The National Vote at Home Institute has released a statement emphasizing the need to pass federal, pro-voter policies in the form of the “For The People Act”—or S1—after false claims and disinformation was sown in today’s Senate Rules Committee hearing about the content and effects of the bill. “Today, in the Senate Rules Committee hearing […]
Continue readingThe American people have continued to exercise their right to vote despite ongoing disinformation campaigns to overturn a free and fair election. As President Trump continues his public calls to undermine our constitution, democracy, and election systems, the National Vote At Home Institute released the following statement: “The President’s false claims continue to undermine the […]
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U.S. voters recently participated in the 2020 general election, which determined the next president as well as other public officials at the federal, state, and local level. While Election Day was officially Tuesday, November 3, many voters cast their ballots early—either in person or by mail. This article examines the claim that states can expect more cases of voter fraud when ballots are distributed by mail. It does not consider the consequences of early in-person voting or other challenges facing voting by mail, such as the timeliness of the U.S. Postal Service or the reporting of election results. Nor does it consider whether voters are more likely to incorrectly mark their ballots or whether election workers are more likely to incorrectly reject ballot.
As Election Day closed, President Trump incorrectly declared himself the winner of the 2020 presidential election early Wednesday morning. Despite the announcement, there is no evidence to support his claim. Election officials are still hard at work processing and tabulating millions of ballots, and every single vote will be counted in accordance with applicable state […]
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Earlier today, the President displayed his lack of constitutional and election administration knowledge by, yet again spreading misinformation about the counting of ballots and the timeline of a presidential election. His remarks do nothing more than sow doubt in our strong elections system and confuse voters on what they should expect November 3 and beyond. […]
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(Brennan Center) — Jurisdictions across the country have a range of security features to protect mail ballots from misconduct. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans are using mail ballots in record numbers this year. Fortunately, the use of mail ballots is not a newfangled idea; it was already deeply embedded in the American electoral system before the coronavirus hit.
Today, President Trump pivoted his misinformation campaign around vote-at-home options by claiming that election officials and poll workers — those who count ballots after they are cast — will be the cause for a miscount during the general election. In doing so, he removed potential blame he had previously placed on the United States Postal Service.
Without evidence, the President stated that, “The problem is when they dump all these [ballots] in front of a few people who are counting them, and they’re going to count them wrong. The post office is not to blame.”
In regard to his claims, the National Vote At Home Institute released the following statement:
“Election workers are some of the most dutiful people in our country. Election administrators take an oath before assuming their office and are committed to making our patchwork election system work in communities across the nation. They do this work alongside poll workers of all different backgrounds — our neighbors and friends — who come together to carry out one of our most sacred democratic traditions. In order to do so, they commit their mornings, nights, and weekends to ensure that ballots cast are ballots counted. The fact that they have now come under attack is completely unacceptable, and Americans cannot let them become victims of a misinformation campaign. In fact, we urge Americans to join their neighbors in becoming poll workers and to invest themselves in the process of making every vote count. Without election workers, our election system would be impossible to administer, and they deserve the utmost respect and support.”
Policy-makers disagree on the merits of mandatory vote-by-mail. Many of these debates hinge on whether mandatory vote-by-mail advantages one political party over the other. Using a unique pairing of historical county-level data that covers the past three decades and more than 40 million voting records from the two states that have conducted a staggered rollout of mandatory vote-by-mail (Washington and Utah), researchers used several methods for causal inference to show that mandatory vote-by-mail slightly increases voter turnout but has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government. Their results find meaning given contemporary debates about the merits of mandatory vote-by-mail. Mandatory vote-by-mail ensures that citizens are given a safe means of casting their ballot while simultaneously not advantaging one political party over the other.
The following report outlines the most current research on the inclusion of these populations in existing VAH systems, as well as the elements in those systems that must be maintained in any new implementation models in order to increase that inclusion. As more states adopt these measures, we will continue to evaluate their impact on voters to close access gaps as much as possible.
The COVID-19 crisis has sparked interest in all-mail voting as a potential policy solution for avoiding in-person elections. However, past research into the effect of all-mail voting on voter turnout has found mixed results. We exploit the implementation of all-mail voting in Colorado, where statewide policy implementation was effective but turnout has been understudied, to estimate the effect of all-mail voting on turnout for all registered voters, along with age, racial, education, income, and occupational subgroups. Using large voter file data and a difference-in-differences design within individuals, we find an overall turnout effect of approximately 9.4 percentage points. Turnout effects are significantly larger among lower-propensity voting groups, such as young people, blue-collar workers, voters with less educational attainment, and voters of color. The results suggest that researchers and policymakers should look to Colorado’s all-mail voting approach as an effective model for boosting aggregate turnout and reducing disparities across subgroups.
