This report presents evidence that greater access to mail ballots is associated with greater county-level voter turnout, including in counties with larger Black and Hispanic populations.
Mail Voting and Minority Turnout: Evidence from Ohio
Electorate Study: How Did the Voter’s Choice Act Affect Turnout in 2018?
Research Questions: “In its first year of implementation, did the Voter’s Choice Act (VCA) change turnout patterns in the counties – Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento, and San Mateo – that adopted this new reform? How did this reform affect the turnout of groups of Californians – young voters, Latinos, and Asian Americans– who have often participated in elections at lower rates than others? We address these questions by gathering data on turnout rates, voter demographics, and electoral competition from 2002 through the primary and general elections of 2018, comparing trends in the adopting counties to the rest of the state.”
The Turnout Effects of All-Mail Election Systems in Up-ballot and Down-ballot Races in Utah
This research finds that, in addition to higher overall turnout, down-ballot turnout was higher in Vote At Home optional precincts than in polling place only precincts, even after controlling for other differences. Overall, this research indicates that Vote At Home is a boon to civic participation at all levels of the ballot when measuring by the important metric of raw vote totals.
2018 Primary Election Turnout
This graph displays turnout by state in the 2018 primaries, in map form. Data from the Bipartisan Policy Center
Center for American Progress: Increasing Voter Participation in America
This report on methods to increase voter participation cites universal vote by mail, no-excuse mail voting, and vote centers as solutions.
How Electoral Institutions Affect Political Accountability
This research finds that expansion of vote at home systems increases turnout and reduces ballot roll-off.
Abstract: “A central question in the study of democratic governance concerns the conditions under which voters make informed choices at the ballot box. I exploit the staggered implementation of an electoral reform in a U.S. state to study the effects of electoral institutions on voter information and political accountability. I find that [vote at home] elections cause an increase in turnout in municipal elections and a decrease in ballot roll-off on statewide ballot measures in presidential election years in some counties, which is largely consistent with my argument that voters gather more information about politics when voting by mail. Further, there is strong evidence that vote-by-mail results in a decrease in taxing and spending in municipalities. The institution has less conclusive effects on municipal accountability audit outcomes. Using data from the Catalist voter file I show that these results cannot be explained by changes in the composition of the electorate caused by vote-by-mail.”
Evidence for the Positive Turnout Effects of Mail Voting in Participating Utah Counties
In the 2016 general election, 21 counties in Utah administered voting entirely by mail, while eight counties administered traditional polling place-based voting. Using vote propensity scores to control for voters’ pre-existing differences in likelihood to vote, we show that the advent of vote-by-mail increased turnout by 5-7 points. Low-propensity voters, including young voters, showed the greatest increase in turnout in vote-by-mail counties relative to their counterparts in non-vote-by-mail counties. We find similar results by zooming in on specific geographic areas within Utah where vote-by-mail counties are bordered by non-vote-by-mail counties, with magnitudes of 4-9 points of increased turnout. In one mountaintop community that happened to be bisected by a county line, the increase in turnout due to vote-by-mail may have been as high as 12.5 points.
Investing 85 Cents per Voter to Increase Voter Turnout by 4 Percent
In this paper that examines the effects of prepaid postage on voter turnout in the Swiss Canton of Berne, researchers find that prepaid postage is associated with a statistically significant 1.8 percentage point increase in voter turnout. Overall, this amounts to 4 percent more voters participating.
Colorado Voting Reforms: Early Results
Significant changes to Colorado election law necessitated an overhaul of the state’s voting process. The Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act of 2013 mandated that mail ballots be sent to every registered voter for most elections; eliminated assigned polling places while establishing voter service and polling centers where any voter in a county can cast a ballot—either early or on Election Day; authorized in person same-day registration; and shortened the state residency requirements for voter registration.
The Pew Charitable Trusts funded research on the impact of these changes, and although study of future elections is needed to better evaluate the effects, initial findings include:
- Costs decreased by an average of 40 percent in five election administration-related categories. The 46 (of 64) counties with data available spent about $9.56 per vote in the 2014 general election, compared with nearly $16 in 2008.1
- The use of provisional ballots declined nearly 98 percent. In the 2010 general election, voters in the state cast 39,361 provisional ballots. In 2014, that number dropped to 981.
- Nearly two-thirds of voters in the 2014 general election said they returned their ballots in person, rather than by mail. Of these voters, almost 80 percent said it took them less than 10 minutes to get to a designated location, usually a drop box.
Identifying the Effect of All Mail Elections on Turnout: Staggered Reform in the Evergreen State
An examination of data from the Washington State voter file found that voting from home, or vote-by-mail, contributed to a 2%-4% increase in turnout and reduced turnout inequality between high- and low-participation voters.