Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share

Thompson, Daniel M.; Wu, Jennifer A.; Yoder, Jesse; Hall, Andrew B.

doi:10.1073/pnas.2007249117

Cited by 70 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Among voters, prior research has shown little party divide on voting by mail, with nearly equal percentages of voters in both parties choosing to vote this way in past studies (4,5). Has a divide emerged this year in how voters aligned with the Democratic and Republican parties want to cast a ballot?…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

America’s electorate is increasingly polarized along partisan lines about voting by mail during the COVID-19 crisis

Lockhart

Hill

Merolla

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Are voters as polarized as political leaders when it comes to their preferences about how to cast their ballots in November 2020 and their policy positions on how elections should be run in light of the COVID-19 outbreak? Prior research has shown little party divide on voting by mail, with nearly equal percentages of voters in both parties choosing to vote this way where it is an option. Has a divide opened up this year in how voters aligned with the Democratic and Republican parties prefer to cast a ballot? We address these questions with two nationally diverse, online surveys fielded from April 8 to 10 and June 11 to 13, of 5,612 and 5,818 eligible voters, respectively, with an embedded experiment providing treated respondents with scientific projections about the COVID-19 outbreak. We find a nearly 10 percentage point difference between Democrats and Republicans in their preference for voting by mail in April, which had doubled in size to nearly 20 percentage points in June. This partisan gap is wider still for those exposed to scientific projections about the pandemic. We also find that support for national legislation requiring states to offer no-excuse absentee ballots has emerged as an increasingly polarized issue.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

America’s electorate is increasingly polarized along partisan lines about voting by mail during the COVID-19 crisis

Lockhart

Hill

Merolla

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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show abstract

“…An important first step in any effort to understand the correlates of VBM ballot rejection is considering who is likely to request and vote a mail ballot in the first place. Some scholars find that allowing VBM voting leads to considerable turnout effects (Richey 2008;Southwell and Burchett 2000); others, though, find small and sometimes negative effects of VBM on turnout (Dubin and Kalsow 1996;Oliver 1996;Karp and Banducci 2000;Fitzgerald 2005;Kousser and Mullin 2007;Southwell 2009;Bergman and Yates 2011;Gronke and Miller 2012;Gerber, Huber, and Hill 2013;Burden et al 2014;Barber and Holbein 2020;Thompson et al 2020). To the extent that there is a consensus in the literature, it is that VBM has positive albeit modest turnout effects.…”

Section: Who Votes By Mail?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are times at which party mobilization efforts can affect the methods with which voters cast their ballots (Michelson 2005;Herron and Smith 2012;Hassell 2017). However, the most recent and comprehensive studies of the political consequences of VBM voting find no evidence of overall partisan effects or effects of this form of voting on election outcomes (Barber and Holbein 2020;Thompson et al 2020).…”

Section: Who Votes By Mail?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in their study of three decades of elections in two states, Washington and Utah, that gradually adopted mail voting over time, Barber and Holbein (2020) find that mail voting does not preference one party over the other. Similarly, Thompson et al (2020) examine turnout in three states, California, Utah, and Washington, that staggered implementation of VBM from 1996-2018, finding that neither Republicans or Democrats benefited from a greater share of their supporters turning out to vote. If, as we find in Florida across two general elections, certain groups of voters-in particular, younger, disabled, racial and ethnic minorities-are more likely to have their VBM ballots rejected due to signature issues, and if, as there is every indication, more of these voters cast mail ballots in the 2020 general election rather than voting in person, there is certainly the possibility that outcomes of electoral contests may hang in the balance due to a higher rate of mail ballots cast by these voters not counting.…”

Section: Voting By Mail and Ballot Rejectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The novel coronavirus is making matters worse, exacerbating the ongoing rancor surrounding electoral politics in the United States. In the already polarized arena of election rules (Hasen 2020), VBM has entered center stage (Thompson et al 2020), presently supplanting heated debates over voter identification laws (e.g., Hicks et al 2015), early voting (e.g., Walker, Herron, and Smith 2019), and voter list maintenance (e.g., Ansolabehere and Hersh 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voting by Mail and Ballot Rejection: Lessons from Florida for Elections in the Age of the Coronavirus

Baringer

Herron

Smith

2020

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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The COVID-19 pandemic and its concomitant need for social distancing have increased the attractiveness of voting by mail. This form of voting is nonetheless not a panacea for election administration in the time of a public health crisis, as a widespread move to ballots cast by voting by mail risks exacerbating existing inequities in mail-in ballot rejection rates across voters and jurisdictions. This motivates our examination of the roughly 9.6 million and 8.2 million ballots cast in the 2016 and 2018 general elections in Florida, respectively, including over 2.6 million vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots cast in each. Using a selection model that analyzes all ballots cast and those VBM ballots not counted in Florida in these two elections, we find that younger voters, voters not registered with a major political party, and voters in need of assistance when voting are disproportionately likely to have their VBM ballots not count. We also find disproportionately high rejection rates of mail ballots cast by Hispanic voters, out-of-state voters, and military dependents in the 2018 general election. Lastly, we find significant variation in the rejection rates of VBM ballots cast across Florida's 67 counties in the 2018 election, suggesting a non-uniformity in the way local election officials verify these ballots. As interest in expanding mail voting swells as a consequence of the novel coronavirus, protecting the rights of all voters to participate in electoral politics requires a characterization of the correlates of VBM ballot rejection with an eye toward considering how disparities in ballot rejection rates might be rectified.

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Governance matters. Fieldwork on participatory budgeting, voting, and development from Campania, Italy

Gatto

Sadik‐Zada

2021

Journal of Public Affairs

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On the wave of the success of the participatory budgeting (PB) implemented in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a number of administrations around the world jumpstarted new forms of nonfinancial balance reporting. This trend was supported by an increasing consensus from the international community. PB aims to enhance mutual trust between the different social stakeholders and foster public administrations transparency. For this reason, PB is recognized as an effective tool for facilitating good governance, sustainability, and development. Previous field research does not highlight local voting and corruption figures. To shed light on these variables throughout a case study, this article makes use of original mixed methods techniques to analyze the PB experience of a municipality in Southern Italy. The combination of data regarding census, voting shares, and projects' features is a methodological innovation, used here for the first time. Fieldwork has been conducted to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. These data were employed along with official demographics statistics to inspect existing public management and development dynamics. Four distinct data sources, intersecting population and voting data through the PB tool were examined. After mainstreaming PB, referring to the world's benchmark of Porto Alegre, this article investigates the good practice of Casamarciano, Campania. Evidence shows compelling features from the local experience and encouraging involvement of the community, rating the poll participation even greater than Porto Alegre engagement. The qualitative data pinpoints the local administration's management choices—noteworthy, the town's PB model—and the innovation behind the public management strategies. These outcomes may help to better understand PB dynamics, yielding improved local development and sustainability indications for public affairs governance.

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Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share

Cited by 70 publications

References 19 publications

America’s electorate is increasingly polarized along partisan lines about voting by mail during the COVID-19 crisis

America’s electorate is increasingly polarized along partisan lines about voting by mail during the COVID-19 crisis

Voting by Mail and Ballot Rejection: Lessons from Florida for Elections in the Age of the Coronavirus

Governance matters. Fieldwork on participatory budgeting, voting, and development from Campania, Italy

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