The Asheville Citizen Times has been kind enough to give me some space to write about the 2020 election about once a month. This month's column is about the (surprisingly long) history of vote-by-mail debates in North Carolina and I thought it might be of interest to readers of this blog. Please consider clicking through to read the whole piece and, if you're not already a subscriber, please consider a subscription to the Citizen Times.
By Chris Cooper
It’s hard to turn on the television, click on a
web site or scroll through your social media feed without reading or
hearing someone declare that our current political moment is
unprecedented. And, to some degree, they’re right. After all, political
polarization is the highest it’s been since the Civil War, we’re only a
few months since the president of the United States was impeached and
the country is facing a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in
nearly a century. At the same time, treating all political debates as if
they are unprecedented and something that can only happen in today’s
political environment can obscure patterns that can help us better
understand our current political situation.
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Chris Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University. He tweets at @chriscooperwcu