National Vote at Home Institute — Now that more than 40 states have held a 2024 primary election, the evidence continues to reveal what is arguably the single most effective way to boost voter turnout and help revitalize America’s anemic democracy. Let’s automatically deliver ballots to all voters, before every important election. Need evidence? Here’s just three of the most compelling proof points from this year’s exercises: the states of Colorado and Montana, and Garden County, Nebraska.
First up, Colorado. This year’s Super Tuesday featured 10 states with the same singular and identical question on their ballots: who should be the Republican and Democratic party nominees for president? Turnout of active registered voters in 9 of the states ranged from 28% in Vermont through 21% in Alabama and Arkansas down to 17% in Tennessee and Minnesota. But only one Super Tuesday state is a Vote at Home state, where all active registered Democrats, Republicans, and non-affiliated voters were automatically mailed out their ballots – Colorado, and there, turnout was nearly 39%.
Most striking is the contrast with Minnesota. Both states pride themselves on high general election turnout, and both have similar “pro-voter” laws like same day voter registration and automatic voter registration. And if anything, Minnesota has the edge with two key demographic factors associated with higher turnout: more older and white voters. Despite all that, Colorado more than doubled Minnesota’s turnout, at 39% to 17%.
Next up is western Nebraska’s Garden County, population 1,874. On May 14, Nebraska held its regular statewide primary, giving voters a chance to weigh in on a wide range of federal, state, and local races. Statewide, registered voter turnout was just 28%. But Nebraska allows counties with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants to skip polling places and Vote at Home instead. Garden County, which has been taking that option for years, had the truly remarkable turnout of 62% of their 1,318 active registered voters, all of whom had been automatically delivered a ballot.
And just in case you think that Garden County’s rural, small town demographics were responsible for their citizens’ remarkable performance, compare them to the five adjacent counties, also largely rural, whose voters instead had to travel to their pre-assigned polling places: Keith (41%); Arthur (32%); Sheridan (31%); Grant (30%) and Deuel (21%).
Now for our third and final stop: Montana. Montana isn’t a true “Vote at Home” jurisdiction like Colorado or Garden county, since not every active registered voter is automatically mailed a ballot as a matter of law. But for several decades, this mostly red state has allowed its voters to sign up once to automatically Vote at Home for every election, and over 87% have taken the opportunity.
For its June 4th primary, Montana counted more than 270,000 returned mail ballots – which constituted nearly 90% of the total votes cast. With 593,000 active registered voters,this puts Montana’s active registered voter turnout at a remarkable 51%.
Might such dramatic demonstrations of the power of mail ballots cause a cooling of the contentious, highly partisan debates still swirling about voting at home, given that politicians of both major parties always claim to support greater voter participation? Well, probably not. But if we want to know the answer to the question of whether there’s a proven, simple way to engage more Americans, of all ages and political persuasions, to participate in their democracy, it’s clear.
Send them a ballot.
