Voter Behavior Archives - National Vote at Home Institute

18-34 Year Old 2020 Turnout Overall and by Key Race and Ethnicities

An analysis of voting file data provides powerful, new evidence of significantly higher turnout in the 2020 presidential election among 18–34-year-olds, including voters of color, in Vote at Home jurisdictions in which all active registered voters automatically received paper ballots via the U.S. mail before the election. Young voters by key race and ethnicities had significantly higher turnout rates — calculated by the Citizen Voting Age Population and Active Registered Voter denominators — in Vote at Home states in contrast to 2020 battleground states or 2020 non-VAH states with Same Day/Election Day Registration or Automatic Voter Registration.

Vote at Home Policy and Research Guide (2023)

Many states are undertaking pro-democracy reforms to improve voter access and engagement, including Same Day / Election Day (SDR / EDR) registration, online registration, automatic voter registration (AVR), and early in-person voting (EIPV). Many of these efforts have focused on engaging the electorate at the point of registration, but less so on removing barriers that prevent already-registered voters from exercising their right to actually cast their ballots. Vote at Home (VAH) focuses on removing those barriers, although full VAH states also incorporate best practices that improve voter registration and the ongoing maintenance of voter registration files.

Value of Ballots in Hand

As campaigns nationwide, from local to presidential, consider whether it’s worth getting mailed-out ballots into the hands of voters, the National Vote at Home Institute(NVAHI) has an answer: YES. Voting at home via mailed-out ballots significantly increases voter turnout.

This white paper provides the what, the why, the where, and the who: the increased level of turnout that voting at home provides, comprehensive details on which states and voters are the best targets for outreach efforts, and the potential increase in turnout that mailed-out ballots deliver.

Modeling Voter Participation in 2018 Midterm Election

In this research, we examine the difference between five vote-by-mail policies in place in the 2018 midterm elections. We use statistical modeling to understand the effects of different vote-by-mail policies nationwide and estimate what might have changed in 2018 based on different voting systems. In general, we find that turnout increases as states move along the vote-by-mail policy continuum, removing administrative obstacles for voters in the process. Additionally, turnout gains are largest when counties progress several steps from more restrictive policies to less restrictive policies, and the Vote at Home policy has the most potential to impact young voters.

Cost of Voting in the American States: 2022

(Election Law Journal) — A recent nonpartisan academic study that ranked all 50 states based on the amount of time, energy, and resources people must make to vote was released this week. To no surprise, of the top 10 states for ease of voting, eight are the nation’s only states conducting full vote-at-home elections in 2022, during which all voters will automatically be mailed ballots for the upcoming midterms. As for the bottom 10 states, seven require their voters to attest to a valid excuse in order to obtain a mailed-out ballot.

MIT Demographics on Voting at Home

The tables here address the following questions:

Who voted by mail in the 2016 presidential election, by salient demographics (i.e., age, race, education, income, partisanship)?

Who supports expanded voting by mail?

How do people return mail ballots?

Colorado Voting Experience

Imagine the perfect voting experience. You drop by the polling place on the way to work or school. The line is moving quickly, so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to get to the check-in desk. Once there, your registration is rapidly verified, and you’re handed a ballt by a friendly face. No one hassles you; no one unfairly questions your eligibility. You step aside to a private booth, fill out the form, and have it easily scanned. You get a receipt — and the cherished “I voted” sticker. The whole transaction takes about five or 10 minutes. Upon leaving the site, you not only experience that frisson that reminds you you’re a part of something bigger — civic pride — but also leave there in time to drop off the kids at school and make it to work on time.

Or maybe you skip the drive altogether and mail in your completed ballot after having received it in the mail. Or you thought about your choices for months but voted and returned your ballot in a matter of minutes on Election Day. In many ways, it’s a day like any other: you carry on with your duties as you otherwise would. In another way, though, it’s a special and unique experience; you participated in an act that for many was hard-fought and hard- won, that is a guaranteed right to you as a citizen, and that helps direct the course of the nation. You voted. And, because of that, you got to be one of the country’s critical decision-makers.

It may not yet be the norm, but in Colorado, and in states with more in-person and at-home voting options that resemble the above processes, a comprehensive elections model ensures an experience that benefits both voter and administrator alike. And it boosts turnout.

Does Mail Voting Cause Voters to Gather Information About Politics?

This paper finds that voters who obtain their ballots by mail tend to be more informed than voters who vote at polling places because they are given more time to review their ballots and research candidates and issues. As such, voting from home, or voting by mail, results in a more informed electorate.

Mail Ballot Return Choices

This purpose of this report is to share research done by the National Vote at Home Institute (NVAHI) during the summer of 2018 into how true “Vote at Home” (VAH) jurisdictions operate when it comes to managing and driving voter behavior across the three major ballot return methodologies.