Nothing about 2020 is going normally, so why should your experience at the polls be any different. The COVID-19 pandemic and the amount of early ballot casting could give us a few different possibilities for how your experience goes. The Center for Rural Affairs says you should be ready for any contingency in your polling place.
If you have decided to wait until Election Day to cast your ballot, you could see some differences at your polling location. Johnathon Hladik is the policy director at the Center for Rural Affairs. He says there will be additional steps that polling officials will have to take to assure the safety of voters.
Hladik also says that with the number of early votes and different rules in states for early ballot submission, we could not know the results in the election until Wednesday at the earliest, unless there is an absolute landslide. However, the number of ballots cast early could mean faster lines in your polling places.
Hladik says he expects to see record voter turnout in rural and urban areas alike. Rural Americans have a vested interest in this election as well. It will be a referendum on how farmers feel the Trump Administration handled policies on trade, biofuels, and the environment. Rural America was key to elect President Trump in 2016 on his message to put his attention on their needs, now they will give their response to how he lived up to his word.
No matter your politics, please do your research and exercise your right to vote. It is a right we cannot take for granted.
