So long as people wear masks and practice social distancing, there’s no reason not to vote in person, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
In a new interview, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a core member of the White House coronavirus task force, sought to alleviate the concerns of those who are worried about contracting the coronavirus should they go out and vote in the upcoming election.
“I think if carefully done according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that [should] not be the case. For example, when you look at going to a grocery store now, in many regions and counties and cities that are doing it correctly, they have X’s every 6 or more feet. And it says, ‘Don’t leave this spot until the person in front of you left their spot.’ And you can do that. If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do that,” Fauci told National Geographic.
“I mean, obviously, if you’re a person who is compromised physically or otherwise, you don’t want to take the chance. There’s the situation of mail-in voting that has been done for years in many places. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to vote in person or otherwise,” he continued.
Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concerns about voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans, particularly President Trump, are skeptical of mail-in voting, saying it could allow for voter fraud. Democrats have brushed off those concerns, often stating that voters should not risk contracting the coronavirus and should be given the ability to vote by mail.
During the late Rep. John Lewis’s funeral last month, former President Barack Obama blasted Republicans who discouraged voting by mail, claiming it was a tactic to suppress minority turnout in November.
“We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting, like closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision. Even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick,” Obama said.
Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project, said Fauci’s statements dispel the notion that people should vote by mail.
“This settles the debate: There is no legitimate health reason to rush into a hastily concocted all-mail election this November or for partisans and activists to scare voters who want to vote in person into voting by mail,” Snead said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As Dr. Fauci put it, if we can go to the grocery store, we can go to a polling place. We certainly need absentee options for vulnerable voters, but this puts to rest the absurd claim that coronavirus justifies the wholesale conversion of our elections into a jury-rigged vote-by-mail operation ripe for fraud, chaos, and disenfranchisement.”
In April, Fauci said he “can’t guarantee” it would be safe to vote in the election when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper. “There is always the possibility, as we get into next fall and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound,” the health official said of a second wave of the coronavirus.
