ATLANTA - Scrambling to address voting concerns during a pandemic, election officials across the country are eliminating polling places or scaling back opportunities for people to cast ballots in person - a move raising concerns among voting rights groups and some Democrats who say some voters could be disenfranchised.

In Nevada, election officials will open only one polling place per county for its June primary.

In Florida, county officials warn they may have to consolidate polling places across the state.

In Ohio’s primary next week, only the disabled and the homeless will be allowed to vote in person.

The closures come as many state officials are encouraging voters to vote by mail - and expanding opportunities to do so. Many election officials and health experts see mail-in and absentee voting as the best way to keep voters from spreading the coronavirus and to address a shortage of poll workers who are able to work without risking their health.

But advocates say some states are moving so quickly to embrace the shift to mail that they are not doing enough to accommodate certain voters, including the disabled, people who lack regular mail service, groups with little history of absentee voting or those who are simply unable to keep up with last-minute election changes and mail-in deadlines.

“Not everyone can or should vote by mail,” said Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic candidate for Georgia governor who now runs Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group.

Concerns

The concerns over polling places largely have been overlooked in the fight over voting rights, which has so far centered on partisan disputes over mail-in and absentee voting.

Democrats and voting rights groups have filed lawsuits seeking to expand mail and absentee voting options and pushed for an extra $2 billion to help states adjust their election systems.

National Republicans are fighting those efforts, while President Donald Trump claims without evidence that mail-in voting is vulnerable to fraud.

But the challenge of securing in-person voting may prove just as contentious and just as likely to curb voter participation in the upcoming primaries, which are largely viewed as a dry run for November.

In the chaotic recent Wisconsin election, where voters waited for hours to cast ballots, one expert estimated that the closure of polling sites in Milwaukee and other cities may have kept as many as 100,000 people from casting ballots.

Last week, Democrats sued Nevada’s top election official, a Republican, for limiting each county to a single polling location during the state’s June 9 primary, alleging that will channel 87% of the state’s voters into only two locations.

Democrats, who count on big turnout at the polls in the populous county that contains Las Vegas, sought changes to make mail voting simpler in a state where the overwhelming majority normally vote in person.

A conflict is also brewing in swing state Florida, where the nonpartisan county election coordinators have asked Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to loosen rules on early voting and allow consolidation of precinct polling stations for elections in August and November.

Democrats fear polling places may close in Palm Beach and Broward counties, two dense areas that are their bases.