11/03/2020 18:56
Clarín.com
World
Updated 11/03/2020 18:56
The mandatory use of the mask, social distancing, absolute hygiene and even the enabling of polling places from the car have been some of the measures adopted this Tuesday by hundreds of thousands of voting points distributed throughout the United States
to decrease the probability of contagion by the coronavirus.
These precautions have caused
the waiting and voting time to be longer than usual
, although the lines in many centers have been short or non-existent.
Everything indicates that much of the blame for this low influx during the day this Tuesday
is due to the record of 100 million votes in advance
, driven by the coronavirus pandemic itself, according to the US Elections Project organization.
At the polling station closest to Saint Joseph's Church in Wilmington, a church where the Democratic candidate Joe Biden usually attends mass on Sundays,
some 40 voters were queuing
, two meters apart, early in the morning. tomorrow to exercise your right to vote in that Delaware city.
Voters had to enter the voting site in groups of four through booths that had touch screens, pristine after someone touched them,
thanks to the volunteers passing a
hydroalcoholic
sanitizing liquid
and wet wipes.
In Austin, Texas, vote from the car.
AFP photo
This constant bustle of cleaning made the voting time of each citizen lengthen, something that did not seem to matter to those who were waiting, in silence, for their turn.
On the other side of the country, in Texas,
the possibility of voting from the car
, as if it were a self-service restaurant, was enabled to facilitate the participation of people at risk or with problems to do so normally due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At a facility owned by Travis County, whose capital is Austin, signs in Spanish for
"Vote From Your Car"
were posted on top of several cones on that street near the state Capitol.
Despite the fact that the influx to that center was low, one of the participants told Efe that this type of voting "has come to stay" in
a country where the service in a "drive-through" format
, that is, when the client or user is in his vehicle, it is common throughout the territory.
This option, however, has not been welcomed by all Texans.
Without going any further, a US federal judge once again stopped a request by Donald Trump supporters on Monday to annul almost 127,000 votes cast in advance in Texas, through voting from the vehicle, after a similar ruling by the Supreme of that state.
The United States is the nation in the world with the most cases of covid-19 with more than 9.3 infections and 232,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University
Source: EFE
PB
Look also
Elections in the United States 2020: what happens if Joe Biden wins?
Elections in the United States: control of the Senate, another key battle in today's elections