Idaho Republicans tried to game a vote-by-mail election by putting the onus entirely on voters to request ballots thru their on-line system, then they realized rural connectivity problems would hurt themselves and decided to send an absentee ballot request to all voters... https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1246206455801405440

In the past, Republicans *generally* have used mail, so Trump's thinking is continuing to hold elections as if there is no problem will help skew the election if Democrats are forced to vote in-person and decide to stay home and Republicans vote by mail

But, in the past four years, wealthier, suburban voters moved from the Republican to Democratic coalitions. These are the voters best able to negotiate the extra step of requesting a ballot. It is not clear running an election like nothing is wrong at all benefits Republicans

Myself and other election observers agree that because lower-education Whites have moved from the Democratic to Republican coalitions, the non-voters look balanced in their partisanship. It is no longer clear a high turnout election necessarily favors Democrats

Which brings me back to Idaho. When Republicans got cute gaming turnout by thinking requiring voters to seek out mail ballot applications would help them, they quickly realized this was a bad strategy given lagging rural internet connectivity

Be careful what you wish for, Trump

I hope that we've gotten a handle on the coronavirus by November, but regardless, we need to plan as if we will still be in a shelter-in-place world. Look at what the lack of planning has gotten us. Let's not make the same mistake again

Wisconsin is showing us how broken elections can be if we run them without proper planning: polling places closed because there are insufficient poll workers (besides voters staying away), ballots being rejected for witness verification (largely falling on elderly voters), etc.

A federal court had to step in on an emergency basis to address Wisconsin's lack of common sense, but could only do so much and did not postpone the election. If our problems still exist as Nov. approaches, there will likely be a mail ballot case that goes to the Supreme Court