The Andrew Goodman Foundation, March For Our Lives, & National Vote At Home Institute Join As Amici In Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals In Texas’ Vote-By-Mail Age Discrimination Case

The amicus brief argues that the Texas vote-by-mail law is discriminatory and includes data on the impact on young voters overall, and the increased stratification among minority youth voters, who are ineligible to vote by mail due to their age.

The Andrew Goodman Foundation (AGF), March For Our Lives (MFOL), and National Vote At Home Institute (NVAHI) filed an amicus brief in Cascino v. Scott (No. 22-50748) before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, originally brought in 2020 in emergency litigation related to the pandemic election, challenges a law that requires young Americans to satisfy a limited set of statutory excuses to qualify to vote by mail, while making vote-by-mail automatically available to voters over the age of 65 who do not need to offer any excuses. Yael Bromberg, Esq. and student-attorneys from the Rutgers International Human Rights Clinic filed the motion and accompanying amicus brief, with the support of local counsel Jared G. LeBlanc, of LeBlanc Flanery PLLC. While numerous parties served as amici during previous phases of the litigation amid the 2020 Presidential Election, the amicus brief serves as the only amici voice during the present phase of litigation.

“The law in place in Texas, and six other states in the nation, unequivocally violates the Twenty-Sixth Amendment by allowing regular voting methods to be provided to one set of voters, while — simply on account of age — another set of voters is left without,” explains Yael Bromberg, Esq., Supervising Attorney in the Rutgers International Human Rights Clinic and AGF’s Special Counsel & Strategic Advisor to the President and CEO. “Age discrimination in voting-by-mail untowardly impacts the rise of youth voters and minority youth in particular, given emerging voting patterns and the changing demographics of Texas and the nation.”

“Restricting young people’s access to the ballot box is voter suppression, plain and simple,” says Ciara Malone, March For Our Lives’ Legal Director. “Guns are the leading cause of death for young people, and we deserve a say in the laws that combat that — or allow it in the first place. Young people will fight for our right to vote and our fundamental right not to be shot, and we’re pleased to join this brief to defend those rights.”

“Texas law is worse than discriminatory; it’s downright hypocritical,” says Phil Keisling, Chair of the National Vote At Home Institute and former Oregon Secretary of State. “However self-righteously they might bleat about ‘election integrity,’ state legislators are telling their own citizens, ‘We think anyone 65 or older is inherently honest and incapable of election fraud crimes with their mail ballots — while the rest of you simply can’t be trusted.’”

When the Texas case was first brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, The Andrew Goodman Foundation, Equal Citizens, and Common Cause, filed an amicus brief, arguing then that the unequal treatment of youth voters in the Texas vote-by-mail law violates the Twenty-Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bans age discrimination in voting. Ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election and amidst the early surge of the COVID-19 pandemic when vote-by-mail was imperative for Americans’ safety. The Supreme Court denied the petition to vacate the stay, although Justice Sotomayor acknowledged the need to consider the merits of the legal question beyond the context of an emergency application to vacate a stay of injunction: “This application raises weighty but seemingly novel questions regarding the Twenty-Sixth Amendment.” Without the injunction, young voters without an excuse remain ineligible to vote by mail in Texas.

The filing of the 2020 amicus brief followed Age Discrimination In Voting At Home, a report published in June 2020 by AGF, Equal Citizens, and a coalition of civil rights groups and legal organizations. The report details how Texas and six other states — Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee — violate the Twenty-Sixth Amendment by discriminating based on age in their vote-by-mail laws. According to the report, in states that discriminate by age, only 5% of 18-24 year-olds voted by mail in 2018, as compared to 65% of people who were 65 or older. In states that did not discriminate by age, the percentage of 18-24 year-olds who voted by mail drastically increased to 17% in 2018.

Data consistently demonstrates that young people want to vote by mail. In the 2020 Presidential Election, 70% of young voters cast their ballots early or by mail. Additionally, research indicates that expansive vote-by-mail policies lead to increased voter turnout, particularly among young voters and voters of color, as further detailed within the amicus brief.

