The Impact of Vote-By-Mail Policy on Turnout and Vote Share in the 2020 Election

Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections

“…The exclusive and facilitated postal voting and low opportunity costs owing to the lockdown measures made it easier and less costly for voters to cast a ballot. Our findings are consistent with recent evidence by Amlani and Collitt (2022) who show that simplified postal voting conditions due to Covid-19 also increased turnout in the presidential elections in the United States in 2020. The effect is large and highly statistically significant highlighting the relevance of the interaction term (Election 2020 × 2nd ballot) as an instrument for turnout.…”

“…The local prevalence of contagious diseases has been shown to rather decrease turnout (Godefroy & Henry, 2016; Noury et al, 2021; Picchio & Santolini, 2022; Urbatsch, 2017) but Blesse et al (2020) find a slightly higher turnout in counties that reported infections with Covid‐19 in the first round of the Bavarian local elections in 2020. Consistent with Amlani and Collitt (2022) for the United States, we show with a difference‐in‐differences strategy that turnout increased substantially due to lower direct voting costs induced by a state of emergency together with the introduction of exclusive and facilitated postal voting.…”

“…Studies frequently employ rainfall (bad weather) or institutional changes that affect voting costs as instruments to estimate the impact of higher turnout on party vote shares. Some evidence suggests that left-wing parties profit from high turnout (Arnold & Freier, 2016;Finseraas & Vernby, 2014;Fowler, 2013Fowler, , 2015Hansford & Gomez, 2010), other research indicates that smaller parties profit (Artés, 2014;Ferwerda, 2014), and some do not find any specific effect of higher turnout on parties' vote shares (Amlani & Collitt, 2022;Knack, 1994). Recent evidence suggests that rainfall may not only increase voting costs but also may change the voting behavior of those who cast a ballot, affecting voters through their emotions which raises questions regarding the exogeneity assumption when employing rainfall as an instrument (Meier et al, 2019).…”

“…The option for postal voting is believed to increase turnout (Hodler et al, 2015; Luechinger et al, 2007), but a heterogeneous effect of postal voting regarding the absence of social pressure may also reduce incentives to go to the polls (Funk, 2010). Simplified and less costly postal voting by providing voters prepaid postage for their postal voting documents (Schelker & Schneiter, 2017) or by generally sending postal voting‐related documents to all registered voters (Amlani & Collitt, 2022; Gerber et al, 2013) has a positive effect on turnout. Factors that are negatively related to turnout by increasing voting costs are the relocation of polling stations (Brady & McNulty, 2011) or knowledge of exit poll information (Morton et al, 2015).…”

Shy Trumpers and Live Callers : An Analysis of The U.S. 2020 Polls

“…They interpret the slight difference to mean the surge in voter participation was mostly due to increased voter enthusiasm, rather than to liberalization of voting. Abramowitz [24], looking at state data, and Amlani and Collet [25], looking at county data, find no evidence that increased turnout favored Biden.…”