Adding Up the Costs and Benefits of Voting by Mail

Abstract

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and PolicyVol. 10, No. 3 Forum: Non-Precinct VotingFree AccessAdding Up the Costs and Benefits of Voting by MailCharles StewartCharles StewartSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:3 Oct 2011https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2011.1034AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Despite the unexpected defeat of a bill in Montana's House of Representatives to make the Big Sky State the third to use the mail exclusively in statewide elections, recent trends continue to confirm a decline in traditional voting at the polls on Election Day, in favor of voting early in-person and voting by mail.1 Voting by mail is seen by some election administrators as a cost-saving device, which may or may not be the case, depending on how it is implemented. Even if it does save money from county or state budgets, it has not been established that non-precinct place voting, especially voting by mail, improves the quality of elections from the perspective of the voter.The purpose of this essay is to highlight some policy costs associated with moving to all-mail elections. This is not a comprehensive review, because the topic has rarely been treated systematically in the scholarly literature. My hopes are that policymakers will be cautious in extending voting by mail, by whatever means, and that the research community will account more comprehensively for the benefits and costs associated with mail-in ballots.BackgroundData recently released by the Census Bureau reveal that in the most recent midterm election, only about three-quarters of ballots were cast on Election Day (see Table 1). The trend away from absentee voting has continued steadily since the Census Bureau started asking about the mode of voting in the 1996 Voting and Registration Supplement (VRS) of the Current Population Survey (CPS). The largest component of early voting occurs through the mail, either via traditional absentee ballots or by comprehensive vote-by-mail systems, as in Oregon and Washington. However, the fraction of votes cast via the in-person early voting process is now at the level of absentee voting in the late 1990s.Table 1. Percentage of Voters Using Three Modes of Voting in Federal Elections, 1996–2010 Mode of VotingYearElection DayIn-person EarlyAbsentee/Mail199689.52.77.8199889.22.48.4200086.03.810.2200285.83.410.8200479.37.812.9200680.45.813.8200886.03.810.2201073.48.418.2Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Voting and Registration Supplement, various years. Raw data downloaded using the DataFerrett service.The steady growth nationwide in non-Election Day modes of voting masks the wide state-by-state variability in where the change is occurring. Figure 1 illustrates how voters recently have changed where they cast their ballots, breaking down the change by state. The x-axis measures the growth in voting by mail across the past two midterm elections, from 2006 to 2010, measured using Census Bureau data. The y-axis measures the growth in in-person early voting over the same period. The states that had the largest growth in non- Election Day voting are individually indicated in the graph. The states around the origin, which are not labeled, saw very little change in their Election Day voting rates over the past four years.FIG. 1. Change in early voting and vote-by-mail rates, 2006 to 2010. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Voting and Registration Supplement, various years. Raw data downloaded using the DataFerrett service.Twenty states are individually labeled in Figure 1. These states can be divided into three groups, according to the path they have recently traveled away from Election Day voting. One group of states, those lying immediately above the origin (North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, etc.) saw their early voting rates rise while their vote-by-mail rates remained essentially flat. Conversely, the states immediately to the right of the graph's origin (Montana, Washington, Arizona, etc.) saw vote-by-mail surge, with little-to-no increase in in-person early voting.2 The remaining group of states lying to the northeast of the origin (Indiana, Florida, Iowa, etc.) saw their voting environment change through a mix of increased use of both non-traditional voting modes.The move away from Election Day voting is due to a combination of legal reform, voter preferences, and campaign tactics. A decade ago, most states still had “for-cause” absentee ballot laws and early voting centers were rare. Now, according to statistics reported by the National Conference of State Legislatures, thirty-three states allow early in-person voting, thirty allow “no-excuse” absentee ballots, and nine maintain permanent absentee ballot lists.3 If we define a state as “traditional” if it has none of these features, only fifteen