“It is imperative that young voters have the information and resources they need to vote by mail effectively,” says Charles Imohiosen, Esq., President and CEO of The Andrew Goodman Foundation. “In October 2022, The Andrew Goodman Foundation launched Student Vote Choice, a national campaign to promote student voter accessibility to vote in person or by mail and to ensure that these ballots are counted. Together, AGF and our partner organizations will bring polling places, as well as educational resources about voting by mail, to campuses ahead of the 2023 local and 2024 Presidential Elections.”

Amici thank the Rutgers International Human Rights Clinic and its student-attorney clinical team and Supervising Attorney Yael Bromberg, Esq. and Clinical Director Penny Venetis, Esq., as well as local counsel Jared G. LeBlanc, Esq. of LeBlanc Flanery PLLC for their legal representation.

Read the full Amicus Brief

About The Andrew Goodman Foundation
The Andrew Goodman Foundation’s mission is to make young voices and votes a powerful force in democracy by training the next generation of leaders, engaging young voters, and challenging restrictive voter suppression laws. The organization is named after Andrew Goodman, a Freedom Summer volunteer and champion of equality and voting rights who was murdered, alongside James Earl Chaney and Michael Schwerner, by the KKK in 1964 while registering Black Americans to vote in Mississippi. To learn more, visit www.andrewgoodman.org.

About March For Our Lives
Born out of a tragic school shooting, March For Our Lives is a courageous youth-led movement dedicated to promoting civil engagement, education, and direct action by youth to eliminate the epidemic of gun violence. It is our mission to create safe and healthy communities and livelihoods where gun violence is obsolete.

About National Vote At Home Institute
The National Vote at Home Institute is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that aims to increase voters’ access to, use of, and confidence in voting by mail, or “voting at home” — in which voters receive mailed-out paper ballots; return them either by postage-free mail or in-person to a wide range of accessible, convenient, and secure locations; and can track them online, in real-time, to ensure their vote is counted.

HB 4 Is Good for Voters and Democracy

Santa Fe New Mexican — As former public officials committed to promoting democracy and voter access, we urge support for House Bill 4, the New Mexico Voting Rights Act. One of the many excellent features of this legislation is the improved access to ballots, particularly for rural, tribal and underrepresented communities.

Currently, New Mexico voters may vote absentee without needing to provide an excuse. However, there is an increasing movement in states with no-excuse absentee ballots to allow “single sign-up” or “permanent-absentee” provisions, whereby voters can opt in to that model for all elections, without having to request mailed ballots over and over.

Seven states provide this opt in permanent-absentee option. Eight other states plus the District of Columbia go a step further, automatically sending a vote-at-home ballot for each election to all registered voters, who can then mail or drop it off at secure locations.

Both the opt in permanent-absentee and universal vote-at-home systems are a huge convenience for voters, who don’t have to remember to sign up for absentee ballots for each election.

There is also a cost savings when public officials don’t have to process absentee ballot requests from many of the same voters, election after election, year after year.

Most importantly, improving access to ballots increases voter participation.

Read More

Vote by Mail Is One of Many Ways To Ensure the Disability Community Is Included in the Next Election

The Center for American Progress — Voting by mail requires municipalities to distribute ballots to voters before election day. States give voters a window during which they are required to mail back their ballot to an election office, or drop it off at the office or a designated location, in a timely fashion in order to be counted in the election. Voting by mail eliminates the need for voters to visit in-person polling stations and permits them to vote from the safety of their homes. Despite being a convenient option for some voters, however, vote by mail is not a one-size-fits-all solution; in fact, it is inaccessible to many disabled voters who rely on in-person voting accessibility features to guarantee their right to a secure, private, and independent vote. Revising state plans to couple the expansion of vote by mail with in-person voting options is of the utmost importance and would ensure that disabled voters are able to access their right to vote in this historic election.

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Mail Voting Boosted Turnout for Voters With Disabilities. Will Lawmakers Let It Continue?

TIME – Republican state lawmakers are advancing a wave of new voting restrictions aimed at reversing the slew of pandemic-inspired election flexibilities, including expansions of mail voting, that most states adopted last year. But new evidence shows that those voting options likely led to significantly higher turnout among Americans with disabilities, a group that is equally as likely to vote Republican as Democrat.

