Voting Safely Up To County

Early voting for the Primary runoff starts Monday next week, Guadalupe County’s Elections Administrator has announced a series of measures her office will take to prevent the spread of COVID-19 unfortunately she believes is limited by the Secretary of State guidance to suggesting voluntary measures to voters. If a voter doesn’t want to wear a face covering elections staff can’t require it and that puts both staff and other voters at risk. One good cough or sneeze not covered can spread the virus to anyone in the area by entering through the eye.

While the trend lines for the original COVID-19 hotspots like New York and New Jersey continue downward the lines for Texas and Florida are going up at about the same rates. Naysayers claim that infection rates are going up due to more testing but that doesn’t account for the increase in the number of infected found per number of people tested or the increasing number of people requiring hospitalization due to the virus.

Many areas of Texas such as San Antonio are reporting record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 over the last week with the rate going up nearly every day for the last two weeks. Several restaurants that opened in Comal County shortly after Gov. Abbott relaxed pandemic precautions have had to close again due to large numbers of their staff becoming infected.

This issue is extremely important to me as my wife has serious health issues that put her at high risk of death if she were to contract COVID-19. Her doctors have urged her to avoid going anywhere beyond the house. As it stands today state law prohibits many people like her from voting by absentee ballot. Even if she could vote absentee, I would still be at risk of infecting her if I go vote and become exposed to someone who is infected and not wearing a face covering.

Our county commissioners can take steps to protect public health since Gov. Abbott has explicitly approved of Bexar County’s measures. We, the citizens, of Guadalupe County must advocate for public health measures similar to that of Bexar County which requires anyone entering a public building or business to wear a face covering. That means contacting our commissioners and the county judge. You can call your county commissioner at 830-303-8857 then press the number of your precinct to be connected to your commissioner, Judge Kutscher can be reached at 830-303-8867.

The county should provide disposable face masks at all polling locations so that anyone unprepared can comply with face covering requirements and still exercise their right to vote. Since this is a runoff in a primary election, turnout is likely to be relatively low so the county will have the opportunity to develop and test procedures prior to the November general election when the risk of exposure will surely be even greater due to the much higher turnout.

If proper precautions are taken by the county and all voters we can vote safely.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 24, 2020