From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   Dr. Eric Klinenberg is a sociologist at New York University.   
   Sept. 3, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET   
      
      
   How Libraries Can Save the 2020 Election   
      
   They are among our last trusted institutions. Expanding early voting at local   
   branches may be our best hope for a trusted outcome.   
      
   A polling station at a public library in the Lake View Terrace neighborhood of   
   Los Angeles.   
   https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/09/01/opinion/01klineberg/0   
   klineberg-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp   
      
      
   As states rush to adapt their election systems amid the coronavirus pandemic,   
   officials estimate that 80 million Americans plan to vote by mail this fall,   
   twice as many as in 2016.     
      
   Because of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s decision to remove or cripple   
   key components of America’s mail system just weeks before Election Day and   
   President Trump’s open efforts to discredit mail-in voting, millions are   
   worried their ballots won†  
   ™t be counted in time, or even counted at all.   
      
   Last week, congressional Democrats and several governors from both parties   
   called for Mr. DeJoy to reinstall the high-speed sorting machines and   
   mailboxes that he removed in an inexplicable hurry. He flatly refused.     
      
   The House passed a $25 billion bill to revive the Postal Service before the   
   election.  The Republican-controlled Senate refused to consider it.  New   
   York’s attorney general, Letitia James, called the Postal Service system   
   overhaul “nothing more than    
   a voter suppression tactic.â€� But a speedy judicial resolution is unlikely.   
      
   Fortunately, there is a largely overlooked part of the civic infrastructure   
   that is ready and able to help Americans exercise the franchise, even under   
   these troubling circumstances: libraries.   
      
   Libraries already serve as polling places on Election Day throughout the   
   country and, crucially, they provide secure, monitored ballot boxes where   
   absentee voters can drop off their ballots before Nov. 3 and know that it will   
   count.   Secure boxes for    
   absentee ballots are already available at some libraries in states like   
   California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Utah and Washington.  Other states   
   should follow suit.   
      
   There are more than 9,000 public libraries across the United States — in   
   cities, suburbs, rural areas and small towns.  In surveys, libraries rank   
   among the most trusted institutions in America.  They assist with the census   
   and offer voter registration    
   services.  They are open to everyone.  They are nonpartisan.  They are free.   
      
   Even in today’s fractured digital age, libraries rank among the most popular   
   and well-visited places in our cultural landscape.   
      
   According to a 2019 Gallup poll, on average, U.S. adults go to the library   
   nearly once a month, making library visits “the most common cultural   
   activity Americans engage in, by far.â€�     
      
   So why not lean on their relative stability and popularity amid this crisis?   
      
   For those curious about how the process of early voting at a library works,   
   the mechanics are remarkably simple.  As explained by the U.S. Electoral   
   Assistance Commission, an independent, bipartisan body that certifies the   
   nation’s voting systems,    
   voters may deliver their ballots to a drop box — a secure, locked structure   
   operated by election officials — “from the time they receive them in the   
   mail up to the time polls close on Election Day.â€�   
      
   The commission presciently notes that early use of ballot boxes are especially   
   beneficial when voters experience “lack of trust in the postal process, fear   
   that their ballot could be tampered with, or concern that their signature will   
   be exposedâ€� and    
   if they are worried “about meeting the postmark deadline and ensuring that   
   their ballot is returned in time to be counted.â€�   
      
   In the past few weeks, local leaders in a number of states have moved to   
   expand the supply of ballot boxes at libraries.  In Milwaukee, concerns about   
   delays in the postal system and the coronavirus pandemic led officials to   
   install 15 new steel ballot    
   drop-off boxes at branches around the city.   
      
   Officials in King County, Wash., just installed a similar network of secure   
   ballot boxes at libraries.  County workers carefully selected branch locations   
   so that more than 90 percent of residents live within three miles of a drop   
   box.     
      
   The goal, the election board wrote in a fact sheet, is “to remove barriers   
   to voting and to support every eligible King County resident to exercise their   
   right to participate in decisions about their community.â€�   
      
   Perhaps in a less polarized time, expanding early voting at libraries would be   
   uncontroversial.  Unfortunately, officials in some states and counties have   
   shown little interest in easing hurdles to voting.   
      
   In Ohio, an important swing state where residents in Democratic-leaning   
   counties are deeply concerned about long lines and dangerous conditions for   
   in-person voters, library leaders in Cuyahoga County called for the state to   
   install a network of drop-off    
   boxes similar to those in Washington and Wisconsin.   
      
   Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, a Republican whose office oversees   
   election processes, denied the request.  Mr. LaRose will allow only one ballot   
   box per county — and only at a board of elections office.  The Ohio   
   Democratic Party filed a    
   lawsuit last week to force the state to install more boxes.  It’s unclear,   
   however, whether the courts will make a ruling in time to force any potential   
   changes.   
      
   Under the status quo, the United States is barreling toward a historic   
   democratic crisis. The legitimacy of our entire electoral system, and with it   
   our federal government, is at stake.  Making ballot boxes widely available at   
   libraries and at accessible    
   outdoor places is a safe and inexpensive way for government at all levels to   
   promote our core civic duty.  It should be a universal goal among state   
   leaders.   
      
   It’s already clear that neither the president nor Congress nor the Postal   
   Service will do what’s necessary to ensure the integrity of the 2020   
   election.   
      
   The library, still among the most revered institutions in our fragile   
   democratic experiment, may well be our best hope.   
      
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