Despite Coronavirus Outbreak, Three States Force Voters to Risk Their Safety—and Biden Sweeps Them
Former vice president Joe Biden continued his string of primary victories on Tuesday, scoring wins in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona, beating out Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in at least two states. There are 441 delegates up for grabs between them, though the final distribution won't be determined until all votes are in. Before this latest round of votes, Biden was leading with 898 delegates to Sanders's 745.
Biden's latest wins come as the country is in the grip of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is urging people to avoid gatherings of more than 50 people, which would realistically make most polling locations off limits. No officials in Arizona, Florida, or Illinois chose to reschedule their states' primaries, forcing voters to choose between abstaining from voting or potentially endangering themselves and their loved ones. Originally, Ohio was supposed to also hold its presidential primary on Tuesday, but Republican governor Mike DeWine ordered the election be pushed back to early June in light of the coronavirus outbreak—a judge briefly overruled DeWine, but ultimately the head of the state's Health Department declared that opening the polls would constitute a "health emergency."
Ohio joins Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and Kentucky in pushing back its primary date in light of the coronavirus outbreak. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is staunchly opposed to states changing their primaries though. Chair Tom Perez said in a statement that changing dates over public health concerns risks "confusion, which could lead to disenfranchising voters." The DNC also has rules that penalize any state that has failed to hold its primary before June 9 by cutting its number of delegates in half.
According to the New York Times, officials in all three states hoped that any drop-off resulting from fears of coronavirus would be offset by mail-in ballots and early voting. But the coronavirus outbreak has also made holding primaries much more logistically difficult. In Illinois, for example, multiple polling locations closed because they were located in nursing homes or other areas that are especially vulnerable. Many election judges and volunteers reportedly pulled out at the last minute, and BuzzFeed News reports that the city of Chicago asked "able-bodied voters" to act as last-minute poll workers. On top of everything else, many locations lacked even hand sanitizer. In Florida, according to Politico, a single county had 175 volunteers, many of them senior citizens, quit in the days leading up to the primary.
Sanders failed to win any of these states in 2016, and Biden was expected to win all three states. The former vice president had a lead of 40 points in Florida polling, a little under 29 points in Illinois, and 18 points in Arizona.
They were an all-star crew. They cooked up the perfect plan. And when they pulled off the caper of the century, it made them more than a fortune—it made them folk heroes.
Originally Appeared on GQ
