Vote by mail doesn’t really change much, election-wise

Enlarge / Socially distanced voting may not be needed if vote by mail is adopted. (credit: Brett Carlsen / Getty Images)

With an uncontrolled pandemic raging, lots of states have been considering shifting to a vote-by-mail system. That has turned out to be politically controversial, as President Trump has lodged evidence-free claims that it will lead to massive fraud or provide some other unspecified advantage to Democrats. Meanwhile, the advocates of vote by mail sometimes present it as the solution to the generally low participation of US citizens in elections. Vote by mail, they contend, will boost turnout significantly.

Two researchers decided this was something they could answer. Michael Barber of BYU and John Holbein of the University of Virginia took advantage of states where vote by mail was rolled out on a county-by-county basis. Their results suggest that vote by mail doesn't provide either party with an advantage, but it also hasn't done much to boost participation.

A tale of two states

The work relies on voter records and census data from two states that have vote by mail but didn't roll it out uniformly across the state. Instead, Utah and Washington both had different counties adopt the system at different times, providing a shifting set of experimental and control conditions. The two states nicely balance each other, as they can be viewed as something akin to mirror images. Eastern Washington is largely rural and conservative, but state politics are dominated by the urbanized coastal region. In Utah, while the Salt Lake City area is somewhat liberal, conservative politics dominate the state.

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