San Francisco considers universal vote-by-mail ballots
SAN FRANCISCO - Election day 2020 is six months away, but San Francisco is already preparing for what may be our nation’s first national election in the midst of a global pandemic.
City leaders want to avoid a situation similar to what transpired in Wisconsin where voters felt that participating in the presidential primary and important contests for offices around the state entailed possibly exposing themselves to the coronavirus.
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, David Campos, chair of San Francisco's Democratic Party, sent a letter to city leaders asking them to have the city vote by mail for the general election in November.
Campos watched voters going to the polls in the Wisconsin primary and said San Francisco has to do better.
"To effectuate a real vote-by-mail process takes a lot of time, and we in San Francisco need to start thinking about how to do that now," said Campos. "So that we don't put our residents, our San Francisco voters in the position of having to choose between their health and their right to vote."
The city's Director of Elections John Arntz said his department has already spent the last two weeks mobilizing, taking twin paths to prepare for the general election.
"So, we're still considering how we can run an election using polling places where we can provide social distancing to the voters and to the poll workers," said Arntz. "But, simultaneously we are also planning for an all vote by mail election."
San Francisco Mayor London Breed's office released a statement saying, "we are focused on ensuring access to voting for everyone in the upcoming election and we will explore all options."
Supervisors Matt Haney and Hillary Ronen aren't waiting.
At Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, they're pitching their legislation which would allow some polling places to open, but would require the city to expand vote by mail for every voter.
"So, we don't want to have to force people to worry about if they're registered the right way or if they're signed up for vote by mail they should get that ballot either way," said Haney. "They can send it in.We don't want people having to go line up."
The city's elections department has already designed envelopes for November to avoid potential bottlenecks from their suppliers if others areas put in orders for mail ballots too.
The department is looking for a directive from the Gov. Gavin Newsom in early May unless city leaders act before then.