Just 11% of voters with disabilities said they experienced difficulties in voting in 2020, down from 26% in 2012, according to a study on voting accessibility published Wednesday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Among disabled voters who used mail ballots, just 5% reported experiencing difficulties, while 18% of disabled voters who opted for in-person voting encountered difficulties.

Those numbers mark a major change from previous election cycles, according to experts on political participation. “Anything that makes it easier, that provides more options to people with disabilities, is good for the turnout of people with disabilities,” says Douglas Kruse, a professor at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations who co-authored the EAC study.

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NVAHI Announces Barbara Smith Warner as Executive Director

National organization’s vision is to protect and increase participation in our democracy by delivering voters’ ballots via the U.S. mail.

The National Vote at Home Institute (NVAHI) today announced that Barbara Smith Warner, the former majority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives, has been chosen as the organization’s new Executive Director, effective February 27, 2023.

Smith Warner was appointed to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2014, where she served for 9 years and was chosen by her colleagues to serve as House Majority Leader from 2019 to 2022. In addition to strengthening Oregon’s pioneering “Vote at Home” election system –in which all active registered voters are mailed their paper ballots, several weeks prior to every election – Smith Warner also played a leading role in the 2015 passage of another Oregon “first in the nation” democracy reform: Automatic Voter Registration.

Prior to her legislative service, Smith Warner’s experience included working as a field representative for U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and doing strategic organizing and legislative and political education work for the AFL-CIO and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC).

“In addition to her extensive experience and record of achievements– as an elected public official; a grassroots organizer; and as a skilled communicator and coalition builder – Ms. Smith Warner brings a deep commitment to our work of further expanding the role mailed-out ballots can play to make American democracy more accessible and representative,” noted NVAHI chair Phil Keisling, who served as Oregon Secretary of State from 1991-99.

As Vote at Home’s new Executive Director, Smith Warner will lead the organization’s education, research, advocacy, and partnership efforts to increase voters’ access to, use of, and confidence in getting their ballots delivered to them through the U.S. Postal Service to boost citizen engagement and voter turnout.
“I am thrilled at the opportunity to help expand Vote at Home’s reach and impact to more states and citizens across the country,” said Smith Warner. “As a legislator, I’ve seen how mailed out ballots can strengthen our democracy by making voting easier, more accessible, and more secure for all. As the Executive Director of NVAHI, I look forward to working with election officials, advocates, and partner organizations nationwide to bring the benefits of this safer, more equitable and cost-saving method of voting to all.”

“The evidence has become increasingly clear that ‘vote at home friendly’ policies receive bi-partisan support because they give voters more time and flexibility to make informed decisions up and down their ballots, while significantly boosting voter turnout,” added Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who also serves on NVAHI’s advisory circle. Michigan voters last November overwhelmingly approved a democracy reform ballot measure that includes such a “Single Sign up” provision.

“Barbara’s experience as a legislative leader will be especially useful in helping policy makers across the U.S. understand how much “vote at home” friendly policies can benefit all voters, regardless of which zip code they happen to live in, ” observed Jena Griswold, Colorado Secretary of State and also an NVAHI advisor.

The National Vote at Home Institute is a non-partisan, 501-c-(3) organization that promotes a range of vote at home related policies, including (where practicable) the adoption of full “Vote at Home” election systems in which all registered voters automatically receive their ballots through the U.S. mail several weeks prior to every election.

Voters in such election systems – which do not require them to travel to traditional polling places or apply in advance for so-called absentee ballots — also enjoy multiple in-person opportunities for ballot receipt and return, in addition to other types of direct assistance for those who need or want it.

When NVAHI was founded in early 2018, this approach had been used statewide in just three U.S. states. In the November 2022 midterms, it was used in the District of Columbia and eight states – California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.

Oregon, whose voters first adopted such a system in 1998, boasted the nation’s highest turnout rate among all eligible citizens in the recent 2022 midterm election: 62.4%, compared to the national average of 46.6%.

In addition, six other U.S. states – Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, and Virginia – now have “Single Sign up” policies (often called “permanent absentee lists”) so voters need only submit one request to enjoy the automatic delivery of their ballots via the U.S Mail for all future elections.

The Key to Increasing the Youth Vote is Hiding in Plain Sight

Researchers are finding high youth turnout in the midterms, but are missing a larger story.

