The participatory and partisan impacts of mandatory vote-by-mail.

Michael Barber,John B Holbein

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc7685

Michael Barber, John B Holbein

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc7685

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Journal: Science Advances	Publication Date: Aug 26, 2020
Citations: 27	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Brigham Young University, University of Virginia

Abstract

Recently, mandatory vote-by-mail has received a great deal of attention as a means of administering elections in the United States. However, policy-makers disagree on the merits of this approach. Many of these debates hinge on whether mandatory vote-by-mail advantages one political party over the other. Using a unique pairing of historical county-level data that covers the past three decades and more than 40 million voting records from the two states that have conducted a staggered rollout of mandatory vote-by-mail (Washington and Utah), we use several methods for causal inference to show that mandatory vote-by-mail slightly increases voter turnout but has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government. Our results find meaning given contemporary debates about the merits of mandatory vote-by-mail. Mandatory vote-by-mail ensures that citizens are given a safe means of casting their ballot while simultaneously not advantaging one political party over the other.

Highlights

IntroductionWith the recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, mandatory vote-by-mail (hereafter VBM) and its close variants (e.g., no-excuse absentee voting) have received a great deal of attention as a means of administering elections in the United States
With the recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, mandatory vote-by-mail and its close variants have received a great deal of attention as a means of administering elections in the United States
We focus on Washington and Utah as these are the only two states that have gone from little mandatory VBM to full implementation of mandatory VBM, with counties staggering their implementation, in recent years

Summary

Introduction

With the recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, mandatory vote-by-mail (hereafter VBM) and its close variants (e.g., no-excuse absentee voting) have received a great deal of attention as a means of administering elections in the United States. (For a thorough overview of these recent changes and their various iterations, see “State Voting Policy Changes to Deal with COVID-19,” the National Vote at Home Institute.) Beyond these handful of states, many other local, state, and even federal policy- makers have publicly and prominently debated making changes to move toward all-mail voting; both nominees for president have spoken widely on the merits of mandatory VBM, too many legislators to mention have gone back and forth on the merits of all-mail elections, and numerous activist groups (e.g., the American Civil Liberties Union, Action Network, and FreedomWorks) have a move toward a universal VBM system. Act as if, or even directly argue that VBM will substantially advantage Democrats at the ballot box

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Conclusion