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The Impact of Universal Vote by Mail and Permanent Absentee Voting on Turnout in 2020 and 2022

This memo presents evidence on the efficacy of universal vote by mail (UVBM) and permanent absentee voting (PAV). With UVBM, all registered voters are sent a ballot in the mail without needing to proactively request one. With PAV (also known as “single signup”), voters sign up once to receive ballots in the mail for all subsequent elections.

Like other state voting laws (ID, early voting, etc.), UVBM and PAV may have a significant impact on whether people actually turnout to vote. Both methods significantly reduce the obstacles in the way of voting by bringing the polling place to the voter rather than making the voter go to the polling place. VoteAmerica has conducted a number of analyses aimed at assessing this impact and find that both methods substantially boost voter turnout.

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Best Practices: Path to Single Sign-up and No Excuse Voting

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Single Sign-up Efficiency Improvement Opportunity for Voters and Elections Officials

The National Vote at Home Institute conducted original research in the Fall of 2019 to see how many absentee voters from 2018 also voted that way in 2016, and therefore would have benefitted from a permanent absentee policy in their state, while in turn the elections officials in that state would not have had to process those applications a second time.

In the 40 states listed on page 2, citizens may or may not have to provide an excuse to sign up for a vote at home ballot, yet all are required to submit the same request, election after election, or year after year. And election officials have to process these requests again and again, often from the same voters. In the other 10 states, citizens can either choose to be on a “true” permanent absentee list, or they all get their ballots delivered automatically by state policy, saving voters time and hassle.

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National Vote at Home Institute

The National Vote at Home Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to increase voters’ access to, use of and confidence in mailed-out ballots. Our long-range vision is a nationwide Universal Vote at Home election system in which all active registered voters are automatically delivered their mailed-out ballot, to be returned by postage-free mail or in person to a wide range of secure locations, can track them online in real-time, and easily and promptly correct any administrative errors.

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