There is increasing evidence that younger voters played an outsized role in the outcome of the 2022 midterms.  Multiple sources, including Edison Research National Election Poll’s exit interviews, have noted higher turnout among the 18-29-year-old cohort. The CIRCLE group at Tufts reported day-after estimates in 10 states and saw a 27% turnout nationally, and 31% in a number of battleground states for that age group – second only to 2018 levels. (Link here)

The latest reporting is often followed by speculation and analysis about why the high youth vote happened and what might be better ways to engage that audience in 2024 and beyond.  It turns out there is data, hiding in plain sight, that provides a definitive answer to that:

Put a ballot in their hands!

Colorado and Washington state, both 100% mailed-out ballot states (aka Vote at Home or VAH), have excellent tracking on turnout levels by age group.  They don’t follow exactly the same age break points as CIRCLE’s research, but we can interpolate as needed.

Colorado 2022 turnout of active registered voters: 

18-24-year-olds: 38.4%

25-34-year-olds: 49.2%

Estimate for 18-29-year-olds: 42%

Washington 2022 turnout of active registered voters:

18-24-year-olds:  38.2%

25-34-year-olds: 45.2%

Estimate for 18-29-year-olds: 41%

So, let’s review:  neither Colorado or Washington were battleground states in 2022, and people are excited about youth turnout of 27% or 31% elsewhere when these two are in the 40’s? 

That begs the question:  Is this somehow unique to 2022?  It turns out not.  There are many other examples of how mailing a ballot to all younger voters results in substantially higher turnout than if they are compelled to go to and wait in line at a traditional polling place.

CIRCLE conducted some other excellent research on youth voting, this time for the 2020 election.  (Link here) And what state do you think had the highest turnout of 18-29-year-olds that cycle?  Hint: It wasn’t a battleground state.  Of all places, it was New Jersey with 67% turnout.  And what did New Jersey do in 2020 that they had never done before?  Due to the pandemic, they mailed a ballot to every active registered voter, including those younger ones.

In April 2022, The Voter Participation Project also issued an important report, whose extensive data tables revealed this remarkable fact:  Of the top 10 states for eligible voter turnout of 18-34-year-olds for 2020, 6 of them were full Vote at Home states (NJ, NV – the only battleground state among them, CO, WA, OR and CA.  The only non-VAH presidential battleground to make the list was Michigan at #10. (Link here)

Our own work has uncovered the same story across the country over the last eight years.

Research into Utah’s 2016 general election showed that for voters with ballots in hand, as some but not yet all Utah counties did then, there was a turnout uplift of:

  • 5% for 18-24 females and 10.7% (the largest of any cohort) for 25-34 females
    • So, in the 9% range for 18-29F.
  • A similar uplift was seen for young males: 6% for 18-24; 9.7% for 25-34

And it turns out this data holds up even when taken to a more granular level than state-wide numbers.  Our research into Nebraska’s unique law that allows smaller counties (even some individual precincts) to opt into a 100% mailed-out ballot model showed the same phenomenon. In the 2020 election, counties that offered all their voters the convenience of “voting at home” saw a turnout uplift among 18-29-year-olds of 4.8% points. That was the largest differential among any age group. (Link here)

We could even see this all the way back to the original research into Colorado’s 2014 move to 100% mailed-out ballots, with the two largest turnout upticks being 18-24 at 12.1% and 25-34 at 7.4% (Link here).

The evidence has been hiding in plain sight for years.

We’ve known and could prove for some time that putting ballots in voters’ hands results in higher engagement and turnout for all voters. What is clear now is the impact of that turnout increase is strongest with younger voters. That should make campaigns adjust their strategies, and GOTV efforts going forward.

It should also get legislators and elections officials, often handwringing about “How do we attract more young voters to get involved in our democracy?” to make some very straightforward policy changes.  

Start by making ballot delivery to the voter an automatic thing.

Today, eight states (CA, CO, HI, NV, OR, UT, VT, WA) plus DC automatically mail ballots to every active registered voter for every election, five more than did so in 2018. Another seven allow all voters to request that automatic delivery, called permanent absentee or single sign-up (SSU), by signing up just once. (AZ, IL, MD, MI, MT, NJ, VA). Five of those are new to that list, too.

