll workers would closely follow the guidance of state and federal public-health officials.
"That guidance tells us that Floridians can safely and securely go to the polls and cast their ballots," she said Sunday.
She urged anyone with symptoms of illness to designate someone to pick up a vote-by-mail ballot for them at a polling location Tuesday.
Hasen said some of the poll workers who have called in on short notice to replace those who declined to run election precincts during the health emergency would require training that could slow down the balloting. At the same time, he said, turnout could be relatively low because of voters opting to stay home.
Some voter confusion over changes in polling locations is inevitable Tuesday. In Arizona, election officials in Maricopa County, the largest in the state, said a shortage of cleaning supplies required replacing its 229 neighborhood polling locations with 151 voting centers, where any voter can cast a ballot.
Arizona poll workers will establish social distancing measures, sanitize polling equipment and frequently wash their hands, according to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
One advantage for Arizona is that its voters lean heavily on early voting; in 2016, 75% of ballots were cast early, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
In Florida, Democratic leaders were concerned that too few voters were given notice of late changes in voting locations.
"Our data team has identified 126,731 voters _ who have not yet voted _ who live in an affected precinct," Juan Penalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, wrote in a public statement. "We have begun texting and calling these voters and encouraging them to call their Supervisor of Elections to confirm their polling place in advance of tomorrow's election."
