Amid the coronavirus pandemic, worries mount about how the U.S. can safely conduct a presidential election this November.
In Oakland, California, which saw about 1,300 deaths during the pandemic, poll workerson Election Day either because of illness or the fear of getting infected, according to the center’s research. There may have been cause for concern: A boisterous group of about a dozen men was arrested after removing their masks to argue over the election results and fined $10 each for disobeying the city's mask ordinance.since the pandemic had begun.
Currently, dozens of states have postponed their primaries or moved to mail-in or drive-by voting as the pandemic has upended the 2020 election cycle. Some states, however, have gone forward with their usual in-person voting. Wisconsin, for instance,with in-person voting after Republicans blocked efforts to move to mail-in ballots, and several cases of the coronavirus have been linked to those who went out to vote.
A second wave of the 1918 flu swept across America later in the winter, though Navarro said it’s hard to trace the spikes in major cities to Election Day specifically since the virus was spreading so rapidly and easily there anyway. In smaller cities, though, the effect was more apparent.
In Red Cloud, Nebraska — with a population of roughly 1,700, according to the 1910 U.S. Census — masks and stay-at-home orders worked well to contain the virus."So they lifted the quarantine for one week before elections for the candidates to come out and present," she said,"and then again for Election Day, and the next day the quarantine went back in place."
In small rural communities, where the whole town feels like neighbors, there was even more of a heightened emphasis on nationalism and patriotism, Watkins said. Going out and voting was a big point of pride. But they paid a price for it: In the week following Election Day, Watkins said, 110 people died — roughly 6.5% of the population. According to her research, the same phenomenon happened in other small communities across the Midwest.
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