Roadmap to 2020 Presidential Election
The 2020 election season is in full swing with the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s announcement of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.
It is now America’s choice: will we have another four years of Donald Trump and Mike Pence or go in a different direction?
I will share some of the most important dates between now and the November 3rd election.
Next week is the Democratic National Convention. It was supposed to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but because of the coronavirus, it will be done remotely. Joe Biden will officially become the Democratic nominee for president and give a presentation from his home state of Delaware.
The Republican National Convention will take place in two weeks in Charlotte, North Carolina in a scaled-back convention. Delegates will convene in Charlotte and renominate Donald Trump, but he will give his acceptance speech from the White House or in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
After this official business has taken place, comes the time for the presidential debates and the vice presidential debate.
There will be three presidential debates between Trump and Biden.
The first debate will take place on September 29 in Cleveland. The second debate will be on October 15 in Miami. The third and final debate will be on October 22 in Nashville.
There is just one vice presidential debate between Pence and Kamala — on October 7 in Salt Lake City.
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Voting will look different this fall because of the coronavirus crisis. There will be an emphasis on mail-in ballots.
CNN reported that eight states and DC will hold elections primarily through vote-by-mail election: Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Vermont (and DC). My understanding is that there will still be in-person voting, but that it will be extremely scaled back, so mail-in voting will be the norm.
Eight states requires in-person voting and only allows votes by mail if there is a “qualifying excuse,” which varies from state to state. Some examples of a qualifying excuse is if a person is elderly, disabled, ill, or overseas. The states are Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, and New York.
The remaining 34 states will allow voters to request a mail ballot. So it is up to the voters on whether they want to vote from home or go to a poll.
There are some concerns about voting by mail — on whether the process will go smoothly and if the Postal Office can handle the volume of ballots coming through. Postmarks on the mail to confirm a ballot was sent in time will be a very important feature. President Trump has his own concerns of fraud with mail-in ballots and suggested delaying the election, but he does not have the authority to do that, and Republicans in Congress have not shown any kind of support for a delay.
Many states will begin mailing out ballots in September, so the first votes will happen in only a few weeks.
Clearly, very important times ahead of us.
https://www.2020gopconvention.com/faq/
https://www.demconvention.com/
https://ballotpedia.org/Important_dates_in_the_2020_presidential_race
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/11/politics/postmarks-mail-in-ballots/index.html