COVID-19 is testing America’s electoral system in unprecedented ways, and immediate action is required to ensure that jurisdictions can conduct elections in a safe, secure, and effective manner. State election administrators are asking lawmakers to help protect the democratic process and are updating their election procedures to comply with public health guidelines and ensure that every American can cast a ballot that counts.
While the federal government has provided some funding to states, more is needed: States need billions—not millions—in federal funding in order to ready their elections. In addition to taking sanitary precautions at polling places, states must significantly expand opportunities to vote by mail, implement early voting, adopt online and same-day voter registration, and conduct extensive public outreach, among other important measures. While some states already adhere to several of these best practices, many states do not and are far less prepared.
Please join the Center for American Progress for an online event with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as they discuss state election preparedness during the COVID-19 pandemic and the federal resources states need to safeguard free and fair elections.
Distinguished panelists:
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State
Jena Griswold, Colorado Secretary of State
Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State
Sam Berger, Vice President, Democracy and Government Reform, Center for American Progress
Moderator:
Daniella Gibbs Léger, Executive Vice President, Communications and Strategy, Center for American Progress
If you have questions for our panel before the start of the event, please send them to [email protected].
This event will be live captioned at http://americanprogress.org/livecaptioning.
To find the latest CAP resources on the coronavirus, visit our coronavirus resource page.