The postal vote did not significantly increase turnout or benefit Democrats in the 2020 election, a new study found, undermining the discussion point, advanced by Donald Trump and others, that postal ballots cost him the election.
States that required an excuse to vote by mail had an increase in turnout similar to those that did not, Stanford researchers found. In Texas, where only voters aged 65 and over can vote in the mail without an excuse, Democratic participation has not “increased substantially” in relation to Republican participation.
“Despite the extraordinary circumstances of the 2020 election, the effect of postal voting on ballot attendance and party results is very discreet,” wrote the researchers. “Voter interest seems to be much more important in boosting participation.”
These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that emerged after Joe Biden’s victory in November. Republicans have repeatedly pointed to the decision to expand voting by mail – a choice driven largely by the Covid-19 pandemic – as the main reason why Trump lost the election. They filed a barrage of bills in state chambers seeking to restrict voting, many of which specifically target voting by mail. In Georgia, for example, there are proposals to require voters to provide identifying information, as well as an excuse when they vote absent, which would end the unapologetic policy adopted by Republicans in 2005.
Stanford’s findings also came amid an effort by Democrats in Congress to push for changes across the country that would require states to vote without excuse across the country. Republicans vehemently opposed this effort, saying it is part of a broader set of reforms to help Democrats’ political prospects.
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“The results of our work do not offer a clear recommendation for the political debate over postal voting, but suggest that both sides of the debate are relying on a flawed logic,” says the study. “Voting by mail is an important policy that voters seem to enjoy using and can be a particularly important tool during the pandemic.”
Overall, states that adopted the vote without justification in 2020 saw an increase of around 5.6 percentage points in participation compared to 2016. States that still required an excuse saw an increase of 4.8 points. The researchers were not convinced that the modest difference in turnout represented an even smaller increase in turnout because of the postal vote, noting that there was random variation in turnout between elections.
To better understand the effects of postal voting, the researchers focused on Texas, where they compared participation between 65-year-olds able to vote without an excuse under state law and 64-year-olds, who still needed an excuse. When comparing, they found “no noticeable increase” in attendance among 65-year-olds who did not have to provide an excuse to vote by mail.
They came to a similar conclusion when they examined partisanship in Texas. The 65-year-old Democrats embraced the absent vote in 2020, while Republicans continued to vote in person. In general, being able to vote easily by mail did not have “major effects on the party composition of general participation in 2020”.
Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who closely follows voter turnout, said there are factors not discussed in the study that should be considered when assessing turnout. Some of the biggest increases in attendance from 2016 to 2020 have occurred in states where voters automatically receive a ballot, he said. Several of the states where there was no excuse for the absence of votes also had a wide range of obstacles – such as showing a photo ID or obtaining the notary’s signature – that could make voting difficult.
“Using the ballot by mail is a better way to examine the effect of laws and policies than simply whether a state had a specific policy or not, since there are often many policies that affect the use of the ballot by mail, such as postal vote elections, identification requirements, deposit box accessibility, return deadlines, etc. ”, he said.
Even though postal voting did not boost Democrats, officials told the Guardian last year that the process has made it easier to target, track and encourage voters to vote. Jay Tucker, chairman of the Democratic committee in Pike County, Pennsylvania, said it was useful for the party to see who had requested a ballot and had not yet returned it during the election. These efforts, he said, helped cut Trump’s margins in the county.
Although researchers found that mail-order voting did not have a big effect on voter turnout in 2020, they noted that it could have more consequences in competitions where interest is usually less, as an intermediate test.
“When voter interest is high, as in 2020, even low-propensity voters … could base their decision to vote on the convenience of doing so, having the same rate, whether or not they can take advantage of the absentee vote without excuse ,” they wrote.
“When voter interest is low, there is likely to be more room to change the costs of voting to affect participation.”