In 2022, about 35% of all US votes cast came from ballots voters received in the mail. Sadly, there are still 15 states that require voters to apply for such a ballot for every election and provide a specific “excuse” to qualify.  It’s long past time to put that archaic policy into the history books.

Mailed-out Ballots Hit 35% of all Votes Cast in the 2022 General Election

A new midterm record – by a full 10% points.

November 18, 2022: As the final midterm numbers trickle in, NVAHI’s MOBET estimation tool hit the mark on a number of key metrics.

With about 211 million active registered voters nationwide, we estimate the total turnout in 2022 will come in with about 112 million votes cast – the same total as the US Election Project’s estimate, although ours has a slightly different makeup by state. That translates to a 53% turnout versus the 2018 midterm of 61% of active registered voters. Against that, about 61 million ballots were mailed-out to voters – slightly over the initial MOBET estimate of 60 million.

We now estimate 39 million mailed-out ballots million were cast, based on the scaled-down turnout seen across all voting methods. That means about 35% of all ballots cast were from those mailed to voters, up dramatically from 25% in 2018, and in line with MOBET’s original percentage forecast for 2022.

Here are how the return numbers stack up as of Thursday, November 17:

  • Returned mailed-out ballots cast and counted: 35 million
  • CA returned ballots yet to count: 1.9 million
  • States not yet providing complete data (estimate): 1.1. million
  • Provisional, to be cured, overseas yet to be counted (estimate): 1.0 million
  • Forecasted total mailed-out ballots cast: 39 million
  • Percentage of 112 million total votes cast: 35%

Six battleground states warrant further discussion. Two big ones changed from “excuse required” mailed-out ballot voting in 2018 to “no excuse” by 2022: Michigan and Pennsylvania. Nevada went all the way from no excuse to full “vote at home.”

In 2018, Michigan saw about one million mailed-out ballots cast. In 2022, that number jumped 80% to 1.8 million.

Even more impressive was Pennsylvania, where in 2018 about 200,000 mailed-out ballots were cast while in 2022 the numbers came in at about 1.2 million, a 6x increase!

Nevada had about 100,00 voters receive mailed-out ballots in 2018, while in 2022 all 1.8 million did, with about 1 million casting those ballots by return mail, into drop boxes, or in person.

Wisconsin did not change its policy but changed its behavior. In 2018, they had about 150,000 mailed-out ballots cast. In 2022, they are reporting 740,000, an almost 5x increase.

Arizona also did not change policy, but it saw mailed-out ballots rise from under 2.7 million in 2018 to almost 3.1 million, and overall turnout rise too, unlike many other states in 2022.

The MOBET tool presents mailed-out ballot totals – and eventual return rates – in four categories:

  • 9 “Vote at Home” (VAH) jurisdictions, where every active registered voter receives a ballot in the mail automatically for every election
  • 6 “No Excuse – Single Sign-Up” (NE/SSU) states, where any voter, through a single application, can sign up to automatically receive ballots for all future elections. Michigan now joins this group, bringing the total to seven going forward.
  • 21 “No Excuse” (NE) states, where all voters are eligible to receive a ballot, but must request them for each specific election or every year
  • 15 “Excuse Required” (ER) states, where most voters are ineligible to apply for a mailed-out ballot unless they meet a specific legally acceptable excuse

*VAH = CA, CO, DC, HI, NV, OR, UT, VT, WA
*No Ex-SSU = AZ, IL, MD, MT, NJ, VA
*No Ex = AK, FL, GA, ID, IA, KS, ME, MA, MI^, MN, NE, NM, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SD, WI, WY
*Ex Req.= AL, AR, CT, DE, IN, KY, LA, MS, MO, NH, NY, SC, TN, TX, WV
^ MI moves to the SSU group going forward

Interestingly, if you aggregate the three “No excuse” groups (No excuse, No excuse with SSU, and VAH) turnout in 2022 was about 53.8% of active registered voters, a full 7% points higher than the Excuse required states at about 46.4%.

  • Based on the numbers we now can see, in 2022 we also now expect:
  • Excuse required states to see about 4% utilization (mailed-out ballots divided by active registered voters)
  • No excuse states to see more than 4x that rate at about 17% utilization
  • No excuse states that include SSU to see more than 5x the excuse required rate, at about 22% utilization

Vote at Home’s MOBET information tool relies on official data originating from state and local election officials, some of it compiled by trusted sources including the U.S. Elections Project and Catalist.

