Among the many unusual features of life in time of coronavirus is a constant drumbeat of messages telling us that we need a “plan for voting.”

I’ve received several such messages from the Center for Voter Information (CVI), which include a professionally filled-out absentee ballot application, and a post-paid envelope addressed to the town clerk. The latest includes the helpful admonition, “If you’ve already submitted a request for a ballot by mail for the 2020 General Election, there is no need to submit another.”

Helpful, indeed: We wouldn’t want to have any suspicion of “double voting” – something the president seems at times to suggest we do – and not even a double ballot application.

Upon investigation, the CVI turns out to be what is now termed a “left leaning” non-profit. It’s also doing useful work in trying to register the unregistered through the U.S. mail, much to the displeasure of certain Republican secretaries of state.

There’s even a frank account of a screw-up in applications sent to registered voters in Virginia, complete with a mea culpa from the CEO of CVI’s printer, who explains what happened and takes full responsibility. Try convincing anyone at the White House to do anything like that these days.

On balloting, too, there’s a partisan divide, one that’s widened with the pandemic. Some results can be precisely traced.

The Sept. 8 New Hampshire primary saw a record turnout with 304,671 ballots cast; this shattered the old record of 228,432, set just two years earlier. Clearly, people want to vote, and that’s a great thing – national records may be broken on Nov. 3, too.

The breakout of absentee voters is instructive. Participation was close to even: 156,976 by Democrats, 147,695 by Republicans.

But the proportions were not: nearly 43% of Democrats voted absentee, vs. just 16% of Republicans. Guess which party is advising voters to “have a plan?”

Still, there’s something about the “plan,” which usually involves voting by mail, that bothers me.

It is doubtful we’ll ever go back to the 19th century traditions, when elections were all-day affairs, more like a town meeting – with plenty of arguing. Yet something is lost when we just pop a ballot in the mail, weeks or even months before an election, then tune in on election night to see what happened.

Washington state was the mail-in pioneer. Early on, there was a hotly contested U.S. Senate election that took nearly a month to sort out. There were no credible allegations of fraud, just lots of time spent counting and re-counting ballots in what was then a new system.

I figured this might lead to reconsideration of such snail-like resolutions of major races, but it didn’t. Washington has now been joined by Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii and Utah for all-mail voting.

I’m not convinced. There’s something in the message we’re hearing that suggests we’ll be better off if we have no contact with other voters, or with candidates.

We have a mask-less president sowing fear and confusion to the degree he’s able, and a masked challenger who’s encouraged supporters to stay home and be safe.

Surely there’s a balance to be found between the foolishness of encouraging hundreds of thousands of unmasked bikers to descend on Sturgis, South Dakota, and believing that it’s dangerous to get out and vote.

Yes, there’s been foolishness there, too. Early in the pandemic, many states delayed their primary votes, as Maine did, from June to July.

But thanks to the heedless actions of Wisconsin Republicans, and over the objections of a Democratic governor, voters had to march to the primary polls on April 7.

Fortunately, the strategy backfired. An underdog Democrat won a crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court seat; there may be similar results for other “voter suppression” efforts, which can also fire up people to vote.

We still need to learn how to live with coronavirus, and voting is perhaps a good place to start. Everything went smoothly in Maine, and New Hampshire, and there were few if any complaints about unsafe conditions at the polls.

We can expect much the same in November; it may be one of the benefits of living in a sparsely populated region, but there really isn’t any reason to give up a vital civic tradition of greeting our friends and neighbors, and visibly participating in the most important recurring event of the world’s oldest continuously operating democracy.

Voting matters, now more than ever, when it could be a bulwark against anarchy, as some fear, or against authoritarianism, as others more credibly worry. So wherever you vote, cast your ballot with pride.

Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, reporter, opinion writer and author for 35 years, has published books about George Mitchell, and the Maine Democratic Party. He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net

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