Will Coronavirus Pandemic Postpone November Election? Pelosi Says Democrats Will Fight To Prevent Delay

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday Democrats will not allow President Trump to postpone the Nov. 3 general election amid coronavirus worries. The primary season has been upended, and the Democratic National Convention delayed as the nation battled the pandemic.

Democrats have pushed to increase mail-in balloting as a means of conducting the election despite objections from Republicans who claim voting by mail will lead to vote fraud. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Friday issued an executive order that directs the state Board of Elections to send absentee ballots to all eligible voters for the June primary.

“Voting, we still have elections in the midst of all this chaos,” Cuomo said. “Makes no sense to me to tell people you have to put your life at risk and violate social distancing to vote.”

Pelosi, appearing on MSNBC, said she hoped Republicans wouldn’t even think about delaying the November election.

“I know there's a danger and people are scared, but we must [hold the election] and we will,” Pelosi said.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said during an online fundraiser Thursday he expects Trump to "come up with some rationale" to prevent the election from being held on time.

Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference she would like to see $4 billion approved for states to ramp up vote-by-mail options in the next coronavirus relief bill. So far, only $400 million has been approved for such efforts.

In Wisconsin, where Republicans blocked efforts to delay the April 7 primary, voters in Milwaukee and elsewhere stood in long lines to cast ballots. State health officials now are tracing coronavirus infections back to that event. Republicans also sued to prevent expanded absentee balloting for that election, and election officials refused to count any absentee ballots without postmarks.

Trump has complained expanded mail-in voting would mean “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

He tweeted universal mail-in voting shouldn’t be allowed.

Republicans have been alleging widespread vote fraud for years despite no evidence there has been anything more than a handful of incidents.

Five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah – currently conduct all of their elections by mail. A Pew Charitable Trusts survey found Colorado cut its election costs by 40%.