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Dr. Anthony FauciWeill Cornell Medicine / YouTube

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August 17, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – As political fighting intensifies over the efficacy of voting by mail in this fall’s presidential and congressional elections, U.S. coronavirus czar Dr. Anthony Fauci is affirming that physically going out to vote can be done safely.

Asked by National Geographic if people could vote in person in November, Fauci said, “I think if carefully done according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that not be the case,” the Washington Times reported. “If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Fauci’s verdict comes amid an ongoing battle about the rise of mail-in voting, which liberals tout as a safety measure necessitated by COVID-19, and conservatives allege is really meant to make it easier for Democrats to steal elections.

President Donald Trump set off a firestorm in May when he tweeted that mail-in ballots for the upcoming elections would be “substantially fraudulent. Mailboxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.” Twitter responded by taking the unprecedented step of adding a “get the facts” disclaimer to Trump’s tweets, linking to an article that claimed Trump’s charges were false. 

Yet evidence suggests cause for concern. “An inspector general report by the USPS establishes the lofty goal of only 96 percent for election mail delivery success. Sadly, in 2018, the post office couldn’t even meet that sorry goal, delivering only 95.6 percent of election mail successfully,” wrote J. Christian Adams, an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department from 2005 to 2010. “In the 2016 Presidential race, four percent was more than the margin of victory in 10 states representing 124 electoral votes.”

As for the safety of in-person voting, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found “no clear increase” in COVID-19 infection after Wisconsin’s April 7 primary elections, which were held in-person and on schedule over the objections of state Democrats.

“No clear increase in cases, hospitalizations, or deaths was observed after the election, suggesting possible benefit of the mitigation strategies, which limited in-person voting and aimed to ensure safety of the polling sites open on election day,” the report determined. “These data provide preliminary evidence that CDC’s interim guidance for ensuring various voting options, encouraging physical distancing, personal prevention practices, and employing environmental cleaning and disinfection lower COVID-19 transmission risk during elections.”

The Wisconsin State Journal noted that a “total of 71 people got COVID-19 after voting in person or working at the polls during the April 7 election, but it’s not clear how many of the infections may have been caused by the spring election because many of the people had other exposures, according to the state health department.”

In Washington D.C., Republicans and Democrats are currently fighting over how much funding for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to include in the next coronavirus stimulus package. The USPS recently warned 46 states as well as the nation’s capital that it cannot guarantee all of their mail-in ballots will be delivered in time to be counted in the election.