What to do about lines and crowds for the general in 2020

Could the general election be postponed or canceled?

Only with enormous difficulty.

The date of the general election is set by federal law and has been fixed since 1845. It would take a change in federal law to move that date. 

That would mean legislation enacted by Congress, signed by the president and subject to challenge in the courts.

To call that unlikely would be an understatement.

And even if all of that happened, there would not be much flexibility in choosing an alternate election date: The Constitution mandates that the new Congress must be sworn in on Jan. 3, and that the new president’s term must begin on Jan. 20. 

Those dates cannot be changed just by the passage of normal legislation.

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Can the president cancel or postpone an election with an executive order?

No. 

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While the date of the presidential election is set by federal law, the procedures for voting are generally controlled at the state level.

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So it is possible that states could revise their voting procedures in response to a public health crisis, perhaps by making it easier to vote by mail or through various absentee procedures that would not require people to cluster together on one particular date.

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The federal government could also take steps to mandate or encourage different voting procedures, without changing the timing of the election. 

Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Irvine, has proposed that Congress require states to offer “no excuse absentee balloting” for the general election, so that anyone can opt to vote by a method besides in-person voting on Election Day.

I doubt I will be showing up at the usual place and time, anyway.

A mail-in would work.

Would that change in the process lead to a change in the demographics of who actually votes?