From Legislation to Language, Mailed-Out Ballots Won on November 8

Some obvious (and not-so-obvious) wins for mailed-out ballot voting.

As the numbers continue to come in from the midterms, we can already see some obvious wins for mailed-out ballot voting. With over 60 million mailed-out ballots, returns of those still tracking towards 42 million or better, and about 120 million total votes cast nationally, the MOBET estimate of 35% of all votes cast appears very much in reach. But there were state-level issues that also show the power and shift to mailed-out ballots.

In Michigan, Proposition 2 passed easily adding MI to the six previous states with a “single sign-up (SSU)” or permanent absentee option for its voters. Prop 2 also added other NVAHI best practices including ample secure drop boxes, ballot tracking, and prepaid return postage. Not only did that move MI well up National Vote at Home’s state scorecard, but it also means that now over 36% of US registered voters live in a state that either automatically mails ballots to all active registered voters for every election (aka Vote at Home) or allows voters to opt into that system for themselves. That’s up from under 20% just five years ago.

Nebraska continued to build on NVAHI’s groundbreaking research on their “county-option” model. For the midterms, the state averaged 52.8% turnout. But the eleven counties that have opted to go to 100% mailed-out ballots averaged 68.3% – a full 15%+ points higher.

Based on their move to no-excuse mailed-out ballot voting, Massachusetts had over 1.2 million mailed-out ballots in 2022, up over 10x from just 105,000 in 2018. It appears when the counting is done, about 80% of those will have been cast. In contrast, polling place voters turnout out is coming in at just over a 40% rate.

Wisconsin’s use of mailed-out ballots is up almost 5x from 2018 (168,000 to over 800,000).

Connecticut passed its Question 1 which approved early voting. While not a direct connection to mailed-out ballots, it shows voters there are ready to demand better access to their ballots, and so bodes well for the next step, the passage of HJR 58 (no excuse absentee) in their 2023 legislative session for its required second time, and then to a popular vote in 2024.

Speaking of the term “absentee,” did you notice on election night, every time the networks returned to Georgia’s nailbiter, they referred to the number of “mail” ballots left to count – not “absentee” ballots? Slowly, the language in the country is coming around to recognize that mailed-out ballot voting is not akin to being “absent” from the polls. It’s just another, more convenient way to participate in our democracy by making the “polls” come to you.

The MOBET tool presents mailed-out ballot totals – and eventual return rates – in four categories:

  • 9 “Vote at Home” (VAH) jurisdictions, where every active registered voter receives a ballot in the mail automatically for every election
  • 6 “No Excuse – Single Sign-Up” (NE/SSU) states, where any voter, through a single application, can sign up to automatically receive ballots for all future elections. Michigan now joins this group, bringing the total to seven going forward.
  • 21 “No Excuse” (NE) states, where all voters are eligible to receive a ballot, but must request them for each specific election or every year
  • 15 “Excuse Required” (ER) states, where most voters are ineligible to apply for a mailed-out ballot, unless they meet a specific legally acceptable excuse

*VAH = CA, CO, DC, HI, NV, OR, UT, VT, WA
*No Ex-SSU = AZ, IL, MD, MT, NJ, VA
*No Ex = AK, FL, GA, ID, IA, KS, ME, MA, MI, MN, NE, NM, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SD, WI, WY
*Ex Req.= AL, AR, CT, DE, IN, KY, LA, MS, MO, NH, NY, SC, TN, TX, WV

Based on the numbers we now can see, in 2022 we now expect:

  • Excuse required states to see 4% utilization, at best (mailed-out ballots divided by registered voters)
  • No excuse states to see more than 4x that rate at about 17% utilization
  • No excuse states that include SSU to see more than 5x the excuse required rate, at about 21% utilization

Vote at Home’s MOBET information tool relies on official data originating from state and local election officials, some of it compiled by trusted sources including the U.S. Elections Project and Catalist. See the original press announcement here: https://voteathome.org/national-vote-at-home-institute-launches-new-mailed-out-ballot-tracking-forecasting-tool/