traditional states remain.The impact of these laws was substantial in 2010. Consider, for instance, the contrast among the thirty states that allow no-excuse absentee voting, dividing the sample into those with permanent absentee lists and those without. Between 2006 and 2010, the nine states with a permanent absentee list witnessed an average increase in absentee voting of 9.1 percentage points, compared to only a 2.6 percentage point increase in the other no-excuse states. (In contrast, absentee voting in traditional states that still required excuses was virtually unchanged in 2010.)Convenience voting methods have become more popular as local fiscal constraints have tightened. Voting by mail is especially seen as a cost-saver, since personnel costs are slashed significantly.4Assuming the financial savings from voting by mail are sustained, there are still hidden non-financial costs that need to be considered, in terms of lost votes, decreased legitimacy, and a further skewing of the composition of the electorate. The data necessary to quantify the extent of these factors have largely been lacking, until recently. Two new data sources, the 2008 Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE) and the Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS), can help shed light on the effects of voting by mail from the voter's perspective.5 Adding other datasets, such as data available from state election divisions and other public opinion surveys, we can paint a more complete picture of the policy costs associated with non-Election Day voting.The Cost of Lost VotesThe first cost to consider is additional lost votes. The problem of lost votes was highlighted in the Florida 2000 recount in Palm Beach County with the appearance of the veritable bestiary of chad—hanging, pregnant, swinging, and the like. A pregnant chad is a prime example of a vote lost through no fault of the voter. Virtually the only way pregnant chad could be produced was if the holding device had not been properly cleaned.6 Research over the past decade has shown that most of what used to show up as “blank,” “over-voted,” and “under-voted” ballots in presidential elections—what is now lumped together under the rubric of “residual votes”—was due to some artifact of the machine the voter was using.7 One goal of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was to retire systems that were prone to inducing residual votes, such as Votomatic punch cards, in favor of devices that help save voters from common errors, such as precinct-count optical scanners or direct-recording electronic devices.HAVA was mostly oriented toward making sure that if a voter woke up on Election Day intending to vote for president, the vote would be counted at the end of the day. The Act had a very traditional focus on in-precinct voting. HAVA had little to say about the lost votes problem from the mail-in ballot end of the process—probably because the problem was invisible in Florida, as it was nationwide. Very little attention has been paid to this problem in any systematic way. Until recently, we had no idea how big this problem might be.Putting together data from the SPAE and EAVS, we recently estimated how many people requested absentee ballots in 2008 and, in the end, how many were counted.8 The top- and bottom-lines are these: approximately 36 million people requested mail ballots in 2008, whereas only 28 million absentee ballots were counted, leading to a “leakage” in the absentee ballot pipeline of 8 million ballots, or roughly 20% of requests.Where did the leaks occur? The data suggest that 4 million ballots were requested but not received, 3 million were transmitted but not returned for counting, and 800,000 ballots were returned for counting, but rejected.Are these lost votes, in the same sense as pregnant chad? No, because these estimates probably represent an upper bound on the problem of votes lost through the vote-by-mail channel. For instance, we do not have a good handle on why absentee ballots that were mailed out were never returned. Because the non-return rate of absentee ballots in states that have permanent absentee ballot lists was higher than the non-return rate in other states, we have to assume that some fraction of absentee ballots were sent to voters who had moved or were otherwise ineligible. Nonetheless, even if the “real” lost vote rate for absentee ballots in 2008 was not 20%, but only 2%, it would still be significantly greater than the lost-vote rate for in-person Election Day voting.These figures only try to estimate votes that are lost through the supply pipeline of mail-in balloting. What about the ballots that are returned and accepted for counting? Here is where the post-HAVA commitment to improve voting, so effective at the polling place, fell short for mail-in balloting. HAVA required that ballots voted in a precinct have some safeguard against over-voting, but no such safeguards exist for voting by