Voting by mail part of America’s long history of electoral reforms By Luke Perry
Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of democracy. How people vote in our 2020 election will be noteworthy and different as the COVID pandemic continues to pose serious public health challenges.
Voting procedures have changed significantly throughout American history, particularly regarding who can vote and how. Only 20 percent of adults could vote following ratification of the Constitution. Suffrage has gradually expanded to include nearly all adult Americans, though some states still disenfranchise felons.
Americans voted orally and publically until the end of the 19th century, when progressive reforms established a paper ballot and private polling stations. In recent decades, most states have adopted various forms of early voting, allowing people to vote an average of 19 days prior to Election Day.
This year the U.S. has experienced over 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, resulting in over 183,000 deaths. The Center for Disease Control estimates 40 percent of people with the virus are asymptomatic, suggesting our infection rate is much higher.
States adopted reforms to make voting safer during the primaries, producing mixed results. Over a half million primary votes were disqualified for technical reasons, considerably more than 2016, including 1in 5 from New York City.
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At least 83 percent of Americans will be able to vote by mail in the general election, making the facilitation of this process a top priority of election administration.
Five states regularly conduct their elections by mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. I have lived in most of these states and voted by mail in presidential elections. The state sends a ballot to every registered voter, who then mails in his/her vote.
Residents in these five states find the system convenient and effective. Nearly 70 percent of these voters want to vote by mail in 2020, ten points higher than the majority of voters nationally who want to vote by mail.
Empirical evidence indicates that voting fraud and abnormalities are minuscule in states with universal voting by mail, constituting a fraction of percent (0.0025) of all ballots casts during the 2016 and 2018 elections.
President Trump and many of his closest advisers routinely vote by mail, including the Vice President, Attorney General, First Lady, White House Press Secretary, White House advisers, Republican Party leaders, and Trump campaign officials.
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Still, the issue is politicized, like most issues during an election year. The president has asserted that universal mail-in voting would be disastrous, prompting inaccurate and fraudulent tallies. Trump’s supporters in Congress, and even our NY-22 Congressional race, have echoed these claims.
Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party have sued counties that typically vote Democratic who are making it easier to vote by mail, while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars encouraging Republicans to vote by mail.
The strategic play is threefold: 1) seek to portray Democrats as corrupt and fraudulent; 2) deflect blame from a potential loss by casting doubt on the electoral process, similar to 2016; and 3) maximize partisan advantage by discouraging voting by mail in areas where Democratic candidates do well and encourage it where Republicans do well.
The president has explicitly said “Republicans should fight very hard” against by vote by mail, which “doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” In fact, Political Scientists have found that universal voting by mail has “no impact on partisan turnout or vote share.”
Unfortunately, partisanship and decentralized electoral administration have increasingly hindered U.S. elections in recent years, while our voter turnout remains among the lowest in Western civilization.
Increased voting by mail is a proven and popular electoral process that can help improve turnout, better reflect the will of the people, and keep Americans safe.
Luke Perry is Professor of Political Science at Utica College and Director of the Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research.
