Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice supports HB 75

The Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice strongly supports HB75, a constitutional amendment that will allow the Legislature to enact common sense, secure, absentee and early voting provisions. The legislation passed convincingly in the 2019-20 legislative session and is on the ready list to be voted on in the current session.

The Delaware Constitution currently restricts the number of reasons that a voter can vote absentee - and seeking to avoid exposure to the coronavirus is not included as a legitimate reason.  The Delaware Constitution is prescriptive: instead of just permitting absentee voting, the Constitution defines the limited circumstances under which absentee voting is permitted:  military service, business or occupation, illness, or vacation. 

Delaware’s use of emergency absentee and early voting processes in 2020 due to COVID proves that they are secure and useful. There were no abuses, no fraud, no problems. The process allowed all people to vote in a manner consistent with their lives; something that polls open for only part of the day on a Tuesday do not allow.

Look at the facts. Turnout in our state for president in 2020 was 68.8 percent; in 2018, 65.6 percent; and in 2012, 65 percent. Permissive absentee and early voting did not distort or challenge our very competent election administration system.

Importantly, older people, those working with long commutes, those having child or multiple generational care challenges/responsibilities, multiple jobs, mobility issues, healthcare or business owners or first responders who work 12-or-more-hour shifts, or those who for any other reason want to ensure that nothing keeps them from voting will have a choice that legislation will provide. There is no partisan tinge to these normal issues of life.

Many of the obstacles created by in-person voting requirements (time off from work, transportation, healthcare, etc.) disproportionately impact people of color.  No-excuse absentee voting will help these communities.

During the 2019-20 legislative session, the amendment passed with bipartisan majorities in both chambers.  No facts have changed, Delaware’s 2020 experience supports it passing again, and a national controversy that does not touch Delaware should not change the result. The Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice urges the General Assembly to pass this especially important constitutional amendment.  Delaware should be proud that, at a time when other states are seeking to suppress the right to vote, it is seeking to expand that right.