mail. Not surprisingly, the residual vote rate for absentee balloting is greater than for in-precinct voting. For instance, in Florida in 2008, the residual vote rate for Election Day voting in Florida was 0.54%, compared to 0.78% for absentee voting.9 While not huge, this difference represents a total of 4,600 ballots, a number that substantially exceeds the vote margin of some close elections of note in that state, and voters who choose absentee ballots are not a random sample of the electorate, potentially leading to unequal disenfranchisement.The Cost of Political LegitimacyThe second cost is reduced legitimacy of election outcomes. In defending her proposal to shift Montana to a vote-by-mail state, Secretary of State Linda McCullough remarked that Oregon, which has had vote-by-mail since the 1998 election, “loved” it.10 However, there are reasons to be skeptical about Oregon's embrace of vote-by-mail, and certainly reasons to be concerned about those who continue to believe it was a bad idea.The SPAE asked voters nationwide whether they favored a series of voting reforms, including whether elections should all be run by mail. Vote-by-mail was unpopular nationwide, garnering support from only 15% of respondents. A majority of voters in only two states favored vote-by-mail, Oregon (64%) and Washington (51%). Interestingly, support in Oregon was less than the percentage of voters who favored the vote-by-mail referendum in 1998, 69%, although the difference is not significant at the p<.05 level.11 The next-closest state in terms of support for universal vote-by-mail was Arizona, at 27% support. (Montana was number six, at 22%.)While election administrators in Oregon may “love” vote-by-mail, not all voters do. It is notable that the significant minority of voters in the Beaver State who oppose vote-by-mail has apparently not declined after a decade of use. Attitudes about voting by mail also have consequences for how citizens judge the legitimacy of outcomes in these states. To see this, we examine another question on the SPAE, which asked respondents if they were confident their vote was counted as cast. Nationwide, the percentage answering “very confident” was 64%. In Washington, the percentage was 48%; in Oregon, it was 59%. What is interesting is that in these two states confidence in the vote count was related to whether one favored voting by mail, which is not true of voters nationwide. Among the residents of Oregon and Washington, supporters of voting by mail were close to the national average in trusting the quality of the vote count. Among the opponents, less than half were confident their vote was counted as cast.This suggests that one effect of sanctioning universal voting by mail in Oregon and Washington has been the creation of a solid minority of voters who doubt the wisdom of the move. Many of them are convinced that the vote count is flawed. As a result, compared to the rest of the nation, Oregon and Washington voters express among the least confidence that their vote was counted as cast.The Cost of the Composition of the ElectorateThe third cost is in the composition of the electorate. Research by Berinsky, Burns, and Traugott—which remains the most comprehensive study of the effects of vote-by-mail—suggests three things.12 First, the only elections in which turnout is clearly higher is in local elections, where turnout is already homeopathic. Second, in the biennial general elections, turnout generally does not go up; people who used to drop out of the electorate are more likely to be retained, but new people are not systematically added to the electorate. This leads us to the third point: over time, the net effect of voting by mail is to shift the composition of the electorate toward people who are wealthy and well-educated. According to Berinsky, Burns, and Traugott, voting by mail does not expand the electorate overall, while making it less representative.ConclusionWhat should states considering switching entirely to vote-by-mail do? Should they abandon the thought? Not necessarily. The purpose of pointing out the (until now) hidden potential policy costs of universal vote-by-mail elections is to make citizens and policymakers more aware of the potential costs, in terms of democratic values, that this form of voting imposes. Perhaps the trade-offs are worthwhile. Perhaps the perils could be minimized with some creative thinking.There is also a middle alternative, between continuing to support the dual system of highly decentralized precincts plus mail-in absentees, on the one hand, and complete vote-by-mail, on the other. That is to allow absentee balloting to continue as is, while moving to a small number of vote centers, dispersed around a county, that are opened for early voting a couple of weeks ahead of the traditional Election Day. (Some states already have these, but often call them “satellite absentee ballot centers.”) On Election Day, use only the vote