America should prepare now for voting by mail in November’s election

ONE OF Donald Trump’s special talents is to hold every conceivable position on a given subject at the same time. So it is with voting by mail in American elections. The president used a postal ballot to vote in Florida’s Republican primary last month. He has also denounced postal voting as an invitation to fraud. He has said voting by mail “doesn’t work out well for Republicans”. And he has said that postal voting should be expanded for older voters and for members of the armed forces, two groups he assumes would favour him in November.

The president’s interventions have turned something that should be uncontroversial into yet another excuse for partisan warfare. America has a presidential election this year. It also has thousands of congressional, state, county and mayoral elections. As the country with the most recorded cases of covid-19, it needs to start planning in case voters cannot get to polling stations. There is only one practical way to hold elections under these circumstances: to expand the use of voting by mail.