Coronavirus has forced the postponement of local elections.
Despite France and Germany are still going ahead with theirs, COVID-19 has forced the postponement of local elections in England until next year, and questions of uncertainty towards the US elections in November are heating up.
The government made the decision to push back the 7 May elections after the Electoral Commission said the health crisis would have an impact on campaigning and voting. England was scheduled to hold 309 local elections and 40 elections for police and crime commissioners. Four of those PCC positions also have responsibility for their local fire services. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who was due to run for his second four-year term, said: “I will continue to work with the government and experts to help London manage coronavirus over the weeks and months ahead. I will always do everything in my power to stand up for London, ” The Guardian reports.
We’ve written to the UK Government to recommend that the May polls be postponed until the autumn as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. This is due to growing risks to the delivery of the polls & to mitigate the impact on voters, campaigners & electoral administrators.
— Electoral Commission (@ElectoralCommUK) March 12, 2020
In France, the government has banned gatherings of more than 100 people, shut schools and universities and suspended big sporting events, even issuing guidelines to polling stations across the country, asking that people are kept at least a metre away from each other at all times, but despite labelling coronavirus France’s “biggest health crisis in a century”, President Emmanuel Macron confirmed this week that voting would go ahead, per BBC.
Eurasia Group has announced that some US states will hold presidential primaries Tuesday as scheduled, but Louisiana, Georgia, and Kentucky have already postponed, but as the pandemic grows larger and deadlier, a larger question looms: If this crisis continues into autumn, might the November 3 US presidential election be delayed?