centers. That way, voters who wish to avail themselves of the communal aspects of voting, or avail themselves of the safeguards against over-voting, could do that. And, there is even solid evidence that Election Day voting centers increase voter turnout.13State and local election officials are coping with budgetary shortfalls, just like the rest of state and local governments, and this work is rarely given adequate funding, even in the best of times. Proposals to save money through precinct consolidations and more voting by mail will only increase in number. As this happens, it will be important for those who care about economy in government and the quality of elections to take a serious look at the hidden costs of these changes. Otherwise, states risk a new lost-votes epidemic of their own making.1 Matt Gouras, “Montana Mail Ballot Bill Fails Amid Racism Allegation,” Flathead Beacon, Jan. 29, 2011, http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/montana_mail_ballot_bill_fails_amid_racism_allegation/21626/.2 Some respondents to the Census Bureau survey who live in states with no early voting nonetheless report they voted early. Because these reports are in the 1% range, we assume these are absentee voters or voters in pure vote-by-mail states who travelled to an elections office to complete the transaction.3 National Conference of State Legislatures, “Absentee and Early Voting,” http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=16604, last accessed April 26, 2011.4 Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch reported, for instance, that the Montana Association of Clerks and Recorders had estimated that moving to all vote-by-mail in that state would save $2 million every election cycle.5 The SPAE data may be downloaded from the following web site: http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/49849; the EAVS data may be downloaded from the following web site: http://www.eac.gov/research/election_administration_and_voting_survey.aspx.6 Douglas W. Jones, “Douglas W. Jones's Chad Page,” http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/∼jones/cards/chad.html, last accessed April 26, 2011.7 Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, What Is, What Could Be. Pasadena, Calif. and Cambridge, Mass., Caltech and MIT, 2001; Stephen Ansolabehere and Charles Stewart III, “Residual Votes Attributable to Technology,” Journal of Politics, vol. 67 (2005), pp. 365–89; 2005; Stewart, “Residual Votes in the 2004 Election,” Election Law Journal, vol. 5 (2006), pp. 158–69; Stewart, “Voting Technologies,” Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 14 (2001), pp. 355–80.8 Charles Stewart III, “Losing Votes by Mail,” New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy vol. 13, no. 3, p. 573.9 Florida Division of Elections, “Analysis and Report of Overvotes and Undervotes for the 2008 General Election,” January 30, 2009, available at http://election.dos.state.fl.us/reports/pdf/Over_Under_Report_08.pdf, last accessed April 26, 2011.10 Dan Testa, “Voting by Mail: Could It Work in Montana?” Flathead Beacon, Oct. 10, 2010; http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/voting_by_mail_could_it_work_in_montana/19983/.11 Oregon Election Division, “Official Results, November 3, 1998 General Election, State Measure 60,” http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/pages/history/archive/nov31998/other.info/m60.htm. The relevant t statistic is 1.59, which would reject the null hypothesis at p<.16.12 Adam J. Berinsky, Nancy Burns, and Michael W. Traugott, “Who Votes by Mail? A Dynamic Model of the Individual-Level Consequences of Vote-by-Mail Systems,” Public Opinion Quarterly vol. 65, no. 2 (2001), pp. 178–197.13 Robert M. Stein and Greg Vonnahme, “Engaging the Unengaged Voter: Vote Centers and Voter Turnout,” Journal of Politics, vol. 70, no. 2 (2008), pp. 487–97.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byTrumped by Trump? Public Support for Mail Voting in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Joshua D. Clinton, John Lapinski, Sarah Lentz, and Stephen Pettigrew11 March 2022 | Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, Vol. 21, No. 1Lost in the Mail? Vote by Mail and Voter Confidence Jesse T. Clark9 December 2021 | Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, Vol. 20, No. 4Is It the Message or the Person? Lessons from a Field Experiment About Who Converts to Permanent Vote by Mail Keith Smith and Dari E. Sylvester3 September 2013 | Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, Vol. 12, No. 3 Volume 10Issue 3Sep 2011 InformationCopyright 2011, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.To cite this article:Charles Stewart.Adding Up the Costs and Benefits of Voting by Mail.Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy.Sep 2011.297-301.http://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2011.1034Published in Volume: 10 Issue 3: October 3, 2011PDF download