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Using individual-level voter data from a 2020 Washington State election, the research shows that voters are more likely to use the nearest drop box to their residence relative to other drop boxes. In Washington’s 2020 August primary, 52% of drop box voters in our data used their nearest drop box.

Even before the 2020 election, this reseach finds that voter turnout across the states is consistently higher in every general election over the past decade in states with greater shares of overall ballots cast by mail. Drawing on turnout data from the 2012-2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Cooperative Election Study (CES), authors find states with greater usage of mail voting experience higher overall voter turnout.

The research finds no evidence that voting by mail increases the risk of voter fraud overall. Between 2016 and 2019, RBM (VBM) states reported similar fraud rates to non-RBM (non-VBM) states. Moreover, it is estimated Washington would have reported 73 more cases of fraud between 2011 and 2019 had it not introduced its VBM law.

This paper provides a history of military voting by absentee ballot.

Philadelphia officials randomly sent 46,960 Philadelphia registrants postcards encouraging them to apply to vote by mail in the lead-up to the June 2020 primary election. While the intervention increased the likelihood a registrant cast a mail ballot by 0.4 percentage points —or 3%—many of these additional mail ballots counted only because a last-minute policy intervention allowed most mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to count.

This analysis shows that the implementation of vote by mail causes a significant decrease in voter confidence in Washington and Colorado. However, this decrease appears to be temporary, disappearing after only a single election cycle.

Focusing on natural experiments in Texas and Indiana, this research finds that 65-year-olds turned out at nearly the same rate as 64-year-olds, despite the fact that only 65-year-olds could vote absentee without an excuse in these states. Being just old enough to vote no-excuse absentee did not substantially increase Democratic turnout relative to Republican turnout.

This analysis of the Florida general elections of 2016, 2018, and 2020 shows that voters inexperienced with mail voting disproportionately submit ballots that end up rejected due to (1) late arrival at elections offices or (2) signature defects on return envelopes. Inexperienced mail voters are up to three times more likely to have their ballots rejected compared to experienced mail voters.

The research finds that drop boxes have a positive effect on voter turnout and that decreasing the distance to these boxes can lead to an increased likelihood of voting.

Authors collect data from 1996-2018 on all three U.S. states who implemented universal vote-by-mail in a staggered fashion across counties, allowing us to use a difference-in-differences design at the county level to estimate causal effects. They find that: (1) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to affect either party's share of turnout; (2) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to increase either party's vote share; and (3) universal vote-by-mail modestly increases overall average turnout rates, in line with previous estimates.

Examining two states that have conducted a staggered rollout of mandatory vote-by-mail (Washington and Utah), this research finds that mandatory vote-by-mail slightly increases voter turnout but has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government.

In this research, voters were randomly assigned to either an in-person or absentee voting condition. Participants assigned to the absentee condition expressed lower levels of confidence that their votes would be counted correctly than those assigned to the in-person voting condition. Voters who had to ask for assistance during the experiment also reported lower levels of confidence.